“Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some, and that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope.”

Good evening. It’s Tucker Carlson. One of the first things you realize when you step outside the noise for a few days is how many genuinely nice people there are in this country. Kind and decent people, people who really care about what’s true, and a bunch of hilarious people. Also, a lot of those, it’s gotta be the majority of the population even now, so that’s heartening.

The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are, they’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years, we won’t even remember that we had them. Trust me, as someone who’s participated. And yet the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all: war, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources.

When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues? It’s been a long time. Debates like that are not permitted in American media. Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them, and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one party state. That’s a depressing realization, but it’s not permanent.

Our current orthodoxies won’t last. They’re brain dead. Nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone’s life is improved by them. This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue, and so it won’t. The people in charge know this. That’s why they’re hysterical and aggressive. They’re afraid. They’ve given up persuasion. They’re resorting to force, but it won’t work.

When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who’ve been trying to silence them shrink and they become weaker. That’s the iron law of the universe.

True things prevail. Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some, and that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.

More than fourteen million views so far.

Welcome back, Tucker!