Tucker Carlson and The Power of Controversy

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In this episode, we're going to talk about the power of being controversial, that there’s power in being controversial. We want to talk about several examples. One that we can't help but lead with here, and it's not all about this person, but this is a good example. Tucker Carlson on Fox News Channel called for his audience to start direct action. He told them to confront people wearing masks, which he said are signs of political obedience. He maintained that 4% of White Americans who call themselves liberal or very liberal have been diagnosed with an actual mental health condition.



He called them aggressors and told supporters, "It's our job to brush them back and restore the society we were born in." This is the real shocking part. He said to call the police immediately if they see children wearing masks and keep calling until someone arrives. He said that it is child abuse and his audience is morally obligated to prevent it. I'm pretty used to hearing shocking things and controversial statements come out of Tucker Carlson's mouth. This one is 8 or 9 on a scale of 10. He is commanding power with his audience through making controversial statements like this.

Many people would want to get on the bandwagon and immediately push back. I want to pull through. What pull through is that you greet statements like this with compassion and empathy. For our audience, they're going like, "What did Bill just say? What do you mean, 'Go after this with empathy and compassion?'" For the people that have listened, we're stuck as human beings getting caught in the effects of branding, marketing and controversial messages.

The ability to apply empathy and compassion for Tucker Carlson's statements is he feels a yearning for America that had simplicity, purity, freedom and ease to it that was before the time of the pandemic, before the time of 600,000 deaths. That's not the time we're in, but he's has a longing for that. "I want the world to be back the way it was. I am going to say and do things to get the world back the way it was. My followers, my believers and the people who are listening to me also want that thing." He is right. I want us not to wear masks. I want the freedom that it used to be. I want the ease and the simplicity of a non-virus world. Whether the listener likes it or not, the biggest problem is the more human beings you have on the planet, the more opportunity is an infectious disease gets to run because it passes from one person to the next person.

The power of a controversial statement allows him to get respect. That's his need to get acknowledgment and purchase truth on his side because I don't want my kids to wear masks either. I don't want them to feel the constrictions of disease either. I don't want them to be the carriers of a disease from one person to the next. It's also for our kids. I want to teach them congruency. It's like following the letter of the law for the good of society.

That's what laws are. They are the same as a mask. It's something that doesn't need to be mandated legally. If we had piles of bodies stacking up in a city, it would not be outside the state's duty to make it mandatory and legal if the numbers were like that. It was like one village in England during the plague, "No one in, no one out of this castle." They didn't get the infection. "I know you want to leave, but if you leave, you cannot come back to this castle. All of us in here are healthy. Everyone out there is not healthy. Whatever is out there, we don't want in here." That's what the mask is. It's the same thing, "I don't want that thing near me, whatever that mysterious thing is."

When somebody is being controversial like this, they're angry because things like independence and freedom have got to be traded for the collective good or the cooperation of the good of others. How a person does it by choosing to wear a mask or choosing not to wear a mask is, "If you want to choose not to wear a mask, I'm going to choose to walk away from you." It's framed differently. It's horrific for a public figure to say, "Call child support for child abuse." That's just the need for protection that wasn't met by the government by allowing the virus to get here, doing some more mitigation pieces, being a little bit stronger on these things, or taking the leadership to stop the thing that needed to be stopped.



What was controversial about the statement is he was reducing it to child abuse to make children wear masks. I got news for Tucker Carlson here. In Southern California, we have kids in school, in-person full-time in the Spring of 2021. The school district requires the children to wear masks to school. If a kid shows up without a mask to school, they give them one. It's a requirement. It's a Federal law that you have to wear a mask on airplanes. Another bit of news is that there was an Alaska State Representative who has been banned from Alaska Airlines because of not complying with the Federal law requiring masks on airplanes. She was treating flight attendants very badly on the airline. The airline said, "That's it. You're banned from the airline."

That Alaska State Senator had to drive from where she lives in Northern Alaska, fourteen hours to Juneau to be able to vote on a law that was up for a vote in the state legislature because she couldn't fly. Up in Alaska, there's only Alaska Airlines and there's nothing else in these remote cities that people live in. This is not a choice for a lot of people in a lot of situations. Tucker Carlson made this controversial and made it sound like he's pitting mask-wearing against freedom. I keep talking about this, Bill, I get worked up about this issue.

Your feeling is right because it doesn't meet your need for truth. You’re doing what our readers are doing. You're going to get worked up about, how could somebody put pressure on social service? How could somebody make the pandemic last longer by creating a controversial statement? The power of making a controversial statement is you're taking a stand for something that you can get other people on the bandwagon about. Some people and followers get on the bandwagon of both people on the right and people on the left. There are people on Don Lemon's bandwagon. Some people used to be on Rush Limbaugh's bandwagon or Glenn Beck's bandwagon.

There's enough revenue there, 1 million, 2 million, 3 million, 4 million people, who will pay money for that controversial statement. These people are speaking up and becoming the lightning rod, which is a part of good branding and marketing. It's a part of the process of getting people to pay attention to me. Tucker Carlson will not have a TV rating unless he has some controversy in his narrative about tree-hugging liberals, the woke people or whatever the branding and marketing phrase that the person is using. The person is just trying to get something to stick. You will see that in outspoken professional athletes. They'll say something. They'll take a knee. Colin Kaepernick took a knee.

That was very controversial at that time, wasn't it?

Yes, in order to make a stand. It was like, "Somebody got to say something about this. I'm saying that. I happen to have a platform. I want to figure out what's the best way to do it. I'm going to take a knee." His best second marketing message as he took a knee is, "I'm praying for the African-Americans who are dying through police violence." If he would have put that next to his kneel, now he's got, "Next to prayer." A brand is taking the knee. A marketing message is a good reason you're doing it for. It's called the branding sandwich. You have a brand message. You have a marketing message and then you reinforce it with a brand message. It's McDonald's coming on first with, "Lovin' it." At the very end, they say, "McDonald's lovin' it." The middle is the marketing piece.

The power of a controversial statement gets respect and acknowledgment.

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It puts one next to the other so you associate it. If you think about it, it's not too different from what Tucker Carlson did, putting a mask-wearing next to child abuse. He's trying to make mask-wearing seen as bad.

That's the power of being controversial. We're trying to get things to sit next to messaging to sit next to things. You've heard this slogan, "Even bad news is good news."

I've heard, "Any press is good press." That's typical in business. There are exceptions to that. I'm sure Dominion Voting Systems is not going to agree with that statement after what happened in the 2020 election and how they were demonized. That press got so bad that they sued over it.

They have branding problems because as soon as somebody takes a message, sticks it next to a brand and starts painting marketing messages in that direction, then you get into a situation or circumstance regarding Planned Parenthood. Anybody who's driving by a Planned Parenthood building is thinking, "That's the place that does abortions.” Five percent of their work is in women's health and women's care. The medical do medical, but it's not. It does offer that opportunity with as much mindfulness, care and sensitivity as it takes for a woman to make that decision to meet her need for choice. No one likes that experience. It's just this is the person's choice that we're not taking away. It's a hard discussion.

You even see it in things like our commercials on television. You were talking about the GEICO commercial, where they said, "So easy, a caveman can do it." That's pretty controversial. What is that? Let's unpack that one first.

It's good because you're picking on somebody that is extinct. You're being politically incorrect calling a caveman stupid, “So easy.” All of a sudden, they were apologizing and saying, "I didn't know you guys were still around." They were sitting around a lunchroom table and these well-dressed cavemen were sitting there. They were looking at the attorney who was saying, "I didn't know you guys were still around." It became offensive to cavemen because, in that type of controversy, it’s turning messages on their heads because there was nobody around to defend that person. Whereas a certain belief and mindset that was born 200 or 300 years ago would not be able to function well with all the decisions that they would be faced here now because they have no bandwidth and belief structure. You think they were smart people back 200 or 300 years ago, but to push a cell phone in front of them, the belief curve is so steep.

What branding and controversy do is it trickle-feeds into a belief bias, but then inflames one population that gives traction to the message and inflames another one. It lights the fire first and then throws the flame on others. There are going to be people who are going to take Tucker Carlson literally. It's not until there's a direct sentence that is directly accountable, that some attorney may want to try to take Tucker Carlson on again. They've tried to take him on once. They said, "Any reasonable person would know not to listen to him because he is entertainment." That was the message that was made in court to defend Tucker Carlson's free speech. People should know better.

While on the one hand I got so worked up because of the controversial statement he made, I can't believe how shocking it is. What I need to realize is, "This is just Tucker Carlson being Tucker Carlson, trying to get eyeballs to watch a show." He's trying to keep people who are in alignment with his statements and thinking coming back for more because it's so shocking, "It is child abuse." You have people like me who are so shocked at the outrageous statement that I want to pull the plug on my television and not watch it again. It's about the power for him of maintaining eyeballs. In branding and marketing, controversial statements are about trying to get you to remember the brand and get that message to stick, which is very effective when you think about the controversy.

Branding is to get an impression, create a memorable moment, and then let other people know that you're in their group.

It seems that a lot of our politicians who dominate the news are guilty of the same thing. They're all making controversial statements, even if they have to walk them back. Whether it's Mitch McConnell or Jim Jordan making a statement in a hearing, he's one of the biggest.

The Democrats are poor at it because they don't go as controversial. They're picking something that is generally reasonable for a reasonable person to agree upon, yet the other side is going like, "Sorry, we're throwing Molotov cocktails at you," which is a lit bottle of gasoline with a rag at the end of it that's lit. As soon as the bottle breaks, the gasoline blows. That is the power of being controversial. The unsettling part about it is that the government has moved to the place where capitalism has moved its way through money and into the sphere of the place, and the greater good, the public good, the honest good or the truthful good can't necessarily get out there fully on both sides.

I've got an email from one of our audience saying, "Bill, here are some things you need to know about Conservatives. Here are some of the things that are left. Here are some of the money and stuff that's being spent on programs that I don't agree with." He is right. It's like some of those things are on their list. I'm going like, "I probably wouldn't spend for that either." I was like, "Who line their pockets with that one?" If I'm going to buy something, if government keeps moving in the direction of being bought, I'm buying my representative, spokesperson and mouthpiece. I'm not paying for integrity. I'm paying for a mouthpiece. Do you see how unsettling that is? 

When you make a mistake, let it go. Don’t fan the flames. Let it go into the past.

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If you take a look at this from the business standpoint, the business has a little more sensitivity. They also struggle with the old school, which means, "Let it go. Don't fan the flames. Let the mistake go into the past." For example, United Airlines has a customer dragged off. Instead of waiting to let the plane know that it can't leave until one person leaves, asking for a volunteer to come from that viewpoint and paying for the person, rather than dragging somebody out of their seat. That's not a good strategy because somebody is going to film it. That goes to our last episode of the cameras are everywhere now. 

That has happened in the past. People have been dragged off the planes and nobody knew about it before the age of video. That has happened many times with a drunk person or this person or that person. They were for the good of the other customers who are on the plane. The airline said, "No, we're dragging you off," versus, "No, I bought my tickets." Everything from, "You're wet. You smell. You're this," whatever the reason was, they never had to give a reason before video, but now that's the thing. It's our sensitivity to market responses and then being compassionate for both sides, the people who are losing their choices, as well as the people who are getting their needs met through the process for the greater good.

I don't like it that the economy is shut down. I want to be able to speak from stage, travel, promote and connect with people in the environment to contribute the message. I'm choosing to meet the need for safety and protection, and none of those events is big enough for me to go to. That's the tension of the opposites. That's the biggest problem. More to come on this next time. There are some more messaging to talk about the branding sandwich, its relationship to marketing, and how to better communicate with compassion and empathy, even though somebody says something tragic.

Even in the face of a big controversial statement. Bill, thanks so much.



Thanks, Tom.