Posted on February
29, 2024
Tell 'Em, Tucker!
More things that are better in Russia
than over here
by
Daniel
Clark
No, that's not Johnny LaRue of SCTV we've seen in a
recent series of unintentionally comical travelogues from Russia; it's
everybody's favorite political chameleon, Tucker Carlson. The one-time mainstream conservative Weekly
Standard contributor, turned bow tie-wearing CNN and MSNBC host, turned
"star" on Dancing With the Stars, turned Trumpie, then anti-Trumpie and
then Trumpie again, turned anti-capitalist, and hater of all "warmongers"
except for the actual aggressors, famously traveled to Moscow several weeks ago
to interview Vladimir Putin.
What
nobody expected was that Carlson's meeting with the Russian president would be
the least pro-Russian among four segments he recorded while in the capital
city. From there, he went to the Metro
station, which he declared to be "nicer than anything in our country." He even expressed admiration for the
condition of the building "today, February 2024, in the middle of the war," as
if the battlefield were on Russian soil, just outside the station doors.
Next, he went to a "hypermarket," which is sort of
like a European version of Sam's Club, where he reacted as if he'd never seen
food before, at one point deriving indecent pleasure from the smell of a loaf of
bread. Marveling at how inexpensive
groceries are in Russia as opposed to the United States (unless you're earning
a Russian wage, that is), he concluded that this demonstrated the inferiority
of America. "Seeing what things cost and
how people live, it will radicalize you against our leaders," he said. "And that's how I feel. Radicalized."
From there, he went to a Moscow fast food restaurant
that used to be a McDonalds, and is now a knock-off version of same. Declaring his Lord-knows-what-burger and
fries to be "McAwesome," he deduced from this that life in Russia is "not bad,"
while at the same time hinting that even if it is bad, that's just because it
has been embaddened by American sanctions.
Believe it or not, Carlson has a lot of critics who,
to put it mildly, are unconvinced by his findings. It seems that three examples of American
inferiority just aren't enough to satisfy them.
If you find yourself among this group of skeptics, perhaps you will
finally be radicalized by this more extensive list of things that are better in
Russia than they are over here:
* Russia's presidential elections are not the least
bit divisive.
* In that country, drunk driving is less of a concern,
because people don't own cars and there's nowhere to go.
* At least in Russia, people would still be allowed to
use cash, if only they had any.
* In Russia, there is no Super Bowl halftime show, no
Super Bowl pregame, no Super Bowl commercials, and no Super Bowl.
*
In this country, we actually see commercials for beet-flavored gummies. At least borscht is not chewable. Not good borscht anyway, assuming the
existence of such a thing.
* There are no illegal aliens in Russia.
* Maybe, just maybe, you can get through an entire
hockey game in Russia without having "Cotton Eye Joe" inflicted on you.
* In Russian roulette, you stand an 83 percent chance
of winning!
* Russia is more sexually liberated, if the
president's Lady Godiva photo shoot is any indication.
* When the finest food in your country is fish eggs,
you don't get fat.
* Russia has been basking in the absence of Mr. and
Mrs. Bernie Sanders ever since the end of their honeymoon.
* If you record people speaking Russian and play it
backwards, it sounds just like Led Zeppelin.
* The Russians never find themselves in a "quagmire,"
even when they suffer more than a hundred times as many casualties as the
United States did in winning the Iraq War.
* Unlike the wasteful American military, Russia is
still recycling tanks from the 1940s.
* In Gorky Park, the villain turned out to be a
filthy American capitalist pigdog, and we know that movies don't lie.
* Americans just don't get nearly enough use out of
the letter V.
* If a Russian wants to see a statue of Lenin, he does
not have to travel all the way to Seattle.
* Chernobyl remains entirely unspoiled by
commercialism.
* "Back in the USSR" is a less awful song than "Born
in the USA."
* Russians can wear fur without worrying about some
kook splashing paint on them.
* Nobody makes an issue of the Russian president's
obvious mental impairment, so it must not be a problem.
* Our government has yet to succeed in making our
household appliances as nonfunctional as they are in Russia.
* Russia can't possibly be guilty of all those
political poisonings if they never even succeeded in keeling moos and skverell.
* Neither the Dallas Cowboys nor the Atlanta Braves
have ever claimed to be Russia's Team.
* Russians have been not drinking Bud Light a lot
longer than Americans have.
* In Russia, they would never have allowed Ralph Nader
on the presidential ballot.
* When you can't buy toilet paper, those Tolstoy
novels are a godsend.
* Meryl Streep is not from Russia.
* The Russians may have crashed a spaceship into the
moon, but at least they actually got it there, unlike you-know-who.
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