Tucker Carlson says he traveled the country covering the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and found enough material to write a book.

The Fox News political commentator's new book, "Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution," published Tuesday and is likely headed to the New York Times best-seller list based on early sales at amazon.com.

Carlson — a frequent visitor to Southwest Florida — will sign copies of the book Friday at the Costco in North Naples.

"The premise of the book is really simple: Why did Trump get elected?" Carlson said Monday in a telephone interview.

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"Satisfied countries aren't going to vote Donald Trump into the White House. There has to be something profound going on for that to happen."

Those who think the book will bash only Bill and Hillary Clinton and other Democrats will be disappointed, as it takes aim at both sides of the aisle, Carlson noted. The cover features a caricature of Carlson's "fools" in a ship about to head over a waterfall.

Those on the ship are the Clintons, Democrats Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, neoconservative Bill Kristol and Amazon chairman Jeff Bezos.

‘The economy doesn't work for most people’

In the book Carlson delves into the middle class and how he says it died in the U.S. in 2015 and few cared or acknowledged it.

"Democracies don't work except in middle-class countries," he writes.

Carlson pointed out how there's something wrong when people with household incomes of $80,000 annually cannot afford to send their children to summer camp. Parents nowadays continue to provide money for their children after they move out and graduate from college. And student loan debt continues to skyrocket.

“If I could sum it up, I would say that almost all of our political volatility stems from economic causes," Carlson said in the phone interview.

"The economy doesn't work for most people. What’s going on is a small group of people is getting richer than anyone else has in human history and everyone else is languishing."

And unless America corrects its course, he added, “Trump is just the beginning.”

“What I do is try to describe what is happening and my frustration in watching the news coverage," Carlson said. "I’m very frustrated by the dumbness of it all.”

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He said the end of the middle class began in earnest after the Great Recession a decade ago. Most Americans never fully recovered except for the extremely rich, who now are wealthier than ever.

"Why are 23-year-old kids dying of fentanyl overdoses?" he asked. "Suicide rates for men are way up. People are struggling to pay basic things like medical bills. I’m just amazed that this all can be happening right in front of us.”

Carlson said he believes part of the problem is the national news media because many attended the same Ivy League schools as the people they cover. So they're too close to their sources to understand what's happening in the rest of America, he said.

That may explain in part why so many national political commentators and polls predicted Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump, Carlson said.

“I’m not attacking anybody," he said. "I’m just saying if everybody covering this from the national level is from the same area of the people they're covering, you're not going to get very nuanced coverage. You need some distance from the people you’re covering.”

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Carlson offers some solutions

Over seven chapters with titles including "The Diversity Diversion" and "Elites Invade the Bedroom," Carlson reaches deep into history, with plenty of perspective and background to drive home his point.

He offers a few solutions in the epilogue, titled "Righting the Ship."

Carlson, 49, said the timing for his book was something he could not predict, amid the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. Discussions on both sides about the federal judge's qualifications will continue, but it's nothing new in recent years, as Americans more than ever await the next breaking news push alert on their phones.

"All the news cycles that we grew up with, all of that is changed," he said.

"My argument at the core of the book is all of this volatility is coming from the same place. All of these divides are not political divides, they’re economic divides.

“That’s the problem. People are seeing this through the wrong lens. This isn’t a partisan battle. We need a reckoning; we need to be honest about how we got here.”

Tucker Carlson book signing

When: 1 p.m. Friday

Where: Costco, 6275 Naples Blvd., North Naples

Information: costco.com or 239-596-6404