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Theres a famous satirical article from The Onion whose headline reads, Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made a Great Point. The face of the man featured in that article has since become social media shorthand for agreeing with a person one finds otherwise despicableand its popped up quite a lot lately in Bluesky posts about the far-right pundit and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. After U.S. ally Israel attacked Iran on June 13, and President Trump teased the possibility of intervening on Israels behalf, Carlson pivoted away from his usual support for the president. Rather than maintain MAGA orthodoxy around the urgent need to aid Israel’s militarily, hes been staunchly critical of Trumps willingness to lead the United States into warleaving Carlsons critics in the rare position of giving him some credit. In fact, viral clips from the podcasters recent interviews offer a fascinating glimpse of how Fox News might look if it werent pot-committed to MAGA. That glimpse, however, is likely just a mirage. @tuckercarlson Ted Cruz on Iran. Full interview tomorrow. Watch the full interview now on TuckerCarlson.com original sound – Tucker Carlson Although Carlson had already turned headsincluding Trumpswith his verbal aversion to attacking Iran, the MAGA split truly began during a June 18 interview with Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. The host of The Tucker Carlson Show surprised his guest with a series of combative questions, demonstrating Cruzs unfamiliarity with the region, before giving him the third degree over his unconditional support of Israel. A bipartisan coalition of social media users ended up embracing the interview, united by their distaste of war, Cruz, or both. Indeed, just the clip of Carlson seemingly aghast that the senator does not know the population of the country [he] seek[s] to topple has been viewed 18 million times on TikTok alone. Room for agreement? If Carlson seemed opposed to a hypothetical U.S. attack on Iran before one actually materialized, he did not moderate his position afterward. On the June 27 episode, just a week after Trumps bombing strike against three nuclear facilities in the region, Carlson released an interview with controversial Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, unpacking the attack. Considering that Carlson has given a platform to Holocaust revisionists as recently as last fall, and that Greene herself came under fire in 2021 for previously using anti-Semitic tropes, both the host and guest came across measured and reasonable in their criticism of the Israeli government, and what Trump appears willing to do on its behalf. At one point, speaking about embattled Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Carlson noted, Hes way more popular in Congress than he is in Israel, and applauded Greene for standing apart from her peers in their support for the leader. @onpoint2025 Israel & US Aid: Addressing War & Taxpayer Concerns We discuss critical perspectives on the ongoing conflict involving Israel, including criticisms of Netanyahu’s leadership and concerns about American aid. We explore arguments against using taxpayer dollars abroad when domestic needs persist. This is not about identity politics, it’s about focusing on Americans. #IsraelPalestine #USForeignPolicy #Netanyahu #TaxpayerMoney #AmericanAid #WarDebate #PoliticalCommentary #DomesticPriorities #AmericanPolitics #USGovernment original sound – onpoint According to a recent CNN poll, 88% of Democrats disapprove of Trumps strikes against Iran while 82% of Republicans are in favor of the decision. Its easy to imagine many of those Democrats agreeing with Carlson on this topic. Has the former Fox News all-star truly broken up with MAGA? Could Carlson become the long-fabled Joe Rogan of the Left? Dont count on it. Taking the recent viral clips alone as evidence of a purported pivot is like looking at a puzzle through a keyhole. It ignores everything else the pundit has said recently. Need we be reminded that this is the same person who mainstreamed Great Replacement Theory in American discourse, demanded that Dr. Anthony Fauci be prosecuted for supposed COVID crimes, and believes he was once attacked by demons? Sure, it may be tempting to praise his condemnation of war-crazed Republican senators, but not when he also suggests that a huge percentage of them are secretly gay. (as if being gay were either a character defect or something that historically connotes an abiding love of war). Furthermore, as the collegial interview with Greene demonstrates, Carlson is far from the only high-profile MAGA member to split with Trump over the Israel-Iran war. Fellow far-right pundits like Candace Owens and Steve Bannon have strongly criticized the president for breaking his campaign pledge to start no new wars, even if some of them have already fallen back in line. Counterpoint or counterprogramming? Perhaps theres a good reason why Carlson might be more animated about all this than his counterparts. When Carlson has spoken about his former employer Fox News recently, his tone has been bitter. He seems to hold a grudge against the network for casting him out of the mainstream and into the fringe by abruptly firing him in 2023. Now that the pro-war coverage on Fox News has reportedly helped Trump decide to strike Iran, Carlson may see an opportunity to provide counterprogramming as a member of the independent media, free from the pro-Trump uniformity of Fox News. If it sounds far-fetched that the network would demand its reporters support Trump, well, Carlson recently claimed that he once helped enforce support at the network. One need only to watch Fox News’s prime-time lineup for a few minutes on any given night to conclude that there’s not much room to disagree with Trump as publicly and as vehemently as Carlson recently has, let alone any incentive for it. On the other hand, there certainly seems to be an upside for Carlson to do so from a distance. As CNN reports, The Tucker Carlson Show jumped to No. 5 on YouTubes weekly podcast rankings, up from a No. 18 ranking last month, and is now No. 2 on Spotifys podcast chart, just behind Joe Rogan. Maybe the critical coverage will cost Carlson some support in the long run, forcing him to backpedal. For now, though, its earning him too much positive attention to change course. The worst person you know just made a great pointand is being rewarded handsomely for it.
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People on TikTok tend to follow accounts that align with their own political beliefs, meaning the platform is creating political echo chambers among its users. These findings, from a study my collaborators, Yanlin Li and Homero Gil de Zúiga, and I published in the academic journal New Media & Society, show that people mostly hear from voices they already agree with. We analyzed the structure of different political networks on TikTok and found that right-leaning communities are more isolated from other political groups and from mainstream news outlets. Looking at their internal structures, the right-leaning communities are more tightly connected than their left-leaning counterparts. In other words, conservative TikTok users tend to stick together. They rarely follow accounts with opposing views or mainstream media accounts. Liberal users, on the other hand, are more likely to follow a mix of accounts, including those they might disagree with. Our study is based on a massive dataset of over 16 million TikTok videos from more than 160,000 public accounts between 2019 and 2023. We saw a spike of political TikTok videos during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. More importantly, people arent just passively watching political content; theyre actively creating political content themselves. Some people are more outspoken about politics than others. We found that users with stronger political leanings and those who get more likes and comments on their videos are more motivated to keep posting. This shows the power of partisanship, but also the power of TikToks social rewards system. Engagement signalslikes, shares, commentsare like a fuel, encouraging users to create even more. Why it matters People are turning to TikTok not just for a good laugh. A recent Pew Research Center survey shows that almost 40% of U.S. adults under 30 regularly get news on TikTok. The question becomes what kind of news are they watching, and what does that mean for how they engage with politics. The content on TikTok often comes from creators and influencers or digital-native media sources. The quality of this news content remains uncertain. Without access to balanced, fact-based information, people may struggle to make informed political decisions. Amid the debates over banning TikTok, our study highlights how TikTok can be a double-edged sword in political communication. Its encouraging to see people participate in politics through TikTok when thats their medium of choice. However, if a users network is closed and homogeneous and their expression serves as in-group validation, it may further solidify the political echo chamber. When people are exposed to one-sided messages, it can increase hostility toward outgroups. In the long run, relying on TikTok as a source for political information might deepen peoples political views and contribute to greater polarization. What other research is being done Echo chambers have been widely studied on platforms like Twitter and Facebook, but similar research on TikTok is in its infancy. TikTok is drawing scrutiny, particularly its role in news production, political messaging, and social movements. TikTok has its unique format, algorithmic curation and entertainment-driven design. I believe that its function as a tool for political communication calls for closer examination. Whats next In 2024, the Biden/Harris and Trump campaigns joined TikTok to reach young voters. My research team is now analyzing how these political communication dynamics may have shifted during the 2024 election. Future research could use experiments to explore whether these campaign videos significantly influence voters perceptions and behaviors. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Zicheng Cheng is an assistant professor of mass communications at the University of Arizona. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Barcelona recorded its hottest month of June since records started over a century ago, Spain’s national weather service said on Tuesday as Europe remained in the grip of the first major heat wave this summer.The Fabra Observatory, located on a hill overlooking Barcelona, reported an average temperature of 26 degrees Celsius (78 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking records since 1914. The previous hottest average for June was 25.6 C in 2003.The same weather station said that a single-day high of 37.9 C (100 F) for June was recorded Monday, June 30.Barcelona is usually spared the worst heat in Spain, thanks to its location between hills and the Mediterranean in Spain’s northeastern corner. But most of the country has been gripped by the first heat wave of the year.Health warnings were in effect Tuesday in several European Union countries even as conditions began to improve in some parts of the region.Punishing temperatures were forecast to reach 40 C (104 F) in Paris and to stay unusually high in Belgium and the Netherlands. In contrast, temperatures were falling in Portugal, where no red heat warnings were issued.Spain saw a new high mark for June established on Saturday when 46 C (114F) was recorded in the southern province of Huelva, while Sunday’s national average of 28 C (82F) set a record for a high temperature for June 29 since records were started in 1950.“We are seeing these temperatures because we are experiencing a very intense heat wave that has come early in the summer and that is clearly linked to global warming,” Ramón Pascual, the regional delegate for Spain’s weather service in Barcelona, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. France suffocates In France, the national weather agency Météo-France placed several departments under the highest red alert, with the Paris region particularly hard hit.The heat wave, defined as consecutive days of very high temperature, is expected to intensify Tuesday with more than 1,300 schools set to be partially or fully closed, the Education Ministry said.Visitors to the Eiffel Tower without tickets were told to postpone their visits as the summit of the city’s landmark was closed until Thursday.Météo-France also warned of the heightened risk of wildfires due to the drought-stricken soil, compounded by a lack of rain in June and the recent surge in temperature.Climate experts warn that future summers are likely to be hotter than any recorded to date. By 2100, France could be up to 4 C (39 F) warmer, with temperatures exceeding 40 C expected every year and extreme heat spikes potentially reaching 50 C (122 F). According to Météo-France, the country may face a tenfold increase in the number of heat wave days by 2100. Man dies in Italy Farther south, 17 of Italy’s 27 major cities were experiencing a heat wave, according to the Health Ministry.There were torrential rains in Italy’s north on Monday and parts of Bardonecchia near Turin were covered in sludge after the Frejus river burst its banks. Near Bologna, one of the cities under a heat alert Tuesday, the 46-year-old owner of a construction company collapsed and died while repaving a school parking lot, state-run RAI reported.An autopsy was being conducted to determine the cause, but heat was suspected. The CGIL labor union said the death of the man, whom it identified as Ait El Hajjam Brahim, owner of Veneto Pavimenti SAS, showed the need for improved measures to protect construction workers from heat exposure. The Netherlands sweating An annual event in Amsterdam to commemorate the end of slavery in former Dutch colonies was moved forward to avoid the hottest part of the day and in the northern city of Groningen, organizers of an outdoor concert featuring veteran rocker Neil Young also took measures, including adding extra drinking water taps and providing free sunblock.The national weather institute issued an alert for extreme temperatures and smog in parts of the country and warned the eastern Netherlands that severe thunderstorms could break out on Wednesday as the hot weather ends. Portugal improving In Portugal, Lisbon was forecast to reach 33 C (91 F), typical for this time of the year, though some inland areas could still see peaks of 43 C (109 F), according to the national weather agency. June temperature records were broken in two locations in Portugal on June 29.The Portuguese weather service issued a statement Monday night confirming the highest single temperature ever recorded in mainland Portugal for the month of June at 46.6 C on June 29 in the town of Mora, west of Lisbon. The prior record was 44.9 C in 2017. Wilson reported from Barcelona. Jill Lawless in London, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Mike Corder in The Netherlands and David Biller in Rome contributed to this report. Samuel Petrequin and Joseph Wilson, Associated Press
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