For Fox News, Tucker Carlson is one of their most popular media personalities. His show, Tucker Carlson Tonight recently drew an average of 3 million viewers. His far-right views have emboldened the more extreme voices in the Republican Party. Carlson creates narratives on his show to get his supporters outraged over many topics including what he considers cancel culture.
One example of this is Carlson’s so-called indignation over Dr. Seuss Enterprises ceasing publication of six books with racist imagery. Carlson’s reaction to the action taken was to blame the liberals, as illustrated from his show on March 2. In his criticism over the company’s decision, Carlson said:
“That’s why the forces of wokeness hate it and Dr. Seuss. When the people in charge cancel Dr. Seuss, what they’re really trying to eliminate is a very specific kind of midcentury American culture, a culture that championed meritocracy and color-blindness and the superiority of individual achievement over tribal identity.”
Carlson’s hostility towards the LGBTQ community can be gleaned easily by looking through his opinion pieces on the Fox News website as well as videos from YouTube, like the one below.
A viral tweet on April 21 turned up a 1991 yearbook from Trinity College, a liberal arts college located in Hartford, Connecticut, showing a photo of Carlson with a caption of the organizations in which he participated. The yearbook is also available to access on the internet, thanks to Trinity College.
https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1384882691838025732
Two of the organizations were Jesse Helms Foundation, named for the North Carolina senator who espoused racist and homophobic views, and the Dan White Society, named for the former San Francisco cop and supervisor that assassinated San Francisco mayor George Moscone and fellow supervisor Harvey Milk. Neither organization was sanctioned by Trinity College and has no other mention in the yearbook, according to Snopes.
While he addressed the probe into his past at Trinity College before the tweet revealing the yearbook posted, Carlson did not give any explanation to his involvement with either organization.
Certainly sounds like Tucker is trying to get ahead of an embarrassing story here. pic.twitter.com/l8LyLkMQRI
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) April 21, 2021
In response to this revelation, San Francisco-based Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club issued a statement via its Twitter account.
Our statement on @TuckerCarlson’s membership in the “Dan White Society”: pic.twitter.com/fm6AWc5DJt
— Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club (@harveymilkclub) April 24, 2021
Sources: Forbes, Associated Press, Fox News, Snopes, Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club Twitter Account, Trinity College Digital Repository,
