Commentary
Last Friday, I attended The Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Gala, a sprawling and swanky affair featuring many fine presentations, a surprise Dierks Bentley mini-concert for the country music enthusiasts (yours truly among them) and an extravagant post-dinner fireworks show over the Potomac River. But the highlight of the evening, bar none, was former Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s electric keynote address and his (all-too-brief) colloquy on stage afterward with Heritage’s exceptional new president, Kevin Roberts.
Carlson’s speech was both wildly entertaining and poignant, at times slapstick funny and at other times humorously self-deprecating about his Episcopalian faith. But as Carlson began to reach his peroration, the key substantive takeaway he wished to impart unto his audience became clear. The relevant political and cultural battle lines in the year 2023 are not those befitting a civil and polite discussion where both sides are reasonable, both sides pursue their own version of the common good and the best think tank white paper wins out in the end, Carlson cautioned. No, our current civilizational struggle is not reflective of a refined policy debate between amicable partisans; rather, it is one that implicates fundamentally distinct theological and anthropological visions of mankind—of man’s very biology and his relation with his fellow man, the state, and God Himself….