Somewhat more ambiguous was the America First movement. There were openly fascist organizations during this time, such as the German American Bund. Often, the opposition to the US supporting Britain against Nazi Germany was represented as “isolationism”. Before the beginning of the second world war, all of America’s pro-fascist parties opposed US intervention on the side of its allies against Nazi Germany. But the history that best informs us in this case is not European history, but American history.

We should look to history as our guide here. How should we best understand this set of views? If Carlson has fascist sympathies, as do, quite inarguably, many of those who applaud him, how do we understand his firm stance against US military and financial support for Ukraine? Surely, historically speaking, fascism is not compatible with the isolationist position Carlson has urged. On the other hand, he denounces media, intellectual and political elites, as well as US intervention in Ukraine, platforming those who identify as the “anti-war left”, such as Jimmy Dore. So, is Tucker Carlson hard to classify? On the one hand, he spreads tropes central to neo-Nazi propaganda, such as “white replacement” theory, suggesting that leftist elites seek to replace “legacy Americans” by foreign non-white immigrants. Insofar as Carlson has since that point gone to war, it has rather been against these supposed internal enemies. Carlson has been resolutely against US support for Ukraine. In short, Carlson urged, the real enemies of America are internal – racial minorities, doctors and politicians, professors and educators, and large corporations who shift jobs to other countries.

Liberal fascism book review