And this same fellow managed to issue this tweet on Thursday night:

For more insight into this dynamic, Carlson might consider examining his own career. He started out as a newspaper and magazine writer, having written a number of very good pieces during a stint at the Weekly Standard and piercing profiles in glossy magazines. Dashing, glib and extremely well read, he gradually made the transition to television, with stops at CNN — where he worked on the ill-fated “Crossfire” — and MSNBC.

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From show to show and segment to segment, Carlson proved himself an agile polemical warrior, disarming his opponents now with a simple question, later with a abstruse historical reference. It wasn’t until he landed in the Fox News nighttime lineup in November 2016, however, that he flowered as a vector for division and nastiness in American politics. In addition to sneering at his guests, his great innovation has been to serve as the slithery anti-anti-Trump — a go-to guy for dismembering the president’s most ardent critics. In this genius role, Carlson snipes and snipes at their argument, all the while insisting that he’s “not defending” President Trump and his allies.

Viewers love it, as “Tucker Carlson Tonight” consistently ranks among the top cable-news shows.

Yet the true measure of Carlson’s divisiveness is the adoration he has scored among white nationalists in the United States. They’ve recognized that Carlson quite effectively divides the country just the way they want it divided. The host has scoffed at the notion that he courts these types. “HA HA HA HA HA HA!” he responded nearly a year ago to a question about David Duke’s approval of his work. “It’s so stupid! It was like, when you went into journalism, I bet you never thought you’d find yourself in a place where you ask fake questions like that. And I bet your younger self would have hated your current self.”