Tucker Carlson: How Framing and Enthymemes Can Persuade a Nation
by Spencer Levering
Updated January 21, 2024
On January 6, 2021, an estimated 10,000 protesters converged in Washington, D.C. and violently fought police to invade the United States Capitol building in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election (Rubin et al.). This marked the largest attack on the Capitol building since British troops invaded and burned the Capitol in 1814, making January 6 a significant event in American history (Vera). Supporters of then-President Donald Trump made up most of the crowd, insisting that Trump won the election even though Biden won the majority of the Electoral College votes (National Archives). News about the Capitol riot spread quickly, with most mainstream news outlets covering it by the end of the day, letting Americans witness the attacks from their homes. How did Americans make sense of this event, especially the tens of millions of Trump voters who were not at the Capitol?
Eight and a half months after the January 6 riot, Tucker Carlson, host of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, aired his first large primetime segment discussing the event titled “‘Insurrection’ Day” (Carlson, What really happened). While Carlson offered light coverage of the riot on the evening of January 6, it took until September 23, 2021 for his show to dedicate an episode to the day’s events. At the time, Carlson’s show was the most-watched cable news show, raking in more than 3.3 million viewers per night (Katz). Given Carlson’s dedicated viewership and the fact that Tucker Carlson Tonight airs on the most-watched cable news channel in the country (Joyella), his rhetoric is important to analyze because it guides the opinions of millions of voters across the country. If you have an interest in understanding the cogs that operate the largest political commentary television show in America, then analyzing Carlson’s rhetoric is necessary. Analyzing his first episode dedicated to the events of the Capitol attack is especially important because it marks a moment where the most influential political commentator in America is delivering the talking points he and his writers had been meticulously crafting for over half a year. Using the rhetorical concepts of framing and enthymeme, in this paper, I show how Tucker Carlson purposefully misleads his audience, obscures information, and hides right-wing dog whistles in order to advance a larger conservative agenda.
To conduct this close rhetorical reading of “‘Insurrection’ Day,” I observed the episode while reading its transcript two times, employing two different analytical lenses. During the first watch, I tried to understand the show as an outsider looking in. I noted moments where it felt as if Carlson was making a persuasive argument that would appeal to Fox News’ conservative base. On my second watch, I spent more time defining these especially persuasive moments while analyzing how they function together in this single episode. What I found surprised me. After watching and reading the transcript for “‘Insurrection’ Day,” I was initially confused by Carlson’s rhetoric. As a new viewer, Carlson seemed scatterbrained, switching between different political topics frequently while occasionally losing sight of what the episode should be dedicated to: the January 6 riot. But upon rewatches and rereads of this episode, it becomes clear how this topic-changing is done purposefully. To analyze these switches and, as a result, the effectiveness of Carlson’s rhetoric, an understanding of framing is required.
First studied by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, framing is “the process of defining the context or issues surrounding a question, problem, or event in a way that serves to influence how the context or issues are perceived and evaluated” (American Psychological Association). Put simply, framing refers to how the way information is presented to us affects our perception, understanding, and acting on that information. For example, if a friend was trying to convince you to watch their favorite movie and told you there’s a 90% chance you’ll like it, you’ll be more likely to watch it than if they told you there’s a 10% chance you’ll dislike it. Even though both of those statements essentially mean the same thing, framing the movie as an enjoyable experience makes the idea of viewing it more favorable. Framing isn’t inherently evil, but Carlson uses framing in a similar way in order to control your thought processes. In his “‘Insurrection’ Day” broadcast, Carlson uses framing in 3 distinct ways: to discredit, to scare, and to cherry-pick.
To start, let’s analyze how Tucker discredits others with frames. Before even mentioning the January 6 attack, the broadcast begins with Carlson referencing the 1971 bombing of the Capitol by the far-left group Weather Underground. By starting the entire discussion of January 6 with talk of leftist political violence, Carlson discredits the actions of January 6 rioters by making them appear as civil compared to Weather Underground, or the “Marxist group” that “planned to overthrow the U.S. government,” as Tucker puts it. In sections of his broadcast, Carlson includes clips from other mainstream news networks that feature high-profile Democratic leaders, news anchors from NBC, CNN, and MSNBC, and a slew of other left-wing pundits describing January 6. After these clips play, Carlson disparages these figures, calling them “shameless” and “liars” multiple times. Even before the clips are shown, Tucker is priming his audience to be highly skeptical of what they’re about to see. He prologued a montage of NBC, CNN, and MSNBC clips by explaining how “the media” distorts history, singled out a pundit by calling him “a guy who writes popular histories for airport bookstores,” and bluntly calls the montage “lies.” While this series of tangents initially feels unrelated to the events of January 6th itself, these moments are extremely important. Carlson ultimately wants his viewers to distrust the Democratic Party, and he achieves that goal by targeting specific left-wing individuals, discrediting their ideas, and associating Democrats with untrustworthiness. All of these examples highlight how framing works to subtly discredit an idea or person without engaging them argumentatively.
Outside of discrediting individuals and groups, Carlson also uses framing to alter the amount of fear his audience feels. Carlson has a knack for describing ordinary occurrences in a scary way. For example, when Carlson reads excerpts from a report by the Department of Justice explaining that they won’t release security footage from inside of the Capitol for security reasons, he employs an exaggerated tone of voice to make reasonable security decisions sound like a tyrannical government cover-up. Later, while trying to argue that the mainstream media is lying to everyone, Carlson explains, “…when they keep beating you over the head with the same talking point again and again and again, beware … when all of them are using exactly the same line, maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe it’s coordinated.” To fearful Fox News viewers, this sounds like there’s a media conspiracy that’s trying to brainwash the population. But once you peel back the scary tone Carlson uses and see what he’s actually saying, you realize that Carlson is just describing the concept of news. Media pundits do frequently repeat talking points, but Occam’s razor suggests that this is most likely due to lazy reporting or the media’s need to appeal to a mass audience instead of a multi-billion dollar conspiracy against America. Without proper framing, this argument lacks strength because it isn’t actually an argument, it’s a definition. But since Tucker frames the idea in a certain way, it causes viewers to perceive what he’s saying as evidence that a left-wing conspiracy is going to destroy the United States. While framing can be used to increase fear levels, it can also be used to decrease fear. A 2022 study by Purdue University and University of Utah scholars analyzed the vocabulary used by mainstream news outlets in the aftermath of the January 6 attack and how different news outlets described the event in different ways (Zulli et al.). What they found was that in the days following January 6, every mainstream outlet besides Fox News used harsh language to describe the event (e.g., riot, attack, terrorism). Fox News, however, employed softer language to describe the situation (e.g., protest, march, Americans). Carlson himself uses this softened language to reference January 6, calling those at the Capitol protesters, Americans, and even tourists. Carlson even puts “insurrection” in quotes in the segment’s title to mock other news outlets’ usage of the word. By doing this, it makes Tucker’s audience subconsciously accept the opinions of the January 6 protesters. This framing allows television viewers to side with criminals. Carlson makes one criminal in particular very favorable: Jacob Chansley, also known as the QAnon Shaman. Chansley gained national notoriety for being seen at the Capitol donning no shirt, red, white, and blue face paint, a coonskin cap with Viking horns, and a spear with an American flag tied to it (Rabinowitz and Polantz). Carlson generously frames video of Chansley as “the Chewbacca guy” while claiming he’s an “al-Qaeda operative” while employing an ironic tone, and says he looks “more like a confused street performer than a dangerous terrorist.” All of this framing causes viewers to perceive the most memorable man at the Capitol on January 6 as a lost, loveable guy who doesn’t know any better. And if Tucker can convince his audience that this man did nothing wrong, who’s to say he can’t do that for every Capitol protester?
In order to display the reality Carlson wants to convey, editors for Tucker Carlson Tonight must cherry-pick the reality that he shows his audience. To be clear, every media outlet participates in some amount of cherry-picking. The average person doesn’t have the time to care about every detail of every news event every day, so journalists attempt to simplify stories while still maintaining a level of nuance that parallels reality. But Tucker Carlson Tonight isn’t interested in portraying reality, it’s interested in advancing a political agenda. This means that instead of showing the hundreds of hours of videos depicting insurrectionists violently and angrily invading the Capitol, Carlson’s show picks the relatively boring camera footage and argues that January 6 was a calm and peaceful day. When Tucker introduces the QAnon Shaman, he does so by showing a video of him and another protester standing by themselves in the Senate chamber exchanging small talk with a Capitol Police officer. Whenever his broadcast decides to show footage of Trump-supporting rioters in the Capitol, Carlson plays a couple of minutes of them aimlessly wandering the halls, looking like they’re in a shopping mall. Instead of showing video of Trump supporters breaking down windows, crushing Capitol Police into corners, and threatening violence against Democrats, Tucker deliberately shows footage that frames the January 6 rioters as calm, peaceful protesters. In fact, the only time Carlson shows violent footage is to highlight three rioters wearing all-black tactical gear breaking a window to enter the Capitol in order to insinuate that they’re federal agents. Interestingly, that video clip cuts before you see anyone else follow the three “federal agents,” potentially cutting off footage of other Trump-supporting rioters entering after them. Framing cherry-picked video the way Carlson does on his broadcast is incredibly powerful rhetorically. It allows him to say that he’s showing footage of reality, but because Tucker’s only showing the moments he wants his audience to see, he misleads his audience into a false reality that he can then craft an argument around. Whenever Carlson frames his arguments, whether it’s to discredit, scare, or cherry-pick, he does it to ultimately craft a defendable position that he and all of his viewers can use in their arguments.
Carlson uses framing to ensure his audience is in a certain state of mind, but how does he covertly deliver conservative talking points to his viewers? Throughout “‘Insurrection’ Day,” Tucker accomplishes this through his use of the enthymeme. Enthymemes, for those unfamiliar with the concept, are essentially arguments that happen between the lines. They require the listener to fill in gaps of knowledge in order to complete the argument the speaker is making. For example, if you were arguing about where to eat lunch and your friend said, “We should eat at Taco Bell because I’m craving a burrito,” enthymemes could help fill in valuable information about what the speaker is looking to get out of this argument. Since the speaker emphasized their desire for a burrito, you can assume that the location the burrito is from doesn’t matter. This allows the listener to suggest going to Chipotle since one person can get the burrito they crave and the other can get the food they find tasty. The enthymeme is a useful tool that can have a great benefit to our life. When used in everyday discussions, enthymemes can make an argument stronger and more succinct. However, enthymemes also have the capability to conceal a speaker’s true motives, potentially causing dangerous rhetoric to be masked as something more normal. Research conducted by a scholar at Gonzaga University analyzed how Donald Trump used enthymemes in his communications (Hayes). The researcher determined that Trump frequently smuggled misogyny, racism, and classism into his tweets and speeches by using language that was neutral on the surface but bigoted in its meaning. Since Donald Trump was infamous for his love of Fox News, it isn’t a stretch to think that Fox News hosts like Carlson gave him enthymemes to use in his own life.
While Carlson himself smuggling far-right opinions into everyday life is relatively new, a good comparison can be made with a group that has a much longer presence in America: white supremacists. Being an out-and-about white supremacist is no longer as popular as it once was in America, so in order to grow their presence, openly white supremacist organizations have developed highly effective rhetoric. They’ve especially taken a liking to Tucker’s broadcasts because of his ability to communicate white supremacist talking points through enthymemes. Even though Carlson has called white supremacy “a hoax” and “a conspiracy theory used to divide the country” (Rueb and Taylor), numerous notable white supremacists like Andrew Anglin and Nick Fuentes (White Supremacists), as well as Richard Spencer and David Duke (Maza), have all expressed favor towards Carlson’s show because of his ability to discretely deliver white supremacist talking points. Even though Tucker doesn’t want to admit it, his broadcast is a modern beacon for white supremacy because of his usage of the enthymeme. And since he has mastered the enthymeme, it’s worthwhile to analyze how he uses it to discuss the January 6 attack.
In order to complete his arguments, Carlson frequently utilizes enthymemes. For example, when discussing how the media conceals “leftist” violence, he suddenly brings up how “there are still a lot of Americans who think a right-winger killed JFK.” To Fox News outsiders, invoking the John F. Kennedy assassination seems confusing and irrelevant. But that event has spawned countless conspiracy theories, and it looks like Carlson is trying to cash in on it. Research from the University of Pennsylvania discovered that conservative media viewers were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories (Romer and Jamieson). So when Tucker mentions the JFK assassination, he is using an enthymeme to secretly tell his viewers to see January 6 as a conspiracy too. To Fox News viewers, if the media was effective at covering up details about a presidential assassination, then they could easily twist the protest at the Capitol to fit their narratives. At the end of the segment, Carlson bombards viewers with a flurry of enthymematic arguments about the McCloskey family, the Covington kids, George Floyd, and Hunter Biden’s laptop. While average Americans may not be familiar with all of these stories, they all have special significance to Fox News coverage. To Fox viewers, the McCloskeys (Halon) and the Covington kids (Marshall) were people unjustifiably labeled as white supremacists, George Floyd’s death was caused by a drug overdose (Carlson, George Floyd), and Hunter Biden’s laptop is the largest foreign intelligence scandal in decades (Turley). When Tucker says these names, he’s making viewers remember times when other news sources “lied,” causing them to distrust news sources other than Fox News. When Tucker says an enthymematic topic, it lets viewers fill in the gaps and feel like they’ve come to their own conclusion. In reality, the conclusions they reach aren’t their own, they’re the conclusions Carlson and Fox News want them to come to.
After analyzing the “‘Insurrection’ Day” segment from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, one can see why Carlson is one of the most-watched political commentators in the country. Through his usage of framing and enthymemes, Tucker crafts intricate arguments that discredit other news sources, strike fear into his viewers, and portray a false reality while weaving in dangerous ideologies that perpetuate Republican ideals. This combination of factors keeps viewers glued to their screens night after night and makes Carlson a prominent news figure in America. Looking toward the future, scholars should dedicate more time to analyzing the rhetoric of prominent conservative broadcasters like Carlson. Very few scholarly studies have been conducted to understand his rhetoric and this lack of analysis needs to be filled because understanding how millions of Americans get their news every day is crucial to creating a more united country and advancing society for the betterment of everyone.
Works Cited
American Psychological Association. Framing. APA Dictionary of Psychology, https://dictionary.apa.org/framing.
Carlson, Tucker. “Tucker: What really happened on Jan 6.” Fox News, 24 September 2021, https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/tucker-carlson-tonight-on-biden-late-night-hosts.
—. “Tucker Carlson: Everything the media didn’t tell you about the death of George Floyd.” Fox News, 11 March 2021, https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-george-floyd-death-what-media-didnt-tell-you.
Halon, Yael. “Armed St. Louis homeowner speaks out: ‘When I saw that mob … I thought that we would be overrun in a second’.” Fox News, 30 June 2020, https://www.foxnews.com/media/armed-st-louis-homeowner-speaks-out-protest.
Hayes, Tracey J. “Trump’s Digital Rhetoric of Hate: The Use of Enthymemes in Creating Division.” Journal of Hate Studies, vol. 17, no. 1, 5 October 2021, pp. 14-34. Doi: 10.33972/jhs.196.
Joyella, Mark. “Fox News Hits 23rd Consecutive Month As Most-Watched Cable News As CNN Sees Gains In January.” Forbes, 1 February 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2023/02/01/fox-news-hits-23rd-consecutive-month-as-most-watched-in-cable-news-as-cnn-sees-gains-in-january/?sh=76eb82ce5f59.
Katz, A.J. “Sept. ‘21 Cable News Ranker: Tucker Carlson Tonight, The Five, Hannity are Top 3 for the Month.” Adweek Network, 29 September 2021, https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/sept-21-cable-news-ranker-tucker-carlson-tonight-the-five-hannity-are-top-3-for-the-month/490361/.
Marshall, Leslie. “Covington students are still kids – Why did so many adults ignore that in their rush to condemn them?” Fox News, 22 January 2019, https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/covington-students-are-still-kids-why-did-so-many-adults-ignore-that-in-the-rush-to-condemn-them.
Maza, Carlos. “Why white supremacists love Tucker Carlson.” Vox, 21 July 2017, https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/7/21/16008190/strikethrough-white-supremacists-love-tucker-carlson.
National Archives. 2020 Electoral College Results. 16 April 2021, https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/2020.
Rabinowitz, Hannah and Polantz, Katelyn. “‘QAnon Shaman’ Jacob Chansley sentenced to 41 months in prison for role in US Capitol riot.” CNN, 17 November 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/17/politics/jacob-chansley-qanon-shaman-january-6-sentencing/index.html.
Romer, Daniel and Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. “Conspiratorial thinking, selective exposure to conservative media, and response to COVID-19 in the US.” Social Science & Medicine, vol. 291, December 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114480.
Rubin, Olivia, et al. “7 hours, 700 arrests, 1 year later: The Jan. 6 Capitol attack, by the numbers.” ABC7NY, 6 January 2022, https://abc7ny.com/jan-6-insurrection-us-capitol-riot/11428976/.
Rueb, Emily S. and Taylor, Derrick B. “Tucker Carlson of Fox Falsely Calls White Supremacy a ‘Hoax’.” The New York Times, 8 August 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/business/media/tucker-carlson-white-supremacy.html.
Turley, Jonathan. “MSNBC analyst who mocked Hunter Biden laptop story rewarded with a White House role. What a surprise.” Fox News, 30 August 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/msnbc-analyst-dismissed-hunter-biden-laptop-story-rewarded-white-house-role.
Vera, Amir. “There have been other attacks at the US Capitol before this week.” CNN, 7 January 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/us/us-capitol-violence-history-trnd/index.html.
“White Supremacists Applaud Tucker Carlson’s Promotion of Replacement Theory.” Anti-Defamation League, 22 April 2021, https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/white-supremacists-applaud-tucker-carlsons-promotion-replacement-theory.
Zulli, Diana, et al. “News Framing in the Aftermath of the January 6 Attacks on the U.S. Capitol: An Analysis of Labels, Definitional Uncertainty, and Contextualization.” American Behavioral Scientist, 11 May 2022, doi: 10.1177/00027642221096333.
—
Spencer Levering is a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh. He is double majoring in communications and psychology with a certificate in digital media and will graduate in Spring 2025. At Pitt, Spencer is a staff writer for The Pitt News and plays the double bass in Pitt’s Symphony Orchestra. In his free time, Spencer enjoys solving crossword puzzles and being with his family.
queen city writers 
You must be logged in to post a comment.