Tucker Carlson’s pitiful propaganda tour of Russia.

by Nick Catoggio, The Dispatch, Feb 16, 2024 -  Like the commie simps of yore (and not so yore), Carlson has found himself dazzled by the urban niceties Russia’s government wants visitors to be dazzled by and scrupulously oblivious to the poverty and anomie that stalks a country whose GDP per capita is one-fifth of America’s. 

Still, the Moscow subway is pretty nice.

It’s understandable that a Western Putin apologist would end up there as he grasps for arguments that, of the two nations, it’s the U.S. that’s a third-world country and not the autocracy ruled by a former KGB agent where more than 20 percent of the population lacks indoor plumbing. 

... The “grocery-store gap” with Russia has been a point of pride for the U.S. since the Cold War. To this day, free-marketeers fondly remember how Russian President Boris Yeltsin reacted when he visited an American supermarket in 1989, visibly astonished by the abundance and variety of goods. Comparing the experience of food-shopping in Russia favorably to the experience here takes real commitment to the bit, like taking a dump in one of Russia’s many, many outhouses when it’s 20 degrees below zero and admiring through chattering teeth at how well-built it is.

... spending a pittance on groceries in an impoverished country shouldn’t convince one that that country is better run or less prone to inflation, Lord knows. As any American tourist could tell you, goods often seem “cheap” in poor nations only because Americans are rich relative to the locals. If you tried to get by in Russia on the average Russian’s salary, a grocery bill like Tucker’s would cannibalize an enormous share of your meager monthly wages.

... when he was asked about Navalny a few days ago during a stop in Dubai, before the man had died and international opinion about him had turned raw, Carlson sounded different. “Leadership requires killing people.” That sounds familiar.

Even so, I don’t expect “leadership requires killing people” to become the leading spin to Navalny’s death among the right’s Russophiles—although there will be spin, of course. If they weren’t willing to ditch Putin for killing tens of thousands of Ukrainians, they’re not going to ditch him for whacking a single activist exalted by the very Western leaders whom they aggressively despise. (read more)

Rod's Comment: Tucker Carlson is a despicable person. He is a Putin propagandist. He is the Tokyo Rose and Hanoi Jane of our era. 

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