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Is there not a lot to criticize? Only in a very binary thinking is criticizing the US some nefarious act and proof of bad will. Or maybe it's just bad when Tucker does it, and if you feel like criticizing Russia that's fine. Let's work out the Russell conjugation: I offer good-faith criticisms of the United States, you disparage America as part of a project to prove how great Russia is.
To anyone who can walk and chew gum at the same time, it's possible to say something nice about how Moscow runs the Metro without also calling for American dictatorship. Or whatever exactly you're alleging: you seem to have smuggled in a lot of unstated assumptions about all sorts of things.
This is exactly the kind of lazy logic lazy politicians love to run on, and is why they're all-in on TikTok. Instead of running on anything concrete (why is the Moscow Metro nicer than New York's?), they can bulldoze through lazy speeches about American Values, Democracy Abroad, Standing Up For What We Believe In. China is bad, and I did something about China by [selling TikTok to a consortium of Facebook, Saudi princes, Australian moguls, and a tech CEO from Thailand]. But Donald Trump isn't strong on China, because he said Kung Pao Chicken is delicious. This November, vote for someone who will take the Chinese threat swriously -- see, the best part is that by running on foreign policy, politicians don't have to concede any messy realities to real political actors, although mass immigration is making sure that every tribe in the worls eventually becomes a key American voting bloc.
I feel like you're being deliberately obtuse here. Of course you can criticize the US or the way that things are done here. But you don't have to go to an adversary country to do that, nor hold them up as an example of where it's supposedly done better. Tucker's examples were bad for other reasons, e.g. cherrypicking and just being wrong about basic facts like Russian inflation being less than the US's. But beyond that, Tucker has had a pro-Russian bent for a long time, so it's a motte-and-bailey to say there was nothing else going on there. He could have taken examples from friendly countries like Japan or Europe, but he didn't. He also could have added caveats explaining how he didn't think the US should be like Russia in most ways but that clean subways were an exception, but he didn't. His entire trip was done to delegitimize the West and hold up Russia as a better alternative. It's why he went and asked softball questions to Putin, giving the leader of an enemy country a high-profile platform to say whatever he wanted to Western audiences.
As a thinking adult, I don't actually need public figures to tediously signpost everything they say so I don't assume they mean something they never said. I can actually conclude, by myself, without anybody holding my hand, that when Tucker Carlson is praising the Moscow Metro, he is not simultaneously saying that the US should become exactly like Russia in every way. This is especially tedious on your part because Tucker actually does proffer all of the caveats you're asking for, and then describes how Singapore, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi, etc., are also all nicer than America. For example, check 1:38 in the following:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hrE3yr4ss8U
If you really want to argue this point, I suggest you quote Tucker specifically and make your case. Because, otherwise, I suspect that you waltzed into some lazy narrative about how "Tucker has had a pro-Russian bent for a long time" without particular basis, don't want to admit you were wrong, and that this in fact characterizes the majority of your post above.
You actually do have to go to Russia if you want to conclude that (some of) Russia is nicer than the US. And this argument doesn't become radically different if you replace "Russia" with "Bosnia" or "France". There's no secret dogwhistle where Tucker visiting Russia to interview Vladimir Putin is the secret additional context that finally unlocks the true meaning that Tucker really wants to impose Russian-style dictatorship on the West.
This is childish thinking. Why is it a bad thing to let Putin speak? When journalists lie and tell you they are safeguarding democracy by not platforming certain ideas, the power fantasy is for the people doing the gatekeeping, not you in the audience! Vladimir Putin is a global figure, he has a "high-profile platform" already. He can say "whatever he wants to Western audiences" all the time. He frequently does!
I could do a response here but:
etc.
Being maximally antagonistic while still staying just within rules to not get modded is still annoying, and my past experience on this site has proven time and again that these discussions are almost always unproductive. For the record, I probably shouldn't have done the "right back at you" or the "you're being obtuse" parts above. I probably should have just not responded at all when you led with "choked with lazy cliches", although to be fair the rest of your first comment was fine and it's only down here in the replies that you have obnoxious stuff in almost every paragraph.
I mean to be antagonistic, within the rules. I think your frame of the issues is infaltalizing, and I want to call that out. It's not personal, I don't want to be simply mean, and I appreciate your graciousness in conceding a few flaws. For my part I thought my first post was phrased in an unnecessary way, especially my opening sentence But I enjoyed the work of putting my later objections down and I was too busy that day to write a nicer head. So if there's any bad-feeling here that's my fault.
Don't.
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