A monologue from Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson has provoked vigorous debate among Christian thought leaders and writers, particularly about populism and the breakdown of the family in America.
Carlson’s 15-minute segment on Jan. 2 highlighted economic trends and social phenomena currently at work in the United States that have led to widespread discontent and a fracturing society. His comments were said in the context of the public and visible divisions among political conservatives vying for influence in the Republican party, particularly Sen. Mitt Romney’s, R-Utah, comments criticizing President Donald Trump’s leadership and the direction he’s taking the nation in a New Year’s Day Washington Post editorial.
Carlson posited that while the Republican party is the only party to salvage the nation, liberal and conservative politicians alike are not in tune with what is happening and are thus proposing ineffective solutions.
“We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule. They’re day traders. Substitute teachers. They’re just passing through. They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can’t solve our problems. They don’t even bother to understand our problems,” Carlson said of the elitist mentality operating in government.
This is not limited to the United States, he said, pointing out that this is occurring across the globe where populist movements of many stripes are rising up.
Social conservatives in the U.S., he continued, assert that the main problem plaguing America is the disintegration of family and nothing can be repaired before that is fixed. But those same people support market-based economic policies that crush families.
“Both sides (liberals and conservatives) miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined. Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies possible. You can’t separate the two. It used to be possible to deny this. Not anymore. The evidence is now overwhelming.”
Writing in the National Review Friday, David French argued that Carlson had misdiagnosed the problem.
“American public policies are flawed, yes. The American people are imperfect, yes. But any argument that American elites (a group that includes, by the way, enormous numbers of first-generation college grads and people who worked brutal hours to achieve economic success) represent an uncaring, indifferent, exploitive mass is fundamentally wrong,” he opined.
“In fact, the better argument is that well-meaning Americans have spent their money poorly (on ineffective charitable programs and destructive welfare policies), not that they don’t care.”
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SOURCE: Christian Post, Brandon Showalter
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