Going Guerilla in the Culture War: Explaining Tucker's Approach and What the Right Can Learn from It
Going Guerilla in the Culture War: Explaining Tucker's Approach and What the Right Can Learn from It
The War of the Flea on X
Scrolling through Tucker Carlson’s feed on X and seeing the broad array of people whom he has interviewed can be a somewhat disconcerting experience. Generally, those whom Tucker chooses for a TCN on X interview are interesting, but it’s an eclectic mix.
On the one hand, he’s interviewed some interesting individuals. Scoring the Vladimir Putin interview was a major coup for Tucker, as the nearly 200 million views it has gotten on X alone since its February 8th release show.1 Similarly, Tucker has interviewed other high-profile, right-coded figures like Sen. JD Vance,2 congressional candidate Joe Kent,3 and Texas Governor Greg Abbott,4 to name a few of the more recent ones.
Then, some of the other guests are a bit more outside the norm. Actor Russell Brand5 and conservative X personality Catturd,6 for example, are both somewhat off the beaten path and outside the mainstream, but make sense given their popularity and dissident views. Similarly, the always-excellent Darren Beattie7 and the father of Gonzalo Lira,8 a journalist killed by Zelensky’s regime,9 are dissidents outside the mainstream but whose perspectives on the Globalist American Empire and its flaws generally fit with Tucker’s. Likewise, his interviews with Douglas Mackey,10 the man locked up for making anti-Hillary memes, Argentinian president Javier Milei,11 and Hungary’s terrific Prime Minister, Viktor Orban,12 are all off the beaten path of political interviews but make a good bit of sense given Tucker’s skepticism of the American regime.
But some of his choices are decidedly odd. Manosphere personality and alleged pimp Andrew Tate.13 Larry Sinclair, who claims to be the former lover of former President Barack Obama.14 N.W.A. rapper Ice Cube.15 At the very least, those choices are odd. At worst, they diminish Tucker’s credibility and ability to attract interest, thus bringing to mind the famous Tallyrand quote: “It is worse than a crime, it is a mistake.”16
So, what is going on with Tucker? For what reason, other than the frivolous one of personal interest, would he diminish his platform by mixing interviews with serious men like Orban and Putin with thoughtful but seemingly irrelevant conversations about Ozempic17 and lengthy interviews with such individuals as the man who claims to be Obama’s gay lover? To answer that question, examining the strategy behind guerilla warfare is important and appropriate.
Tucker’s War of the Flea
A (Very) Brief Overview of Guerilla Warfare
To understand what Tucker is up to, one must first understand the theory behind guerilla warfare. Perhaps the best concise study of guerilla warfare is Robert Taber’s “The War of the Flea.”18 In the relatively short book, Taber delves into how guerillas are able to overcome, despite their limited resources, conventional militaries bringing much greater resources to bear.
“The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog’s too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with.” -Taber, The War of the Flea
According to Taber, guerillas fight their wars not by clashing head-on with their enemies but by recognizing that their strength lies in being agile, mobile, intertwined with the communities in which they live and fight, and having greater legitimacy in the eyes of those communities than the regime against which they are fighting.19 Thus, like the fleas feasting on a dog’s back, though individually easy to crush if caught, guerillas are overwhelming and near-impossible to conclusively crush when acting in concert and free to maneuver.
And to what purpose does the guerrilla direct his efforts? Taber answered that as well: “The guerrilla fighter is primarily a propagandist, an agitator, a disseminator of the revolutionary idea, who uses the struggle itself - the actual physical conflict - as an instrument of agitation. His primary goal is to raise the level of revolutionary anticipation, and then of popular participation, to the crisis point at which the revolution becomes general throughout the country and the people in their masses carry out the final task-the destruction of the existing order and (often but not always) of the army that defends it.”
Ultimately, then the guerilla aims to gradually demolish the regime’s legitimacy by chipping away at the territory it controls, building rapport with the masses and bringing them over to his anti-regime viewpoint, and avoiding conclusive defeat by remaining mobile, leaving space for maneuver, picking fights with care, and swimming like a fish in the sea of the civilian population. Many guerillas fail in the “building rapport” with the masses step because they’d rather loot from and terrorize the masses. However, as Mao’s orders to his guerillas to never requisition goods from the peasantry but instead pay full value for them shows, it’s a necessary step for ultimate success unless the regime falls for exogenous reasons, as was the case in Rhodesia.20
Tucker the Taberian “War of the Flea” Guerilla
Tucker is not one of the guerillas about which Taber wrote. He’s no Marxist or third-world freedom fighter, and his obviously English sense of style21 would alone preclude any involvement with Sinn Fein and the IRA. But, regarding his interviews and what they accomplish, the guerrilla analogy is closer than it might seem at first glance.
After being fired from FNC, Tucker could have attempted to take on the regime head-on. Like the Viet Cong in ‘68, he could have attempted to marshal his support, paltry though it might be in comparison with the ruling regime, and charged head-on at the regime in the hope that superior elan would overcome its crushing material superiority.22
The problem with such strategies is that they almost always fail. The VC were crushed in the Tet Offensive; even National Geographic refers to it as “a catastrophic military failure for the communists.”23 Similarly, the Simbas in the Congo were utterly obliterated24 when they challenged Mike Hoare and the Wild Geese,25 Executive Outcomes swept away guerrillas in Angola and Sierre Leone when those guerrillas stood and fought,26 and the Warsaw Uprising was brutally crushed.27 Guerrillas can fight head-on on occassion, but doing so tends to end in disaster.
Fortunately for those hoping he would lead a campaign of resistance against the regime, Tucker didn’t make the Tet mistake. Instead, he acted in the same manner as some of the successful guerilla groups identified by Taber. Like Castro’s rebel band fighting Batista’s troops in the mountains of Cuba,28 for example, Tucker started nibbling around the edges. Instead of striking head-on, he became the flea and started nibbling around the edges of regime-controlled territory while safely ensconced in the territory it didn’t control.
Twitter as a Guerilla Base
Take his choice of platform, for instance. Tucker could have chosen, notwithstanding his rumored non-compete from Fox News, any of the social media platforms to focus on for promulgating his message. He could have shot for the superior reach potential of Facebook, the terrific monetization potential of YouTube, or the limited reach potential but superior freedom of speech potential available on Gab. Each had its benefits, but also negatives. YouTube and Facebook are well-developed but censorious, Gab is totally free but has few users. And so none of them have the characteristics Taber identifies as guerillas needing to succeed, namely providing both a safe base and population to rely upon for support while also granting the guerrillas the potential for agility and maneuverability.
But X, the platform Tucker chose, provides all of that. Relatively free, particularly for high-profile figures like Tucker, X afforded him a safe base from which to operate. X’s user base contains hundreds of millions of either sympathetic or supportive users to back him, similar to how the vast rural population of China supported Mao in his fight against the KMT. The platform’s relatively pro-free speech policies give him the ability to maneuver with interview topics and not worry about censorship, as the mountains of Cuba helped Castro choose when and where to strike and remain safe in the interim. And on it are plenty of regime figures to challenge in an arena that, like the swampy valley of Dien Bien Phu or the mountains of Cuba, those regime figures don’t control. When he wants, Tucker can drop a video about a controversial topic that both garners tens of millions of views and severely challenges a regime talking point. Moreover, since it’s X, the regime has difficulty combatting it, as the user base surrounding Tucker generally supports him, not the regime.
One mustn’t take comparisons too far, but sudden surprise attacks followed by melting away and letting the regime lash out against and raise the ire of non-combatants is a classic guerrilla strategy, one Castro, Mao, Giap, and others used to great effect. Thus, like a flea of Taber’s par excellence, Tucker chose his terrain wisely and set himself up for success. Additionally, his high-profile decision to support Elon Musk by choosing his platform as his base won him a very wealthy, very powerful ally, a US-level backer to support his Contras-level guerrilla campaign.
Interesting Interviews as Bites of a Flea
Further, if the X decision was the macro-level choice showing Tucker’s adoption of a guerrilla strategy, his interview choices are much the same.
Fights on Friendly Ground
For most of his interviews, he’s on solidly friendly ground. Darren Beattie, Joe Kent, JD Vance, and others like them have the dual virtue of being red meat for Tucker’s fan base and not big enough figures to raise the regime’s eyebrows. They’re the equivalent of the Viet Cong providing competing, better alternatives to South Vietnamese services in friendly South Vietnamese villages29: cheap to carry out, effective at building rapport with and support from the general population, and low-level enough to keep away the regime’s soldiers or bombers.
A Drumbeat of Attacks on the Regime’s Credibility
Then there are the times Tucker strikes out and strikes the regime on contested territory. The best example of such an attack is his interview with Vladimir Putin. The globalists hate Putin with a passion, so unlike Beattie, that interview raised their ire and led to an expectedly massive backlash, with the usual apparatchiks accusing Tucker of demolishing democracy by interviewing a world leader.
But in baiting the regime into a losing fight not really of its choosing, like the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu30 or Continental Army at Cowpens,31 Tucker was able to defeat and delegitimize it in the eyes of many on the fence.
The interview clearly demonstrated that NATO lies were responsible for hostility between Russia and the West,32 that the US and UK played a prominent role in ensuring the Ukrainians and Russians didn’t strike a deal, and that the NATO regimes have been lying to their own people about Russia’s claims to the region. By making those points clear, Tucker struck at an outlying regime base and succeeded. The war is far from won, but another sliver of territory was cut away from the regime.
Building on that momentum in a recent speech, Tucker called out the regime’s failures, saying, “And at a certain point, I don't think the average person cares as much about abstractions as about the concrete reality of his life. And if you can't use your subway, for example, as many people referred to in New York City because it's too dangerous, you have to sort of wonder like, isn't that the ultimate measure of leadership? And that's true, by the way, it's radicalizing, for an American to go to Moscow. I didn't know that I've learned it this week, to Singapore, to Tokyo, to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, because these cities, no matter how we're told they're run and on what principles they're run, are wonderful places to live, that don't have rampant inflation or you're not going to get raped.”33
That’s a devastating speech for the globalist regime, as it’s primary selling point is material comfort. “Sure, Russians might be allowed to be proud of their heritage, unlike you kulaks,” globalist regime elites tell their citizens, “but you have SUVs and better dishwashers! We win!” So, when Tucker then shows that we don’t even have better dishwashers, that eviscerates their credibility.
Dugin, explaining why in “The Fourth Political Theory,” wrote, “[I]n general, human life is possible, and perhaps even has the potential to be entirely happy, without the washing machine. But for a liberal society, this is a terrifying thing, almost sacrilege. We can understand everything, but life without the washing machine? That’s already a really unscientific saying: life without the washing machine is impossible. There is no such thing. Life is the washing machine.”34
That is what Tucker’s speech is ultimately hinting at. The West generally is premised on the idea that, whatever the faults of “liberal democracy,” it provides material comfort as embodied by the washing machine, the most important thing of all to our rotting society. If it does not provide such material comforts, then the regime’s credibility is destroyed. If Nayib Bukele35 and Vladimir Putin have made their countries liveable while New York and San Francisco turn into chaos, then of what purpose is “liberal democracy,” the “abstractions” about which Tucker spoke?
What’s more, after Tucker made that speech, other prominent figures on X, such as Jack Posobiec, stepped up to support him.36 Like the population looking out for the guerillas when the regime comes poking around, Tucker’s prudent choice of X as his territory means he also has a base of support on which to rely.
Misdirection through Wild Interviews: Forcing the Regime to Wrestle with Pigs
Then there are the times he baits the regime into engaging in wars that might not be his turf, but certainly aren’t the regimes either.
This is where the interviews with goobers like Andrew Tate and Larry Sinclair come into play. Yes, Tate’s faux machismo is tiresome and Sinclair might be about as credible as the Steele dossier. But Tate’s fan base is large, young, and motivated; it’s a powerful demographic that Tucker has managed to somewhat bring into his camp and which routinely gets into spats with the regime’s equally tiresome figures online.
Similarly, Sinclair might be less than credible, but having him on forces the regime to expend time trying to disprove the claim that Obama smoked crack and had a gay lover. Shaw famously said, “Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.” The regime won’t let the Obama question go, as he and George Floyd are as close to being secular saints as anyone it supports, so to unconvincingly “disprove” homosexuality allegations about Obama, they have to “wrestle with pigs.”
Ultimately, distraction and misdirection are useful in that they provide room to maneuver, one of the most important aspects of a successful guerilla campaign. By bringing on Tate, Sinclair, and people like them, Tucker gets the regime to wrestle with pigs and, while it is distracted doing so, gets to choose where to strike next.
Lessons to Be Learned, Tactical and Strategic
The tactical lessons to be learned from how Tucker has built the Tucker Carlson network are, hopefully, obvious. How to win is to build a base of support on safe ground, misdirecting the enemy when possible to build space for maneuver, and striking hard and fast at the outlying fringe of regime territory. Mao famously said, "When the enemy advances, we retreat. When the enemy halts and encamps, we harass him. When the enemy seeks to avoid battle, we attack. Whenever the enemy retreats, we pursue."37 That’s the timeless lesson of guerilla warfare that many have recognized, and Taber made particularly clear, and it’s the roadmap Tucker has so far followed with much success.
The strategic lesson is somewhat less obvious but far more important. That lesson is that the right might be strong as a guerilla force but is hardly ready to take the regime on in a stand-up, drag-down fight. When Tucker interviews men like Putin, Milei, and Orban, he is choosing his battles wisely and picking the lowest-hanging fruit. The Ukraine War is a disaster of the West’s own making.38 Pre-Milei Argentina shows the failure of socialist policies and the devastating toll of inflation. Hungary, an EU and NATO member that has resisted some of the worst aspects of the Globalist American Empire, presents a viable alternative to the current situation without going too far away from ground with which his base is comfortable.
By choosing to remain a guerilla, staying mainly in the realm of interviews posted to X and his website, Tucker remains a flea who can irritate the regime and is hard to crush. They might be annoyed that his Putin interview poked holes in their claims about the war, but ultimately can do little about it because Tucker did nothing illegal and remains on safe ground on X.
Contrast that with the January 6, 2021, Electoral Justice Protest or the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville. Ignoring ideological considerations, both of those events were disasters because they gave the regime an easy target to strike, limited the maneuverability of the people involved to avoid the regime’s sledgehammer, and left friendly territory for a battle on the enemy’s home turf. Predictably, those events were Tet, not Dien Bien Phu.
Similarly, contrasting Tucker’s online speech with other dissidents shows he is disciplined and keeps to the principles of guerilla warfare. Unlike some dissidents, he doesn’t delve deeply into fringe or unpopular topics that would alienate many of his supporters. Nor does he grift off of them and try to steal from them. Nor does he stare into the abyss and complain endlessly about the dire state of things. Instead, he provides interesting interviews, keeps on a cheery face, and uses interviews with men like Russell Brand and Andrew Tate to build a bigger tent of dissidents.
Ultimately, the war dissidents like Tucker and those who largely agree with him can fight and win is not the political equivalent of Waterloo. Standing in line and fighting the battles the regime wants to fight, namely the spat over abortion rights, will lead to electoral obliteration and political irrelevance. Similary, giving the regime a firm and fixed target against which it can land its sledgehammer blow, such as the Electoral Justice protest, are the sort of dire mistakes about which Talleyrand spoke. They give the regime an opportunity to catch the ticks.
But following in Tucker’s footsteps and adopting a guerilla strategy to poke the regime and gradually demolish its legitimacy from a safe base of support, that is a fight it’s possible to win. Hopefully, the lesson will be learned.