Many say please don’t pay attention to Glen Greenwald and Tucker Carlson. That is a reasonable instinct. But Tucker Carlson’s audience is vast—far larger than most of us want to believe—and his messaging travels. It settles into conversations, into assumptions, into the ways we begin to make sense of the world. For that reason alone, I don’t think it can simply be ignored. It needs to be looked at carefully, and, when necessary, challenged for what it is.

Part of the dissonance I have been trying to describe lately has very little to do with social media or doomscrolling. It comes instead from a slower, more deliberate habit—reading, listening, trying to stay informed. And yet, despite that measured approach, something has begun to feel very off. The tone of public conversation is shifting, almost imperceptibly at first, but steadily, toward something darker. I felt that again listening to the recent conversation between Carlson and Greenwald.

I came to it open, even curious. I expected a serious discussion about civil liberties—about free speech, overreach, censorship, the pressure that governments exert in moments of crisis. Those are real concerns, and they deserve serious treatment. And for a while, the conversation gestures in that direction. But it does not remain there. It begins to drift, almost as if carried by an undercurrent, into something else—something less precise and ultimately troubling. The language loosens, and with it comes insinuation, ethnic suspicion, and a conspiratorial tone.

I have tried to be careful with the word antisemitism. It has been used too broadly, sometimes carelessly, sometimes as a way of shutting down legitimate criticism. But there are moments when one recognizes not a single statement, but a pattern—a........

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