This has been a bumpy few weeks for fans of right-wing media: First, the Department of Justice accused multiple high-profile pro-Trump influencers of being paid Russian stooges—a scandal that led to the abrupt self-cancellation of Tenet Media, previously the happy home to far-right influencers Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, and others. As if this wasn’t enough, former Fox News firebrand turned podcast host Tucker Carlson made news for giving a fawning interview to a Holocaust denier.
These controversies weren’t problems for Putin—or Hitler—sympathizers, but they shook more traditional conservatives. Are these cultural warriors actually who they say they are, or are they just dutifully following a script? As for liberals, these episodes have only confirmed that right-wing talking heads are two-faced threats to democracy.
So, are they hucksters? Traitors? Spineless, Nazi-curious bigots? Well, yes and no. Take Tucker. Sure, he’s a wannabe demagogue, but he’s also a grown man who wears makeup and performs for a camera. Tucker has never met an autocrat he doesn’t like, but if you want to know who he really is, let me give you the scoop: He’s a theatre kid—albeit a particularly bratty one.
I know this because I have some particular expertise in these areas: I am an unremarkable actor who barely graduated with a bachelor of fine arts in performance from Virginia Commonwealth University. More pressingly, for over 10 years, I was an excitable pundit who owned one tie and would appear for five-minute segments on CNN, MSNBC, and, most of all, Fox News, where I played a liberal punching bag. I am an expert on cable news and the theater—my new memoir is titled Theatre Kids. (And if you’re wondering, yes, the classic theatre kid move is to spell theater the British way.)
Obviously, I want nothing more than for Fox News’s most loyal viewers to buy my fruity new book about drama queens following their debauched dreams in crime-ridden New York and then, as is their wont, burn it. I hope they buy and burn tens of thousands of copies.
At any rate, I am bizarrely qualified to write on political performance art. A little bit about me: I support social justice reforms, reproductive rights, and public arts funding. I think the Second Amendment could use a quick rewrite. I don’t like war, generally speaking. Capitalism? Ehh, we could do better. I also believe in having difficult conversations about power and civil rights and the future of the country, especially over kitchen tables and in town halls—but talking politics for clicks and cha-chings is The Muppet Show.
And this Grand Guignol would be nothing without the theatre kids populating its universe. America’s political media landscape is just one giant game of Zip Zap Zop played with a straight face. MSNBC is Fox News on SSRIs. One is liberal, the other conservative, but both are pursuing the same end: the need to command the attention of as many senior citizens—desperate for good news but willing to settle for doom—as possible.
People like my mom, a woman who would prefer to forget that I ever met Tucker Carlson.
While it’s not incorrect to assume that most theatre kids lean liberal or even socialist, one of the most enduring stereotypes of the American voter is the devoutly homophobic Republican churchgoer who loves the musical Cabaret. Can’t you just see a sweaty Tucker singing the song “Money, Money” at karaoke?
Like any performer, Tucker says things for applause—and cash. That’s because he’s in show business: He may or may not actually think the Gestapo was misunderstood, but his job is to say cruel, thoughtless, mean-spirited things into a microphone anyway. The entire information-industrial complex runs on drama and “So-and-so said WHAT?” Fox News isn’t some sinister Ministry of Truth; it’s more like a really, really wealthy community theater that puts on plays specifically meant to offend Subaru owners. And Tucker was one of its brightest stars until he went so off-script and told such outrageous lies that his employer nearly got sued into oblivion.
I was introduced to Tucker over a decade ago, in a Fox News greenroom, before a taping of a late-night talk show hosted by Greg Gutfeld, back when Greg was a network oddball and Tucker was a rising star. These days, Greg is one of Fox’s most dependable partisan enforcers on air, and Tucker, as you already know, sucks up to fascists on X—the social media platform that was once called Twitter before it was bought by a smug billionaire who proves, on a daily basis, that money can’t buy a sense of humor.
But years ago, Tucker was actually pretty jolly; an awkward ball of energy backstage. He was boyish—a little, middle-aged prince. Friendly too. He was also a specific subspecies of theatre kid: the diva. All divas are vulnerable to flattery and will accept praise from anyone, up to and including white supremacists. And like a theatre kid, Tucker knows the show must go on. Plop him in front of a camera, and he’ll hate whoever he’s told to hate. I have liberal friends who fantasize about yelling at Tucker Carlson in public, confronting him, but that wouldn’t achieve anything, not in real life. Raging at him would only confirm his preexisting paranoid prejudices that liberals are intolerant scolds and reinforce all the flattery he’s received over the years. His weakness is the weakness of any prima donna—tell him you’re a big fan, and he’s silly putty in your hands.
To misquote Dorothy Parker, scratch a cable news pundit, and you’ll find a theatre kid, insecure and needy. The similarities between thespians and talking heads are obvious: Lights! Camera! Action! There’s stage fright and tubs of cold cream for easy greasepaint removal. Scripts are loaded into teleprompters, but there’s a little improv too. After the show, there are celebrations. Let’s go to the bar! Both professions take themselves seriously—theatre kids treat Hamlet and the Great Masters earnestly and with great regard. Cable news hosts feel similarly about their roles as free-speech heroes.
I grew up with old-school Democrat parents from the generation who believed the men who read the news during dinnertime were decent, reported the facts, and told the truth. I’m sure some of those dudes were perfectly upright people, but there is no truth told on TV or via any screen; it’s all make-believe—advertising filler; clowns and commercial breaks.
My folks used to tune in to Meet the Press every Sunday morning after church during the years it was hosted by Garrick Utley, a fatherly old newsman who held the reins before Tim Russert. Back then, Meet the Press was no different from a cable access show—a lo-fi Sunday morning conversation on a cheap set watched by a few dozen nerds. Since then, Meet the Press got glitzed up (there was a period when guests were ministered to by a tuxedoed butler!), and NBC touts the show as “the longest-running television show in American history”—right after static and test patterns.
I used to be asked by old drinking buddies if I missed being on cable television, but those questions have faded away over the years. Most people under 60 don’t even pay for cable; they stream, scroll, and freak out. I rarely even mention my pundit bona fides anymore for fear that someone will accuse me of collaborating with the enemy—which I totally did because I am desperate for attention.
That hasn’t changed. See: This essay.
I know Fox News hosts and their guests are mostly thought of as pro-authoritarian propagandists, Russian assets, and white nationalist race-baiters. And I’m not arguing they’re not! Many are, apparently. But you may also want to consider that, for the most part, they’re just theatre kids, as well. I don’t mean to defend the bile Fox News bots spew out—we are each of us responsible for our words and actions. I’m pointing out that people who hiss and rage for the camera are, for the most part, not deep thinkers. They’re show people, carnies, extremely well-paid bullshit artists. They’re actors, playing a role.
These are people who read other people’s words and then immediately forget what it was that they said. These hosts will happily represent the hateful views of malign political forces as long as it means their name appears on a chyron.
All of the right-wing personalities I met over the years were positively giddy in the greenroom. Vulnerable and jumpy, anxiously waiting for a producer with a headset to tell us we’re about to go on or for a mellow, seen-it-all crew member to clip on microphones and earpieces. The energy before a high school production of Godspell and a spot on Fox News are eerily similar, with one primary difference: Godspell is a feel-good musical, whereas Fox News, like all of right-wing media, is a 24-hour-a-day experiment in catering to true believers while manipulating the opposition. If you aren’t someone who belongs to a country club or a megachurch or a Silicon Valley start-up, these theatre kids are hoping to make you feel not just bad, but afraid—a fear that, ideally, convinces you that all is lost, and not to vote.
What is your average right-wing media personality’s acting motivation? Intimidate the opposition.
It was while I was on Fox that I met an entire generation of conservative talking heads, each of them ready to razzle-dazzle comfortable right-winger couch potatoes. I’d pal around with disgraced shock jocks, buttoned-up think-tank zombies, and somber libertarian stand-ups whose comedy heroes are economists like Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises. I met political slimeballs and B-list has-beens yearning for a second act. Greg Gutfeld was always gracious and chatty in the greenroom. Every so often, he says something truly shocking on air that goes viral online, and I have to remind myself that Greg owns a nice lake house.
Like all theatre kids, many of these personalities wear costumes or employ a little bit of artifice to get into character. I remember meeting a journalist who called himself “Michael Malice” in the Fox News greenroom, and I thought, “Am I supposed to have a stage name too?” I appeared alongside Ann Coulter one time: Ann can be gratuitously cruel on cue; it’s a gift—a fucked-up gift. When the cameras were off, it’s a different story; she nervously chewed Nicorette between segments. I did the late Lou Dobbs’s show, and he was a kindly grandfather type unless you said the word “Democrat.” Kennedy, the former MTV V.J. who reinvented herself as a statuesque Fox News inquisitor, also had me on her panel. She did not find my nebbishy pinko shtick amusing.
Not all right-wing personalities are theatre kids. Former national security adviser John Bolton is very much not; he trembled intensely in the greenroom as in the studio. Bolton is a true believer. So is Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boy founder. That dude was equally unfriendly off air and on. In that way, he was the most honest person I met at Fox.
There are left-wing guests who aren’t theatre kids. But I was at Fox starring in the role of “Johnny Bleedingheart.” I think the bookers liked me because I was willing to be slaughtered by fire-breathing reactionaries on air, and I’d come back the next week for more. But every so often, an earnest liberal with actual principles makes the mistake of appearing on Fox News and tries to nobly push back on the lies. Here’s a culture-war tip from these trenches: You can’t win an argument against someone who can turn off your mic.
There is no debate on any conservative media platform; if you’re lucky, you can clearly and courageously state your position and that’s it. Fox News and its offspring like The Daily Wire exist to keep the faithful stoked and motivated. That’s the show.
Why did I appear on Fox News? Gore Vidal once said, “People should never turn down sex or the opportunity to appear on television,” and during the years I willingly participated, I was only regularly getting offered the latter. I went on Fox News because it was—*makes jazz hands*—theatre and I am a theatre kid. They treated me like a star: They’d send a massive black SUV to my tiny one-bedroom in Queens to pick me up and drop me off in front of Fox News’s massive midtown offices. A booker or an intern would then meet me like I was a foreign dignitary, and we’d walk and talk through security and down hallways and into a cushy chair where a real-life professional would spray my face with bronzer and poof my hair up with a brush and can of hairspray.
A few guests would already know I was that evening’s sacrificial hippie and get a few jokey pre-show jabs in, but most just assumed, not incorrectly, that because I was in a Fox News greenroom, I was a loyal conservative. And I would have been great in that part. The script is easy to memorize because it hasn’t changed since the 1950s; it’s the same old song and dance: contempt for the working class; tax breaks to our best friends, the rich; and Black people are criminals. It’s shockingly easy to play a conservative on the small screen or the handheld one.
Here’s how I got my first gig on Fox News: A friend knew a booker who called me and told me I should be on television, and I replied, “Yes, I should be on television.” It is true: I am vain. What made me suitable for the spot besides a mild but chronic case of narcissism? You see, I was a member of the New York media—a men’s magazine writer—and, sure, I’m no Pulitzer Prize winner, but I work for free, and I have a high tolerance for public humiliation. That’s right: In the entirety of my “career” on air, I was never actually paid to go on Fox or MSNBC. Want some free media advice? If you’re going to sell out, make sure you’re doing it for actual money.
There was a time when Fox News regularly booked hard-nosed reporters from The New York Times, but by the time I got there, that was long over. Eventually, the outlet settled for journalists from heavily subsidized conservative journals like The National Review and those like little ol’ me, a hack who had written about beer bongs for Maxim. So that’s how I ended up in the Fox News greenroom, which was cold and comfortable, like an upscale dentist’s office.
Greenrooms are traditionally found in a theater’s backstage, a sanctum for the Hamlets and Ophelias to hang out in before the curtain rises. Backstage, life was good. There were always trays of snacks: cookies, brownies, cheeses—cheddar and gouda and brie—and assorted fruits. Fox could afford the best. There was coffee and tea and other drinks. Some nights after the show, I’d sneak back into the greenroom and wrap a few leftover pesto and mozzarella sandwiches in napkins and shove them into my pockets for later.
I was on Fox for most of the Obama administration, a time when Republicans were lost in the political forest and obsessed with the president’s celebrity. I was cast as a villain on Fox—a heel, in the parlance of pro wrestling—a loathsome Marxist who hated America and freedom. I was happy to play the center-left doofus whose most controversial opinions were “Health care should be affordable” and “Same-sex marriage is a good thing.” I thought those opinions were harmless, but every day, on Twitter, some stranger would angrily insult me or my mom.
Did I have fun? Yes. It helped that I was often drunk. Was I making a positive contribution to society? No. Years later, after I sobered up, I worried that I wouldn’t have a good answer if God ever asked, “Why were you on Fox, again?”
Why, O Lord? Free pesto and mozzarella sandwiches?
I understand people who despise Fox News and its assorted offspring on YouTube and Twitter and Spotify. These people work hard to offend you. But they’re still theatre kids. Do they lack empathy? I don’t know—right-wing media is a lucrative business, and money can buy denial in bulk. What you have to understand about media personalities who make their living reading partisan lies off teleprompters and making up hateful little observations on the spot is that they’re having a pretty good time, whether they believe what they’re saying or not.
Here’s what I genuinely miss, though: After each taping, there was a surge of post-show adrenaline. There was laughter and backslaps—affirmations, even: “Good show!” We’d wipe off our makeup and then head to the bar, where we’d guzzle beers—talent and producers and bookers—and eat disco fries and sing along to whatever the jukebox was playing. Even the sourest talking head is a giggling theatre kid when the show’s over.
I wish I could report that the Fox News talent are as disgusting in real life as they are under the klieg lights, but I can’t. It just wasn’t my experience. They’re goofballs, fanatics, and a few genuine lunatics, but that also describes most of America. I haven’t been on Fox since the summer of 2016 when it became clear to me that conservatism really, truly, wanted to hate me. Now I would never go back. I’m broke, but I don’t need the free eye shadow, nor do I want clips for a reel. The American right has reached a point where they’re downright dangerous because they’ve gotten lost in their playacting; they no longer know which of their two faces is which.
