What Farhad Manjoo Got Wrong about Tucker Carlson

Writing in yesterday's New York Times Sunday Review, columnist Farhad Majoo tried to imagine a worse Republican president -- hypothetically to be elected in 2024 -- than Donald J. Trump:

The thought experiment is instructive because it compels us to ponder some of the fundamental forces shaping American culture and politics at the moment. It is also horrifying, because what quickly becomes evident is that we might now be only in the middle of everything spinning out of control.

The answer was Fox News host Tucker Carlson who, according to Manjoo, would match Trump's commitment to "refashioning America along racial lines," but with an added quality of "competence" that would make him all the more dangerous. After watching Carlson regularly since January, Manjoo concludes that his racism "is both more extreme and more cannily packaged for a digital audience than is Trump’s." Thus, 

Several times a week, he’ll lift ideas, story lines and troll-based narratives directly from the fetid swamp of online hatred. Then he’ll clean these theories up and wrap them in a bow for his mainstream audience, usually to advance an overarching idea that he mentions constantly: that, thanks to an “invasion” of immigrants, white people in America and Europe face economic and cultural calamity, and that the political, corporate and media establishments are abetting their destruction.

I am only slightly familiar with Carlson's current show, having watched him mostly in his bow-tie days on CNN's Crossfire when he played the somewhat more moderate foil to Robert Novak's "Prince of Darkness." I don't know whether Manjoo described Carlson accurately, but I do take sharp issue with his closing graf:

This is Carlson’s entire schtick. He uses the cover of capitalist hardship to advance theories of white oppression, often while summoning further harassment of his critics. He’s taking it to television, five nights a week. And where it ends up could be hellish.

It's not the content that bothers me, it's the Yiddish.

In Yiddish, shtik (never "schtick") means "piece." A shtik broit is a piece of bread, and a "nickle shtikl" was a miniature dried salami that sold for five cents in delicatessens. Among Jewish comedians, shtik came to mean a piece of work, as in a comic bit or routine, and eventually a trait, character, or running joke. Jack Benny's shtik was being stingy, Joan Rivers's was being caustic, Lewis Black's is anger, and Sarah Silverman's is deadpan vulgarity. Sid Caesar played multiple characters, and could come up with a different shtik each night. Shtik can be clownish (the Three Stooges) or cerebral (Lenny Bruce), but never wishy-washy.

Non-Jewish comedians can have their own shtik, as in Bill Murray's off-key night club singer or any one of Dave Chappelle's characters. Riffing on a series of gags is called doing shtik, and no one was ever better at it than Robin Williams. But the point is that it has to be funny, or at least wry and observational. Some say that all American stand-up comedy is a little bit Jewish.

More recently, the idea of shtik has gone beyond humor (though not for purists) to mean something like leitmotif, though it still ought to retain some of the original Yiddish connotation. An actor's shtik doesn't have to be funny, but it does have to be edgy. You could say that Robert De Niro's tough guy act is his shtik; but John Wayne's definitely wasn't (it was a recurring type, and maybe a theme, but not shtik). And yes, a Republican can have a shtik, like Jeff Foxworthy or Dennis Miller -- but not Bob Hope, who was far too bland to qualify.

 Anyhow, there is nothing funny or sardonic about Tucker Carlson, and certainly nothing even remotely wry, ironic, or Jewish. His political views are the absolute antithesis of typically Jewish-American sensibilities, and his frat-boy television persona is a throwback to the days of the WASP establishment (even as he rails against it).

Like him or hate him, there is one thing you can say with certainty about Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson: He has no shtik, and he never will.

Comments

[anon]

I would tend to agree that TC has no shtik, which, apparently, you equate with: a.) Jewish, stand up comedians and b.) edgy-ness.

Ok, so, you engage in blatant stereotyping of Jews, and I don't have any particular objection: the rule these days seems to be one can be as bigoted and prejudiced as one cares to be when speaking of a group to which one belongs (e.g., white people endlessly decrying "white people").

But, I must object to your tossing off this whopper " typically Jewish-American sensibilities" as if this is something that: a.) you somehow know and b.) you feel free to generalize and opine about.

Of course, you postulate a "thing" that doesn't exist, so, it's hard to refute it. We could start with Pew - an organization whose work I think we can agree is top notch.

pewforum [dot] org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/

This is a comprehensive look at the subject, thru a much more sophisticated lens than your off the cuff remarks suggest you have engaged in. I suspect you will only be interested in this:

"◾As a whole, Jews support the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by more than three-to-one: 70% say they are Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 22% are Republicans or lean Republican. Among Orthodox Jews, however, the balance tilts in the other direction: 57% are Republican or lean Republican, and 36% are Democrats or lean Democratic."

What you need to know, it seems, is the number of self identified "Jews" who do not so identify on the basis of their religion and who are thus not subject to your "judgments" about the "sensibilities" of their majority.

When you toss around labels, Mr. Lubet, please don't be so sure you know what you are talking about and please don't perpetuate stereotypes about comedy and Jews. Comedy, sir, is universal, and the "Jews" didn't invent it in the Catskills around the time that you apparently learned about what it means to be "Jewish."

[Alan Weinberger]

“Welcome to the Academy Awards or, as they’re called in our house, Passover.” Not shtik by you? Oy!

[anon]

Maybe I'm missing the "typical Jewish-American sensibilities" to which Lubet refers, Alan, because that seems like an extremely unfunny joke.

BTW, Lubet is a stickler for accuracy, including in the use of words by others, so he should be careful when he references members of a group. "Typical" means "having the distinctive qualities of a particular type of person or thing." It does NOT mean the qualities of a "majority" or "significant number."