Why Is Tucker Carlson So Quiet?

It would be disappointing if he took hush money and gagged himself – and potentially the rest of us too.  But news organizations, universities, think tanks, and other cultural institutions ostensibly devoted to informing us are devising new ways to silence us all.

Tucker Carlson has been quiet since his dismissal from Fox News.  Notwithstanding sensational headlines that he has “broken his silence,” he has done no such thing.  Why is he not going after the Cancel Culture at Fox with both barrels?  He often says – convincingly – that “no amount of money and power could dissuade him from telling the truth.”  

Did he sign a “non-disparagement agreement” (NDA)?  That would be out of character – and disappointing.  In fields like media and academics, such agreements are inherently unethical, because they protect not legitimate trade secrets (like non-disclosure agreements) but unethical conduct, such as censoring, “canceling”, or purging unfavored views and violating journalistic or academic freedom.  NDAs conceal wrongdoing of which the employer (usually a college or media outlet or other institution ostensibly devoted to “truth”) is ashamed.  And it is also ashamed of using the NDA itself, which invariably prohibits disclosing its own existence.¹ If Fox is muzzling its staff – and trying to conceal the fact that it is muzzling its staff – the world should know.  

It is important to understand that journalists, professors, civil servants, or clergy who are dismissed because they expose wrongdoing or offend important people really have only one effective recourse: damaging the institution’s reputation by going public with evidence that it suppresses truth.  But this is precisely what the NDA forbids and punishes, compounding the offense.  It is prima facie proof that the employer has things to hide. 

Accepting such “hush money” also comes dangerously close to surrendering First Amendment freedoms, because it is difficult to expose unethical practices without implicating the unethical organization hiding behind the NDA.  If Carlson must hold his tongue about Fox News, must he also hold it about all media chicanery?  In other words, NDAs commandeer the public justice system to punish, not just attacks on the employer, but the broader free speech it exists to protect.  They turn the public judiciary into a private goon squad to punish, not the wrongdoers but the wronged.  (I believe they are unconstitutional and unenforceable for this reason.)  If Carlson lashes out at the “mainstream media,” would that violate such an NDA protecting Fox?  He has lawyers and money to contest that, but the rest of us do not, and he should consider that before he agrees to such a bargain with the devil.  

Still, not only is the First Amendment clearly important to him in principle, but so is his own freedom and reputation, and it is difficult to believe he would gag himself in that way.  Even for millions in a payout that he could earn better elsewhere by being free from any muzzle. 

But Perhaps….

There is another possibility.  I believe they have him by the short-and-curlies.  While a number of extortionate new mechanisms have been devised by judicial thugs, one in particular has become a favorite of conservative organizations that want to betray their principles without the world knowing.

Conservative employers like media companies and universities are now at the forefront of one of the most sinister legal developments in silencing dissent and one that builds upon the judicial tyrannies I described in a previous article and post.  This maneuver has escaped most observers because that is precisely its purpose: to smother dissent and criticism beneath a cover of secrecy and legal retribution.

So effective are these legal devices at concealing both dirty deeds and their own existence that few people know about them.  Like NDAs, they constitute a serious innovation in judicial chicanery, one that allows public justice to be hijacked to muzzle all of us.  

This gives them a major role in the degeneration of the media, colleges and universities, and other cultural institutions.  Crooked organizations can dismiss politically incorrect journalists, professors, scholars, students, civil servants, and others without the world ever knowing, because the punishments can be severe. 

In my next article/post, I will describe what I suspect they are holding over his head and why he is holding his tongue.  And why we should all be concerned.

Stephen Baskerville is Professor of Political Studies at the Collegium Intermarium in Warsaw.  He writes about the politics of the law and other topics.  Points in this article are documented in a paper published by the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.  An earlier version of this piece was published in the American Thinker.

1. One conservative Christian college dismisses its faculty without notice (much as Carlson was dismissed), and then tries to conceal it with this:

• Dr. [X] agrees that he will not disclose the terms of this agreement at any time to anyone.

• Dr. [X] agrees that he will not at any time disparage [the College], its affiliates or related organizations, directors, officers, employees, or students in any way.

• Dr. [X] that he will not initiate communication in any fashion at any time with anyone directly or indirectly associated with any accrediting agency…