![Cover image for Ship of Fools [electronic resource] : How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution](https://images.yourcloudlibrary.com/delivery/img?type=DOCUMENTIMAGE&documentID=sc1s8r9&token=nobody "Cover image for Ship of Fools [electronic resource] : How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution")
Summary
Summary
The #1 New York Times bestseller from FOX News star of Tucker Carlson Tonight offers "a targeted snipe at the Democrats and Republicans and their elite enablers" ( New York Journal of Books ) in a funny political commentary on how America's ruling class has failed everyday Americans.
"Informal and often humorous...an entertainingly told narrative of elite malfeasance" ( Publishers Weekly ), Tucker Carlson's Ship of Fools tells the truth about the new American elites, a group whose power and wealth has grown beyond imagination even as the rest of the country has withered. The people who run America now barely interact with it. They fly on their own planes, ski on their own mountains, watch sporting events far from the stands in sky boxes. They have total contempt for you.
In Ship of Fools, Tucker Carlson offers a blistering critique of our new overlords and answers the all-important question: How do we put the country back on course? Traditional liberals are gone, he writes. The patchouli-scented hand-wringers who worried about whales and defended free speech have been replaced by globalists who hide their hard-edged economic agenda behind the smokescreen of identity politics. They'll outsource your job while lecturing you about transgender bathrooms. Left and right, Carlson says, are no longer meaningful categories in America. "The rift is between those who benefit from the status quo, and those who don't."
Our leaders are fools, Carlson concludes, "unaware that they are captains of a sinking ship." But in the signature and witty style that viewers of Tucker Carlson Tonight enjoy so much, Ship of Fools is "bulging with big and interesting ideas, presented succinctly with wit and precision, each chapter a potential book in itself" ( The Washington Times ).
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In informal and often humorous style, Fox News host Carlson (Tucker Carlson Tonight) opines about what's gone wrong in America, using Plato's allegory of an adrift ship commandeered by a feckless crew to tear into the ruling class who "work against the public's interests," allowing citizens to suffer through years of war, massive unemployment, and declining health. He denounces liberal politicians' embrace of tech companies, accuses powerful politicians of supporting open borders, castigates warmongers in both parties, decries campus identity politics, pooh-poohs the idea that white supremacists are numerous or powerful today, and criticizes environmental activists for evangelizing about climate change but giving up on littering. He says the average person is repeatedly ignored for lofty ideals that make elites feel good but don't solve problems. The book ends with a plea for the ruling class to care more about citizens and their priorities. This isn't an argument, and there are unsupported assertions on nearly every page; at one point, for example, Carlson claims that politicians "fantasize about replacing Americans who live here, with their antiquated attitudes and seemingly intractable problems, with a new population of more pliant immigrants." But it's an entertainingly told narrative of elite malfeasance that will no doubt appeal to many readers. Agents: Matt Latimer and Keith Urbahn, Javelin. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Regardless of political affinity, readers of Ship of Fools will be nodding their head in disgust but for very different reasons. Depending on political affiliation, they'll either feel that Carlson has summed up the major grievances held against those he refers to as elites or they'll find his political punditry to be narrow-minded, mean-spirited, and bigoted. The Fox News host is emphatic in his arguments against leaders of both the Democrats and Republicans, yet reserves his examples of malfeasance mostly for Democrats. In a bit of autobiography, Carlson shares stories from his youth that are straight out of the 1980's sitcom, Family Ties, in which Carlson is the real-life Alex P. Keaton, the fictional Young Republican whose ex-hippie parents and community in California are to be mocked. Long gone is Carlson's somewhat charming, bowtie-wearing facade. Here Carlson is angry about the changes in America, and at those who have ushered in a world where white men are becoming a minority.--Dan Kaplan Copyright 2019 Booklist
