Republicans are more in touch with voters.

But not in the way you think

Democratic politicians, left-leaning commentators, and their most politically engaged voters know that the Right’s equivalent don’t actually mean what they say. They understand that for people like Tucker Carlson to get the attention they get, they need to feed the venomous algorithm that rewards fear, irrespective of whether they believe the comments themselves. The Left’s big mistake is assuming that the rest of their voters see through this act, too.

Republicans, right-leaning commentators, and their most politically engaged voters, on the other hand, do not make that assumption. They assume instead that everyone takes everything seriously, they view it objectively, without context or suspicions. In the way in which Carlson wants his viewers to, but which he himself does not.

Instead of responding to the “other side’s” more grandiose comments with a derisory snigger and a side-eyed glance that says “can you believe this guy?! What a joke“, they attack it, head on. Convincing their voters that what Democrats say is to be taken literally, seriously, and that these ambitions will harm their very way of life. Tucker Carlson and his colleagues are truly world-leading experts in articulating the gut feeling of voters’ worst fears. Fears that Democrat elites most often…