Hated by All the Right People

A revelatory, jaw-dropping portrait of Tucker Carlson’s career and his history of reinvention, and a story of how the right-wing media lost its mind.

New York Magazine writer Jason Zengerle’s eye-opening narrative follows Tucker Carlson’s infamous journey from gifted young intern at The New Republic to a noxious talking head on Fox News, and then to his dethroning and defenestration.

In the tradition of Our Man and The Loudest Voice in the Room, Zengerle examines how Tucker Carlson’s Zelig-like career offers a unique lens into the confusing, myopic, and utterly shameless evolution of American conservatism, its media presence and punditry, from the 1990s to the present.

‘Jason Zengerle deftly chronicles Tucker Carlson’s ideological evolution from bow-tied libertarian into the MAGA media’s most influential voice. This nuanced biography tells the urgent story of the Republican Party’s capitulation to Donald Trump.‘
-Gabriel Sherman, New York Times bestselling author of The Loudest Voice in the Room

‘The Tucker Carlson who emerges from this narrative is by turns charming, funny, repulsive, and base. The fascinating and subtle character study of this twisted soul alone is enough to make Hated by All the Right People a rewarding read. But Jason Zengerle goes beyond that. He takes us into the worlds of elite magazine journalism and lowbrow television to tell the story of the conservative movement’s intellectual debasement, turning these institutions into a vehicle to show how the Republican Party became an instrument of populist authoritarianism in the Trump era. The result is a story that’s both highly enjoyable and deeply insightful.‘
-Jonathan Chait, staff writer at The Atlantic

‘Jason Zengerle’s Hated By All the Right People is an incisive, deeply reported account of how, and why, Tucker Carlson transformed himself from establishment Washington’s bow-tied enfant terrible into Donald Trump’s far-right Rasputin – with profound effects on the nation’s politics and culture that we’re only beginning to grasp. Anyone hoping to understand America’s radical transformation in the age of Trump needs to read this valuable book.’
Joshua Green, author of Devil’s Bargain Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the nationalist uprising

Author Biography

Jason Zengerle is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. He previously was the political correspondent for GQ, a contributing editor for New York Magazine, and a senior editor for The New Republic, and has written for The Atlantic, Slate, Politico, and numerous other publications. He lives with his wife, son, and daughter in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.