Greetings and welcome to this 27th edition of the Carnival of Fools. This week, I invite you to enjoy a genuine variety show, and without further ado — except my periodic recommendation that you subscribe for the good of all mankind — let’s lower the house lights and get to it.
It’s Springtime for Hitler on Your Favorite Podcast
It’s been a long time since I’ve written about Tucker Carlson, and I’m not going to focus on him today, either. But as tiresome as I find his post-Fox schtick to be, and as unproductive as it is to write about him — why give him the space? — I declined to swear off the subject of Carlson altogether. That’s not just because I tried this once already and it didn’t take. No, the real reason is that I feared how both appallingly irresponsible and effective he was, with his podcast endorsement/interview of crypto-Nazi historian Darryl Cooper back in September, in injecting antisemitic revisionism of the “just asking questions” variety into his audience’s bloodstream.
Carlson described Cooper as “the most important popular historian working in the United States today,” one who attacks his subjects with “relentless curiosity and honesty,” and proceeded to let him blather for an hour about how Winston Churchill was, in fact, the chief warmonger responsible for World War II and that the Holocaust was merely a logistical accident — one of those unfortunate whoopsy-doodles that happens during wartime, you see — and exaggerated in any event. It was a repulsive performance, one that led British historian Niall Ferguson to memorably lament that his profession has failed if truth can be so easily overcome by podcast “historians” inventing aggressively false narratives for political purposes.
And look where we are now. Earlier this week, Joe Rogan, the biggest podcaster of them all, with enormous appeal in the young male demographic, had “journalist” Ian Carroll on to discuss a wide array of conspiracy theories and more, including such topics as (in his own words):
Pizzagate was real
Clinton’s are drug smugglers
The CIA is organized crime
Israel was founded by terrorists
The Bush family are criminals
Hamas is funded by Israel
How and why Israeli propaganda exists
That monarch mind control programs exist
Well, at least he didn’t go with “Churchill really started World War II,” give him that much. Rogan opened the episode by averring his love for conspiracy theories — “I was arguing with people about the moon landing before there were podcasts” — and Carroll proceeded to roll for nearly three hours with this sort of garbage. Now we find that Darryl Cooper has landed himself a seat in this biggest venue of them all, sitting down soon for a taping with Rogan. I’m sure it will be a tough interview.
This is a trend that extends beyond Rogan and his personal proclivities, as well. The other day comedian and podcaster Theo Von sat down to grant Candace Owens two hours to hawk her various insane wares. In the new Trump era, the explicitly antisemitic influencers of Elon’s X are becoming bolder and crossing over further and further into what I’ve taken to calling the New Mainstream: the booming podcast audience of younger males. And while podcast hosts can put anybody they please on their shows, the downstream effects of letting these people spout unanswered lies to audiences full of credulous young men is deeply alarming.
Perhaps the real problem is, as Richard Hanania argues, the “rise of Low Human Capital” — modern demotic culture’s public acceptance and celebration of stupidity, which inevitably leads to antisemitism as its corollary. (How Idiocracy might work in real life, in other words.) If so, the problem is essentially unsolvable unless the country suddenly shifts — away from populism, and away from Trumpism, toward a leftist elitism that’s anathema to both.
Since I prefer not to end this segment of the variety show on such a counsel of despair, I will instead plead for better judgment among America’s new podcasting gatekeepers. (And make no mistake: A new oligarchy of online gatekeepers is swiftly sprouting up to replace our discredited old ones, the new somehow even less reliable than the old.) Outright liars aren’t voices that “deserve to be heard”; think twice about bringing on a man whose specific mission in life is to lie about Nazi guilt in World War II and the Holocaust.
California Is Kamala Harris’s for the Taking If She Wants It
Kamala Harris is toying with the idea of running to occupy Gavin Newsom’s soon-to-be-vacant California governor’s mansion. She has told allies and fundraisers that a decision on the 2026 race is expected by the end of the summer. Back in the aftermath of the November election, I dismissed the idea of Harris returning to politics far too glibly; I now think she is likely to run.
And the good news, as Dan McLaughlin pointed out, is that a Harris gubernatorial run would be a fundraising juggernaut for California Republicans, who hate Harris — for all the obvious reasons — so much that they would turn out in droves to vote for a tomato can if it somehow managed to secure the Republican nomination. (California being what it is, don’t rule out this possibility.)
The bad news, as Dan also pointed out, is that if she runs, Kamala Harris is going to be the next governor of California. Sorry, West Coast NR readers, you may not be done with her yet. Because don’t kid yourself: California during Trump 2.0’s midterm election is not voting Republican at a statewide level, not even if George Deukmejian or Richard Riordan in their primes were to come walking through the door.
With national political trends almost certain to be cutting hard against them, the most Republicans can hope for in California in 2026 is that their threatened House incumbents hold serve because of deep-seated revulsion toward Harris. But a state that gave her 58 percent of the vote in 2024 is not going to reject her as governor, no matter how incompetently she campaigns. If she runs, she wins. The only thing that might stop her is if she improbably manages to draw a Democrat rather than a Republican to run against in November. (This is at least theoretically possible but wildly unlikely, given Harris’s ability to preemptively clear the field of Democratic rivals.)
Californians, prepare yourselves.
Hunter Biden, Starving Artist
Sad news out of the art world — noted American painter Hunter Biden has fallen on hard times. His groundbreaking work with the medium of sheet metal was once the talk of the town, displayed in SoHo galleries and drawing bids from international speculators to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And now? Poor Hunter doesn’t even have a pot to clean paintbrushes in, if you believe his most recent filings with the United States District Court in Los Angeles. He moved to drop a civil suit brought against Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump aide, for hacking, stating, “I am requesting to dismiss this action because I do not have the financial resources to continue litigating this case.”
It’s always painful to read about cases like these — justice denied to an indigent victim too poor to pay for access to America’s costly judicial system. I spit in cynical disgust at how the so-called majesty of the law always seems to favor the rich and well connected in the corridors of power instead of underdogs like Hunter. And while it’s easy enough for readers to get caught up exclusively in that outrage — when will this poor guy ever catch a break? — I instead ask you to sympathize with the eternal plight of the creative spirit in our society, the price genius must pay for its inspiration.
Yes, the life of a starving artist is often a tough one. Rembrandt was plagued by financial difficulties and sex scandals — surely the Old Master would identify with the Young Master’s plight. Van Gogh died by suicide, largely unappreciated during his life. Caravaggio murdered a man in a street brawl — and what is murder, after all, if not a form of extroverted suicide? So put yourself in Hunter’s drug-addicted shoes: The man chose to follow his creative muse, and she is a harsh mistress indeed.
No better proof of this exists than the way critics and buyers have treated his intriguing work, which mines the underexplored emotional territory of Ramada Inn still-lifes. The fads and vagaries of the modern market in paintings are cruel and filled with caprice — one day you’re the hottest new talent around, the next you’re passé — and after a brief boomlet, his work has fallen on hard times: “In the 2 to 3 years prior to December 2023, I sold 27 pieces for art at an average price of $54,481.48, but since then I have only sold 1 piece of art for $36,000,” Hunter says in his court filing, and it’s enough to make you sigh at the transience of public tastes. If only there were an explanation for the sudden crash in desire for his work, it might help him get back on his feet and move into a newer, more successful phase. Or perhaps he just needs to suffer a little bit more for his art.
Until next week.