Tucker Carlson Tonight is the best show on American news television. It is not, as Carlson’s tedious enemies insist, Trump propaganda. Quite the opposite: it is a rare bright spot of originality in an otherwise arid media landscape.

Every night, almost without fail, Carlson introduces his 3.2 million viewers to an interesting thought or a different way of looking at the world. TV news is repetitive; that is its nature. But Carlson’s show manages to cover the talking points in a different key. He also introduces new opinions and ideas into the media bloodstream.

That’s why Carlson is popular among young people: he is radical. Which other major anchor would open his show, as Carlson did last week, with a monologue against the vapidity of the news cycle? Which other Fox News host would read out a long diatribe on the failings of free-market capitalism, as Tucker did over Christmas? Or call for Congress to ban teenagers from using smart phones? Which other major news host, on left or right, would decry the dangerous stupidity of hurling a few gesture-missiles at Syria? The answer is none.

Carlson takes seriously his catchphrase about being ‘the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.’ That’s why so many dishonest, self-important, conceited arseholes are determined to destroy him.

That’s why reports that corporate advertisers are pulling out of his show are gleefully recirculated by media hacks who normally pretend to be anti-corporations. It’s also why Media Matters, the murky media watchdog, has been digging through his long history of broadcasting, looking for things that might be deemed unacceptable.

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Media Matters has just published some clips of Carlson saying some coarse stuff on a silly shock-jock show. These are not his finest moments, to put it mildly, though he is clearly just trying to enter the spirit of a fairly juvenile show.

Still, Media Matters and others are determined to tie Carlson’s decade-old bawdy jokes to his political views now, such as his recent statement that: ‘When men make less than women, women generally don’t want to marry them.’

Carlson was trying to make a broader point about the plight of men in modern society, but for the progressives at media matters, such rumination is thought crime and Carlson must be a sexist pig. This is why they feel compelled to establish a pattern of sexist opinion in his past. Which, clearly, they now feel they have done.

If you want to defend someone like Tucker Carlson who calls women the c-word, says women are like dogs and jokes about a 13 year old being molested, then there’s clearly something wrong with you and no one should listen to a damn word you say. Sad and pathetic. #FireTuckerCarlson — Scott Dworkin (@funder) March 11, 2019

Hey @JennyCraig — So, your company is standing by Tucker Carlson, who calls women the c-word, says women are “like dogs” and “extremely primitive,” and jokes about a 13-year-old girl being raped? Got it. #FireTuckerCarlson — Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) March 11, 2019

.@TuckerCarlson has a documented history of making vile misogynistic and racist comments. Those comments have consequences. Tell the women CEOs whose companies advertise on Tucker’s show to pull their ads and #DropTucker! ADD YOUR NAME: https://t.co/TvzJSXPrJw pic.twitter.com/D3unKwbwfx — Women's March (@womensmarch) March 11, 2019

I wonder if Carlson had forgotten that he has daughters — if so I’m sure he’d be grateful to Milano for reminding him. One of his daughters was called a whore in public by some braindead lout who loathes her father last year.

There is in fact a widespread, squalid and miserable campaign to stifle Carlson. Last year, as well as the abusing of his daughter, his house was targeted by antifa thugs. His front door was cracked and police were called.

Last month, progressive social media went bananas after a Dutch pro-tax activist Rutger Bregman released his recording of Carlson losing his temper during an interview for his show. Carlson wanted to congratulate Bregman for his eloquent rant against tax evasion at Davos. But Bregman turned the interview into broadside against Murdoch media and Carlson himself.

Carlson got angry and, after the recording spread wildly online, issued an explanation and slightly barbed apology. This delighted his many opponents. Nobody thought to commend the Fox News anchor for being free-thinking enough to have invited a radical leftist on to his show in order to commend him.

"Anyone who disagrees with my views is welcome to come on and explain why" Just make sure to make your own recording. https://t.co/9wbfodC3u2 — Rutger Bregman (@rcbregman) March 11, 2019

That’s the thing. It’s Carlson’s very open-mindedness that most angers his enemies. Carlson’s real crime isn’t that he has said something dumb in his past, or that he has lost his temper, or even that he is too right wing to be acceptable to mainstream media. It is that he dares to be provocative in a media world that is suffocatingly dull. That, for many, is unforgivable.