Tucker and Candace Are the GOP’s Future

Individual rights and personal responsibility are out; reflexive contrarianism is in.

[Editor’s note: Watch Not My Party every week on Snapchat.]

Tim Miller: Want to know what the Republican party of the future will look like? Here's a peek into my crystal ball. This is "Not My Party," brought to you by The Bulwark. A couple weeks ago, I explained how the meaning of “conservative” was changing in ways that I find unappealing.

Dewey Wilkers [Erik Per Sullivan in Malcolm in the Middle]: The future is now, old man.

Miller: Now let's look at how that change is being defined in the real world through the lens of two of the right wing's biggest stars, Tucker and Candace.

Lwaxana [Majel Barrett in Star Trek: The Next Generation]: Why are they still here?

Zapp Brannigan [Billy West in Futurama]: Let's find out together.

Miller: They're important because some people try to dismiss the change in the GOP as only related to Trump. And, sure, his welcome at this year's TPUSA Conference did feel a little culty.

Larry Kudlow: At the Charlie Kirk Turning Point Action Conference, Mr. Trump scored 86 percent in that straw poll.

Miller: But the future of the party is bigger than 77-year-old Trump. It's reflected in the GOP voters' desires. At a confab in Iowa, Tucker hosted the leading GOP presidential contenders— besides Trump, who's playing hooky on all the debates because of his lead in the polls.

Dr. Evil [Mike Myers in “Austin Powers”]: Right . . .

Miller: Tucker repeatedly lit into the old-school conservatives for trying to defend traditional principles, like democracy, individual rights, and defending freedom at home and abroad.

Garrett Tiara [Matthew J. Evans in Bad Teacher]: What happened to us?

Miller: Let's watch together. Here's Tucker humiliating Mike Pence over his support for funding in Ukraine . . .

Mike Pence: The Biden administration has been slow in providing military support.

Tucker Carlson: Your concern is that the Ukrainians, a country most people can't find on a map, who've received tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars, don't have enough tanks?

Flame Princess [Jessica DiCicco in Adventure Time]: Ugh, he's so annoying.

Miller: . . . And claiming Mike Pence's scalp at the TPUSA Conference a few days later.

Carlson: I think whoever said, "Do it," you're the devil on my shoulder. Do it! It's like savaging Mike Pence. And it would be wrong because it's too easy.

Erik [Hernan Sanchez in American Dad]: Brutality!

Miller: Here he is taking on former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson for trusting scientific innovation and taking his COVID jabs. . .

Carlson: How many COVID shots did you take, and how do you feel about it now?

Asa Hutchinson: How many COVID shots did you take?

Carlson: Zero.

Nelson Muntz [Nancy Cartwright in The Simpsons]: So brave.

Miller: . . . And going at him again for refusing to support a blanket government ban on medical interventions for trans youth.

Carlson: But you have repeatedly described delaying a child's natural progression from childhood to adulthood through adolescence as, quote, "treatment." You believe, I suppose, that people can change their sex.

Samantha Fink [Sofia Black-D’Elia in Single Drunk Female]: Just going right in for it, huh?

Miller: Here he is badgering Tim Scott to agree that Mexico is more of a threat to the United States than Russia.

Carlson: The total body count from Russia in the United States is right around zero. The Mexican government is party to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Americans. So why is Mexico less of a threat than Russia?

Tim Scott: I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Delbert McGinty [Peter Riegert in “We Bought a Zoo]: Wow, just wow.

Miller: As Heath Mayo, a founder of Principles First, a traditional conservative activist group, put it, "The loudest applause lines . . . that we should give Russia the Donbas, that we should defund the FBI, that we should bomb Mexico, that we should make medical decisions for parents . . . I totally disagree with it all. Very little left to like."

Cowboy [Steven Williams in Yellowstone]: That about sums it up.

Miller: These topics that resonated for Tucker in Iowa are the same as those that right-wing influencers are using to connect with young audiences. I spent the last month listening to every episode of "The Candace Owens Show" for this profile in The Bulwark. Her show almost never focuses on economic policy, and she has no interest in U.S. military action to protect free people against an authoritarian invasion in Ukraine.

Candace Owens: Look at us. We're having debates about gender. We don't know what a woman is. We think that it's cool to have Zelensky make attendances at the Grammys. It's a joke. It's a complete and utter joke.

Krusty the Clown [Dan Castellaneta in The Simpsons]: Well, I guess you would know.

Miller: Meanwhile, she lavishes praise on lifelong liberal RFK Jr. because he questions the science on vaccines.

Owens: The conversations that he is opening up about vaccines and his war against big pharma is incredible.

Miller: The version of conservatism that I heard, listening to Candace's podcast is really just a reaction against things she doesn't like in dominant liberal culture. She's against Black Lives Matter, Kardashian culture, taking COVID seriously, Brazilian butt lifts, and celebrating gay pride.

Peter Griffin [Seth McFarlane in Family Guy]: Who hurt you? Who hurt you?

Miller: This blind contrarianism is the hot new thing in conservative counterculture. It's why she has amassed a huge following and traditional conservative periodicals, like National Review, are hollowing out.

Woody Boyd [Woody Harrelson in Cheers]: Hey, where did everybody go?

Miller: That's why Tucker got huge cheers in Iowa, and the former vice president is fading away. Candace and Tucker's warped ideology shows where conservatism is now and where the party is headed. I don't dig it at all.

Owens: I actually don't have any problem at all with the word nationalism. I think the definition gets poisoned.

Owens: That's all I have to say about that.

Miller: We'll see you next week for more "Not My Party."