Rules for the Ruling Class

But, in 2005, Carlson’s CNN show was cancelled, and, after a period of wandering—including a failed program on MSNBC, a cha-cha on “Dancing with the Stars,” and an effort to build a right-wing answer to the Times—he found success at Fox News. There, he developed a dark new mantra. “American decline is the story of an incompetent ruling class,” he told his audience, in 2020. “They squandered all of it in exchange for short-term profits, bigger vacation homes, cheaper household help.” It was an audacious message from a man with homes in Maine and Florida, a reported income of ten million dollars a year, and Washington roots so deep that the Mayflower Hotel honored his standing order for a bespoke, off-menu salad. (Iceberg, heavy on the bacon.) But Carlson framed his advantages as proof of credibility; he told an interviewer, “I’ve always lived around people who are wielding authority, around the ruling class.” His origins helped give fringe ideas—such as the conspiracy theory that George Soros is trying to “replace” Americans with migrants—the ring of inside truth. His eventual firing from Fox only fortified his persona as a dissident member of the power élite.