“How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution”

This week I read Tucker Carlson’s “Ship of Fools”. The book is much like watching Carlson’s Fox News prime time show. Fast paced, full of thought out opinions, clever and entertaining with no filler. The book follows his signature sign off “The sworn enemy of lying pomposity, smugness and group think.” “Ship of Fools” is only missing one thing and we will get to that later.

The title of the book “Ship of Fools” comes from Plato’s “Republic”, specifically the cave allegory. The cave dwellers don’t know reality because they have only ever seen shadows or illusions. Apparently, “The Grateful Dead” picked up this them in a 1974 song. I am not a “Dead Head”, so I am not familiar with that. If you have never seen the 1965 movie “Ship of Fools”, I highly recommend the movie as a companion piece to this book. Read the book, watch the movie and discuss. Can you say oblivious? Sure you can.

Tucker Carlson calls out the bad leadership on both sides. In the late 80’s business world, these people were called unconscious incompetents. They were stupid and untalented and even worse clueless.

Carlson begins with the story of California in his youth and his annoyingly liberal, but passionate first grade teacher. I knew that California (Laguna Beach) and I knew those liberals. The liberals of his and my youth were not these cynical, wild eyed cray crays. Remember when you had friends, if you are older than my yoga pants, who wouldn’t cross picket lines or eat grapes. These liberals didn’t scream or get in anyone’s face. They just had a set of principles they lived by. You could really like them. One of those passionate liberals was Ralph Nader. “Unsafe at any speed” described the Chevy Corvair. Geez, I thought that car was groovy, baby. But, it turns out it was deadly. Ralph Nader was a hero to the left until he ran for President without permission of the ruling class and now must eat lunch alone.

And speaking of picket lines, Cesar Chavez, former hero to my leftie friends, was totally against immigration. Especially low skilled, illegal, migrant workers from Mexico and points further south. Chavez, according to Carlson, called the illegal immigrants “wetbacks” (Whoa, dude.) and set up camps along the border filled with his union members. The union members beat the stuffing out of illegals trying to cross the border. In Chavez World, these illegals lowered wages and took food and jobs from legal American citizens. Jobs that Americans would do for the right wages.

“Ship of Fools” sticks to the theme of bad leadership or flat out mediocrity. Chapter 3 “Foolish Wars” begins with this paragraph:

One thing that every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for mediocrity. Standards decline, the edges fray, but nobody in charge seems to notice. They’re happy in there sinecures and getting richer. In a culture like this, there is no penalty for being wrong.

Carlson calls out companies like Apple, Uber, Yahoo, Google and Facebook for their “Secular Calvinism”. The heads of these companies have what they have because they really are better than the rest of us. They abuse employees in foreign countries, but that’s okay dokey because they believe all the right things. The mediocre leaders of companies today buy “indulgences” just like back in the good old 1500’s and their sins are forgiven.

Speaking of mediocrity, Chelsea Clinton. Tucker has Chelsea Clinton situated fairly early in the book, pages 49-57. It’s just sheer fun reading about her. Chelsea Clinton and her husband Marc Mezvinsky give patronage and privilege bad names. I remember when my husband told me about Mezvinsky’s fund losing 90% of its value. We both shrugged because people will just give him more money and write off the bad investment. Just the way Tucker Carlson makes fun of Chelsea Clinton and her clueless stupidity enabled by the swooning media made a thrill go up my leg.

This screengrab is from RawStory.com. You may need to print this picture off to use when reading the book.

There is so much more, but you gotta get this book. “Ship of Fools” is fun and it is serious. The book is only missing one thing. The book is missing that look of open mouthed disbelief that is classic Tucker Carlson. You know the look he gets when someone goes full on turnip derpy. Print off the above picture and when you are reading the book and he goes off on the things Max Boot “World’s Leading Authority on Armed Conflict” says or anything Hillary Clinton, Samantha Powers and Libya, just look at the picture.

Read “Ship of Fools.

Feature picture “Ship of Fools” courtesy of Simon & Schuster. Photo montage: Darleen Click