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And we just had Tucker, who informs almost the entire Republican right, interviewing a Nazi with Elon Musk promoting it. Would you take that as evidence that anti-Nazi efforts in the US have failed and that we must now quintuple down on them?
Communism and Nazi sympathies are contrarianism born from negative partisanship, not genuine broad support for those ideologies.
Considering that interviewing a Nazi and promoting the interview aren't indicative of any sort of positive opinion on Nazism - in fact, both behaviors are pretty much orthogonal to one's support of or opposition to the ideology, or any ideology - I'm not sure how this could be claimed to be evidence of such a thing.
This idea only works if a person is seriously committed to exploring viewpoints on their own merits rather than using that as a shield to broadcast highly controversial views. Tucker and the people who watch him might not fully agree with Nazi viewpoints as they're espoused, but they probably agree with at least some of them, and more importantly wish they were in the Overton Window in order to make their own views more palatable.
Sure, but you have no credibility with which to make the judgment whether they're seriously committed to exploring viewpoints on their own merits or using it as a shield to broadcast highly controversial views that they want to pull into the Overton window. In general, very few people have that level of credibility when talking about other people's behaviors, and specifically, if those other people are people one disagrees with or dislikes, then they definitely have no credibility in determining such things. If I disagree with them, then regardless of the underlying reality, of course I'll convince myself that these bad people with bad ideas are dishonest cynics who are cynically being dishonest in order to sneak in their bad ideas to the mainstream, and as such, my conclusion that that's what they're doing carries no weight.
This is why, again, interviewing a Nazi or promoting such an interview tells us nothing about how anti- or pro-Nazi they are; it's some dimension other than the actual ground-level ideological/political beliefs that determines if someone believes that publicizing an interview with [ideological/political beliefs they disagree with] is bad. It's either ideological hubris or ideological authoritarianism or some combination of both that are the determinants.
We don't have to use mind-reading here to determine motives. Rather, we can see if he's done similar things to the other side to determine if he has a genuine interest in all sides of the discussion. Has Tucker had a good faith interview with a far left woke person before? As in, one where the goal wasn't to laugh at them or use them as a foil, but to explore their views as he's comfortable doing with Nazis? I highly doubt it, but feel free to prove me wrong.
If we refuse to do this, then we capitulate to grifters who eternally claim they're "just asking questions". It's bad to give JAQing off a pass.
I don't watch Tucker - even clips of his other than, say, as part of a montage of right wingers saying ridiculous things, very rarely shows up in the media I consume - so I don't know if he's ever had a good faith interview with a far left "woke" person before. As best as I can tell, he hasn't, and I'd be happy to presume that he hasn't. Given what far left "woke" people have said about their ideology, this seems to be primarily a consequence of there being a dearth of far left "woke" people who are also willing to even consider being in the same room as Tucker, much less being seen having a conversation with him in public. It's the same phenomenon I've seen with interviewers that I have paid attention to, such as Sam Harris, who was practically begging far left "woke" people to converse with him on his platform as of around 5 years ago, with someone like Ezra Klein being the farthest left/farthest "woke" person he managed to land, IIRC. And Harris, even today, isn't considered nearly as much a right-winger as Tucker is.
But, more to the point, singular examples involving a pundit who likely interviews dozens of people a year, hundreds of people in just a few, isn't meaningful, and even more to the point, when the person never claims to be trying to put together an in-aggregate fairly balanced lineup of interviewees in his show (as best as I can tell, Tucker hasn't claimed this). Maybe he has a heavily right-wing bend in his interviewees, and it's done out of intentional bias rather than out of limited options or even unintentional bias. So? Perhaps Tucker wants to provide a platform on which to have good faith discussions about right-wing ideas, especially those that don't tend to get platforms? After all, if Tucker had a good faith conversation with a far left "woke" person, well, an argument between a far left "woke" person and a rightist like Tucker is about a dime a dozen; the views of someone who's far left "woke" are essentially hegemonic in modern media, and there's precious little to be gained from listening to yet another conversation analyzing and critiquing it. There's some gain, potentially, but, I'll just say that I doubt that Tucker is the kind of brilliant mind who'd be able to extract some extra insight that others had missed when discussing the ideas of this far left "woke" person for the umpteenth time. On the other hand, good faith conversations about far right ideas - certainly of the sort that would be espoused by a Nazi - are difficult to come by outside of niche subcultures like this one. Even someone of Tucker's wit and intelligence would be able to offer a lot of valuable new insights into the world merely by asking basic questions, because almost no one is asking or answering those basic questions in good faith.
So don't give them a pass. Who the heck cares if you do or don't give them a pass? What does not giving them a pass even mean in this context? JAQing off is bad only inasmuch as it overwhelms a limited bandwidth, such as taking up the time of a researcher or expert with questions that offer no insight, which prevents the person from spending that time answering actually meaningful questions. There is no limited bandwidth here; Tucker's interviews aren't being forced to be beamed onto everyone's phones at the cost of people being able to download an interview with a far left "woke" person or whatever. People who don't like the questions that are being asked by Tucker and his ilk can just... not download his interviews and leave their bandwidth open for the types of content they do like. Just because they're asking questions doesn't obligate anyone to answer them or to listen to someone answering them. So don't answer them, and don't listen to them. Go ahead and don't give them a pass; just don't go around claiming that someone else answering them or listening to the answers is somehow indicative of their friendliness to whatever questions and answers are the topic here.
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"Interviewing a Nazi" is not analagous to "teaching Marxism".
Who's "teaching marxism" here? The person I responded to deliberately chose fairly wishy-washy language of "informed by people" because more forceful positions like "teaching marxism" aren't backed up by evidence of being widespread.
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