By Jeffrey A. Rendall
With the 2028 GOP race in limbo, some see the potential for “way-outsider” candidates
Do you see what I see?
I suppose we’ve all been asked this question at some point. Life – and especially American politics — is like a Rorschach test, where a smattering of ink blots means certain results to some people and completely different things to others.
The lead-up to the 2028 election is having a similar effect on American politicians, with some predicting a path forward for a potential presidential candidacy from candidate x or y, and others… not receiving the same message. At all.
Such was the case when controversial podcaster Tucker Carlson’s name was linked to the upcoming 2028 Republican presidential primary race to succeed President Donald J. Trump as the head of the GOP.
Can you see it? Some apparently do. I’m not so convinced. In an article titled, “Could Tucker Carlson run in 2028? Allies see ‘clearly a constituency’”, Naomi Lim reported at the Washington Examiner last week:
“Carlson has reiterated that he has no desire to run for president himself, but his allies see him as the leader of the increasingly loud pro-MAGA but anti-President Donald Trump lane. Then, after telling the Columbia Journalism Review last month that he hopes to ‘help build a third party,’ he announced a 10-point platform for that third party in an episode of his eponymous podcast, which has been seen more than 1.5 million times on X and had almost 700,000 views on YouTube …
“The episode came after he hosted pro-MAGA, anti-Trump acolytes at his Maine cabin [recently], including former Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), and one-time Trump administration aide Joe Kent, who stepped down as Trump’s counterterrorism chief in March over the Iran war.
“The trio implored Carlson to run for president, according to Kent during a separate episode of The Young Turks …”
What do Taylor-Greene, Massie and Kent have in common? They’re all losers (in one way or another). Would you trust them to guide your decisions?
Far be it from me to say, because I used to like each of the former Trump-backers that Lim mentioned in her story, but they’ve surely been drinking the Kool-Aid on a potential presidential challenge for Tucker Carlson if they actually believe what they said.
I can just hear it now… “You should run, Tucker.” Tucker’s reply: “Why don’t you run?”
Could Tucker run? Yes. Should Carlson give it a go in 2028? Definitely not.
The “experts” (cited in Lim’s article) are absolutely correct. There most undeniably is a constituency for Carlson to capture, and he’s perhaps best situated to claim these disgruntled and eccentric folks’ allegiance and loyalty. But it’s not a big enough constituency to base a presidential candidacy on. Donald Trump proved it during his several runs for the White House.
Tucker Carlson would most likely claim Ron Paul’s old adherents, the no-war-period people who some would suggest are anti-foreign isolationists. They’re not against other countries or cultures, mind you, they just want America’s leaders to keep their noses cemented to America’s soil and multitude of government-created problems before branching out.
I understand this type because I’ve had several friends who fit the description. Simply stated, they believed there is nothing worse for the American economy than involvement in wars overseas, primarily because of the expense involved. Wars are certainly costly, too, but the “costs” associated with military adventurism aren’t necessarily pecuniary in nature. Or at least purely so.
I had a libertarian friend who voted for Barack Obama twice because said buddy felt The Big “O” would keep America out of wars, and would therefore be a better steward of the economy. We argued endlessly about the topic – a friendly discussion, of course – but he wouldn’t budge because he was that convinced that political leaders and war don’t mix.
This friend thought both John McCain and Mitt Romney were closer to the Bush/Cheney/neocon philosophy and would end up further crashing America because they never knew a war that they didn’t want to fight.
Looking back, it’s hard to dispute my friend’s assertions – that McCain and Romney would’ve been calamities for the nation just like George W. Bush was (and Obama, too) – but I also think things are different now. And the reason for the noticeable change is Donald J. Trump.
Trump came into politics stating that the neocons had gotten America mired into disastrous “nation-building” wars of conquest, just to spend trillions so we could hand control of the impacted regions back to the original keepers of those places. Trump recognized that Bush’s wars had left thousands of American lives shattered with little lasting benefit to show from it.
Trump’s words instantly gained him acceptance from a large part of the conservative Republican base because he outwardly rejected the party establishment’s tolerance and fondness for big government and military adventurism, not to mention a “look the other way” attitude towards immigration, both illegal and legal. The New York outsider’s willingness to not only step on toes, but crush them, appealed to what we now think of as the MAGA base.
Donald Trump still commands the fealty of the MAGA voter. This hasn’t changed, even if Trump seems to have abandoned his non-interventionist propensities to poke America’s nose into conflicts across oceans that don’t have a direct connection to America’s interests.
Or so the Tucker Carlson clique says so. This is Majorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massey, Rand Paul and… Tucker Carlson, in a nutshell. There’s a sizable slice of Republican-leaning “Independent” voters who hold their noses at the notion of actually identifying as Republicans, but they aren’t Democrats, either, because they reject the direction that the Democrat party is headed to. You know, the socialists/communists/LGBTQ kook fringe who believe everything in one’s life is determined based on “feelings” and what genitalia you claim to possess.
Most Trump backers share a lot in common with Tucker Carlson’s supporters, but the schism over Trump’s foreign policy – and spending habits – has opened up a wide and ever-growing divide between the two groups.
Carlson’s crew feels betrayed by Trump, that the now two-term president misled them during the 2024 campaign and has been co-opted by Israel and Marco Rubio to now advocate for a return to Bush-era military aggressiveness, damn the expenditures and costs. The Tucker adherents wrap themselves in the American flag and lay claim to being the “true” inheritors of the George Washington neutrality tradition.
The only problem is they’ve seemingly adopted their hate-Israel opposition and voluntarily linked themselves to discredited and openly anti-Semitic figures in their movement. It’s not so much that they’re mad at Trump for his apparent turn towards the dark side, they resent America’s close friendship with the Jewish state and its self-defense-first orientation.
Do you believe Israel in its us-against-all-comers viewpoint, with America under Trump siding with the victims of the October 7th massacre?
Judging from his words and actions, President Trump thinks propping up and partnering with Israel and the friendlier Arab nations is the best way to secure America in the long term. This surely means acknowledging Iran as an irreconcilable enemy that must be squelched in all senses of the word. Enough is enough. America has been at war with Iran since the late 1970’s. Trump decided to do something about it.
So differences do exist. Both sides offer logical justifications. Ultimately, the voters will decide who’s right.
But for Tucker Carlson, practical obstacles exist in addition, the biggest one being that he lacks the “stuff” to make it as a potential third-party or “Independent” candidate. Carlson would confront the same barriers any hopeful would face when hoping to run for president outside of the two major parties, namely ballot access, political election “machinery” and, most notably, money.
Vanity and belief in one’s ability to win over a majority of the American public wouldn’t be in short supply for Tucker, I’m guessing, but he’d need to catch up, in a big way, in terms of the other must-have practical necessities.
There’s no getting around these things. You could be the most popular political celebrity in the world (outside of Donald Trump, of course) and it wouldn’t be enough to get you elected president.
Running for president is an incredibly complicated – and hideously expensive – endeavor. Being right on the issues and possessing an ability to win an argument or a debate just isn’t enough. If he were to try to run as a Republican, Tucker Carlson would start miles behind the established Trump/MAGA contenders. And if Donald Trump wasn’t behind the effort, there’s no way Tucker would last long.
The “you shouldn’t run” factors are too many for Tucker Carlson. He’d be wise to stay above – and out of – the fray.
Jeff Rendall is editor and publisher of GolfintheUSA.com and has written about golf and politics for over a quarter of a century. A non-practicing attorney from California, he moved to the east coast three decades ago to pursue and combine his interests in all things American history and culture. Jeff has worked as an intern on Capitol Hill and in various capacities in grassroots organizing and conservative organizations and publications, including a nearly two-decade stint at ConservativeHQ.com. Column republishing or other inquiries: Rendall@msn.com .