Tucker Carlson set out to end my career. I don’t feel badly for him

The news media was shocked to learn that Tucker Carlson and Fox News – his professional home for 14 years – had cut ties. Predictably, social media reveals a split in public reactions to this outcome. Carlson’s colleague and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly – herself notorious for stoking political discontent and manufacturing controversy to massive audiences – has come out in support of Carlson, claiming Fox News made a ‘terrible move’ in parting ways with the right-wing talking head.

And of course, there are others who feel very differently, such as CNN reporter Oliver Darcy who claims to have been personally taunted by Carlson. According to Darcy, Carlson had even wagered a bet about him, vowing to Venmo the reporter one-thousand dollars if he was still employed by CNN in a year’s time. The irony, here, is nothing short of delicious.

During the summer of 2017, after the Wisconsin legislature had passed a bill severely limiting free speech on college campuses, I was contacted by Carlson’s team at Fox News to ‘discuss’ my views of free speech and my take on the myth of politically neutral college campuses – a topic I had written about extensively at the time. This invitation entailed an appearance on Carlson’s infamous show, Tucker Carlson Tonight. As an academic and essayist, I was used to being contacted for interview requests. But when I received their email, I have to admit that I had no idea who or what they were talking about. Not one to pay much attention to right-wing extremist news stations, I’d never heard his name before, nor had I been aware of his show.

It didn’t take much research to learn that this invitation was a cloak for something darker – something that could have, and likely would have, negatively altered the course of my life for the foreseeable future. In only a few clicks, I saw how Carlson had made a sport out of conducting pseudo-interviews that resulted in siccing his followers on anyone who dared to publicly care about social progress.

I learned how, that same summer, he was instrumental in ending the academic career of another professor who’d been on his show to defend Black Lives Matter. Later, the nation would be given a front row seat from which we’d observe, first hand, how his contributions to the Fox News Conspiracy Machine had played a role in compromising public health. More recently, Carlson was speculated to have created “the most racist show in the history of cable news.”

After consulting with some of my colleagues, I decided that it was not in my best interest to engage his bad-faith request on any meaningful level. I politely declined to speak with someone with a well-established history of mocking and denigrating educated women with whom he disagrees.

In my private life, Carlson compromised familial relationships. I recall how, when I first received the invitation to appear on his show, one family member – with whom I vehemently disagree and do not have a relationship – was said to be ‘licking his chops’ at the thought of my doing battle on Tucker Carlson Tonight. To be clear, this family member was in no way interested in, nor feeling celebratory about, my point of view being featured on national television. He was giddy at the prospect of my being devoured alive by his demigod. I now refuse to engage in any conversation with friends and family where his name is brought up as a topic of discussion.

And it wasn’t until Carlson’s invitation that I began to understand the darker, more violent side of the attention I’d receive from those who disagree with my politics. I have felt the wrath of his audiences, many of whom are in media themselves and chose to highlight my work for their own bloodthirsty followers. In one stark example, an armed man who lived in Wisconsin (where I lived and worked at the time) harassed me and my employer with racist and xenophobic screeds in response to my essays about race and social justice. I was not able to stop looking over my shoulder until I discovered the man’s obituary.

This is the type of person radicalized and nurtured by extremist right-wing media. If I can thank Carlson for anything, it’s for bursting the blissfully ignorant bubble I had been living in prior to knowing his name.

And now that Carlson’s finally been severed from the same forces that are complicit in amplifying his harmful views, I don’t feel a lick of sympathy for this guy. I guess it’s too bad that New York – where Fox News is filmed – is a right-to-work state. Perhaps a labor union – the concept with which he and his ilk so vehemently disagree – would have prevented this outcome.

I know, had I appeared on Carlson’s show, that he would have also attempted to destroy my career. I wonder, now, whether he’s reflected on these recent events, and whether – even for just a minute or two – he has gotten a taste of his own medicine.