Tucker Says ‘Be Brave’ Not a ‘Cucked Coward’

'The key to being brave is brooding about death'

The infamous paleoconservative commentator Tucker Carlson, recently was the keynote speaker at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute for its 70th Anniversary Gala. He posted on Saturday an 11-minute segment on X with the text: “The key to being brave is brooding about death.”

Carlson, at his finest, began by saying, “The person who’s brave wins—period.”

He then insisted today’s stakes are much higher than before, prompting the audience, “Do you want your children to be able to live here? Do you want to have grandchildren at all?”

“The key to being brave is brooding about death,” Carlson told them. “... All anxiety and all fear stems from the most basic of all fears, which is the fear of death.”

His theory is that death is the root of all anxiety, not of the cultural trends, social pressures, or anything else, so we “need to focus on that.” 

Carlson began a discourse telling of his childhood in La Jolla, California and the great taboo of the town—death. 

“It’s like the one thing you could not talk about,” he said. “... The one thing you couldn’t do is talk about dying or any of its attendant symptoms, like aging.”

“There’s a crazy amount of anxiety because no one can acknowledge the core truth of life, which is that it ends,” stated Carlson. He added to talk about death and religion, which implies finitude was fiercely “rejected as repulsive and an attack.”

It made them “crazy” but, more importantly, “cowards.”

As long as you’re afraid of that, you’re not going to be very effective fighting against people who really are serving a cause they believe is larger than themselves.

He said most people, apathetic, don’t want to be bothered out of their comfort zone, so the current political struggle persists. Carlson continued by saying future generations essentially have “no chance.”

“It’s essential not to be afraid to die,” he reiterated. “And once you decide, I’m really not afraid to die; nothing scares you.” You’re free.

Death is “going to be bad no matter what,” Carlson exclaimed. “You might as well die with your shoes on doing something you believe in.” Perhaps that was his mindset when he left Fox News to provide content via X, not needing “corporate approval.”

He continued, “We can have the mindset that frees us from the anxiety over something that we can’t change, that’s going to happen, and at the very best, we can imbue it with meaning—that’s the point—that’s the choice we have.”

Carlson then came full circle to his point that our only choice is to have meaning and to do so by being honest and truthful, even when it is considered blasphemy.

Religion seemed critical as the West post-World Wars began the first secularizing civilization … There was something about the atomic bomb going off, in my opinion, that completely changed people’s assumptions.

The display of Godlike power “gave people the false impression that they were gods,” he stated. “Post-war, our assumptions about the universe changed.”

To Carlson, the new civilization’s “core assumption omits the possibility that we’re not the most powerful force in the universe.” It denies death, God and religion—a trend particular to Christians in the States.

Society, to Carlson, has become entrenched in quite ridiculous worries like “privilege,” sexuality, social trends and “cancellation.” All are meaningless in the face of death and make for an unsustainable society. He then remarked on fervent evangelical nations becoming secular, like Sweden.

Carlson suggested the remedy is to roll the dice on believing in God to allow freedom from fear “other than cowardice.”

Living as a slave. Hating yourself. Being held in contempt by those closest to you. Living without purpose—those are the things to fear. … You’re bravery is scarier to the other side than any weapon you could marshal. They melt in the face of it.

Carlson added, “They’ve only advanced this quickly because they’ve met no resistance at all because everybody is a cucked coward.”

He believes that if 10% of the population were simply to stand up and voice their disgust without fear, “this crap would end immediately—that’s it, that’s all it takes.”

The problem is to combat the fear; one must not be alone. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has for years incriminated conservatives and Christians, laying waste to their lives—no bank account, credit card, job, or social life.

The weeks prior, #BanTheADL was trending on X, pressuring Con Inc. conservatives to actually weigh in. Too many were scared to call out the NGO for its advocacy for censorship, fearing being labeled antisemitic.

Well, the nonprofit won after X owner Musk said he wouldn’t ban the NGO that obliterated his advertising revenue with boycotts. X then issued a statement on antisemitism, and Musk met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, followed by a roundabout with Ben Shapiro and nine Jewish leaders all to discuss antisemitism.

Multi-billionaire Elon Musk doesn’t appear to be afraid of death, but he was certainly afraid of these NGOs and leaders who could have easily labeled, shamed and demonized him for life. 

So, as Carlson says, he was a “cucked coward.”

Censorship is almost guaranteed now for the platform as the leaders pushed Musk for both a crackdown and an expansion in the interpretation of hate speech.

Society must be open to disagree or have exchanges in discourse. Nothing should be off-limits. Still, the precedent has been set by the media and cowardly journalists too afraid to genuinely cover a subject by avoiding the hard truths.

This fear Carlson speaks of won’t change. The media is still censoring, whether it is through editorialization or flat-out removing publications. Academia operates similarly with its NGO arbiters, but if we had numbers—outspoken people—this would not be.

Being free is not easy. Slavery is much easier—just do what you’re told, you lose your rights, and you’re safe, but you’re not free.

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