“… Nobody cares about them, they’re NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS …They have Third Rate Podcasts, but nobody’s talking about them.”

With this Truth Social tirade, Trump tried, and failed, to mask his anxiety over the rising popularity of ex-MAGA influencers like Tucker Carlson.

He’s right to be worried. Carlson’s social media views have more than doubled since Trump launched the Iran war. His “third-rate podcast” now averages 56.8 million views per episode across all platforms—more than ten times the peak viewership of his former primetime Fox News program.

The war and the Epstein scandal have exposed the bloodlust and degeneracy of the ruling class like never before. Millions of Americans are more receptive than ever to class politics. Without an independent working-class party to concentrate this huge potential energy, pundits like Carlson are opportunistically tapping into the class rage—and diverting it into reactionary channels.

Class rhetoric

Carlson’s podcast is a hodgepodge, blending populist politics with bizarre religious obscurantism. He believes, for example, a demon once mauled him in his sleep.

Nonetheless, his videos are charged with class language and antiwar rhetoric. In an episode titled “Battling the Treachery of Trump’s Republican Party, AIPAC, and the Epstein Class,” Carlson said, “For most people, the Iran war’s been a true disaster. But for a small, elite group of people, it’s been awesome.”

A clip rolls. It’s hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman bragging about how wonderful the war is. Back to Carlson: “For Ackman and his friends in the Epstein class, the war’s been a massive win.”

Formerly a supporter of Israel, Carlson’s views have conveniently shifted along with public opinion. A February Gallup poll showed, for the first time ever, that more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis. This trend is most dramatic among the youth; only 23% of people aged 18–34 support Israel.

Carlson has garnered millions of views dissecting the genocidal beliefs of pro-Israel fanatics like Senator Ted Cruz and US-Israel Ambassador Mike Huckabee. A late-April monologue shows how Carlson taps into anti-Zionist sentiment:

Anyone who can advocate for the murder of children in Gaza, actual kids, Palestinian kids … is probably not the kind of person you want in charge of anything in your country.

In contrast, Ben Shapiro, a pro-war Zionist influencer, is struggling to maintain an audience. His recent rants are a perfect neocon cocktail: anti-Iran propaganda with a healthy jigger of culture-war hysterics. His YouTube channel is littered with titles like: “WINNING: Trump CRUSHES Doubters, Opens Strait of Hormuz” and “HAPPY TAX DAY: Sex Changes for Illegal Immigrants?!”

Shapiro’s viewership has fallen by 85% since last year. His site, The Daily Wire, has reportedly laid off half its workforce.

Carlson’s rise and Shapiro’s fall aren’t mere coincidences. Shapiro’s antics were suited to the glory days of Trump’s cross-class coalition. Now, MAGA is fracturing, and Carlson recognizes the rifts. He’s trying to match the mood of working-class elements disgusted by Trump’s warmongering, the Epstein scandal, and skyrocketing prices.

Rebranding the culture war

Carlson is a skillful reactionary propagandist, more talented than your average internet grifter. In a recent New York Times interview, he appeared to criticize the ruling class and its culture-war politics:

“For most Americans, people who are born here . . . the real concerns are economic. And I do think that certain forces—the banks, people loaning the money—have a real incentive to foment dissent within the population against each other.”

Yet, far from rejecting the culture war, Carlson seeks to give it a new lease on life. He portrays immigration as a massive conspiracy by globalist elites. Like a dog returning to his own vomit, Carlson’s diatribes always come back to the idea that immigrants are to blame for America’s drug epidemic and economic problems.

This works out great for the Epstein class. It pits native-born workers against immigrant workers—while the capitalists make a killing exploiting both.

“A party for the majority”

Nonetheless, in many of his hour-long rants, Carlson manages to capture the class rage seething among workers across the US. In the same New York Times interview, he said:

The Republican Party could not be more repulsive to me. The Democratic Party? Same thing … I think the parties are rotten beyond repair, or at least simple repairs … I would be thrilled to see the rise of a party that represented the majority of Americans.

These words resonate with millions. Earlier this year, a YouGov poll found that 57% of voters in Rust Belt states would support an independent working-class party.

Instead of seizing this opportunity to break with the hated parties of the Epstein class, reformists like Zohran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) leadership hope to use the anti-Trump momentum to revive the Democrats. Just last month, Jacobin, the unofficial organ of the DSA, published an article concluding:

DSA has already begun preparing for 2028. At our national convention last year, we passed a resolution affirming our intention to run a presidential candidate in the Democratic primary. [our emphasis]

But a new coat of left-populist paint won’t change the class nature of the Democratic Party. If the reformists and labor leaders broke with the Democrats and called for an independent workers’ party, it would become a point of attraction for the millions who are gravitating away from Trump.

Instead, by tying themselves to a party that exists solely to serve the class enemy, the reformists and labor leaders are leaving the field wide open to Carlson’s reactionary demagogy.

Breaking from the Democrats requires audacity and a willingness to reject the logic of bourgeois politics. Unfortunately, the current crop of American reformists and labor leaders remain wedded to the narrow rules imposed by the ruling class. Carlson’s rise is a condemnation of the left’s meekness and class collaboration at a time when working-class anger is reaching a tipping point.

Carlson told the Times that the response to Brian Thompson’s killing “reflects this revolutionary frustration.” He added that “any economic system in which the overwhelming majority of the rewards go to an ever shrinking number of people … is a doomed system because it makes people revolutionary.” He is right. His role, as a cunning agent of the ruling class, is to divert that revolutionary sentiment. The role of communists is to build the party that will drive it to success.