(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) With woke legacy-media institutions like the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Sports Illustrated all having recently announced mass layoffs, the power of citizen-sleuths and amateur keyboard warriors to sway public opinion has never been greater.
Where hard-hitting journalism once dominated as the persuasive medium of choice, memes, tweet threads and other forms of social media now reign supreme.
In a Monday episode of the Tucker Carlson Encounter, former Fox News star Tucker Carlson interviewed Catturd, one such online s**t-poster who has managed to float to the top of the Internet cesspool, the Gateway Pundit reported.
The Florida panhandle resident—who opts to remain anonymous but has been named by several leftist media outlets as Phillip Buchanan—managed to attain a Twitter following of more than 2.2 million by sharing irreverent and subversive content, much of which humorously touches on right-wing political topics.
His success has led him to branch out into a regular afternoon podcast, among other things. But Catturd’s tweets continue to provide the foundation for his commentary, even garnering the attention of former President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk—not to mention the hordes of angry leftists who have been triggered by them.
Catturd’s online fame first spilled over into the real world in November 2022, when newly retired RINO Rep. Adam Kinzinger threatened him with physical violence over a crudely drawn Ukraine cartoon.
Carlson wryly covered the unhinged reaction on his Fox News show at the time.
“Literal evil,” Kinzinger tweeted. “If I met you in person it would not end well … for you. Sicko.”
Kinzinger, who served in the U.S. Air Force, also attempted to flaunt his military credentials.
“Trolls who have never done a thing in their life pretend to be patriots and laugh at real warriors,” said the future CNN correspondent.
Unbeknownst to Kinzinger, Catturd had enlisted in the U.S. Army right out of high school.
“I spent my 18th birthday in a foxhole in Fort Dix, New Jersey, in basic training,” he told Carlson.
According to Rolling Stone, the thrice-divorced 59-year-old also played in a band and worked at the post office before finding his true calling in the 2010s, with the emergence of Twitter and Trump as two major cultural phenomena.
Asked about his unlikely success, Catturd told Carlson that it had taken him by surprise.
“I never thought I’d have 100 followers,” he said. “It just got legs somehow and it took off.”
The prolific online personality told Carlson that he thought he was liberal for a long time, until he began listening to the late Rush Limbaugh, realizing that “this guy is saying everything I believe.”
Things may have come full-circle last April, when he appeared on a podcast with Limbaugh’s longtime producer James “Snerdley” Golden.
Twitter sensation Catturd reveals his story in EPIC interview on 'Bo Snerdley's Rush Hour' https://t.co/PRUmIQmk5s via @americanwire_
— Bo Snerdley (@BoSnerdley) April 3, 2023
Still, Catturd’s star is likely to rise even more following the interview with Carlson, which had, as of Tuesday afternoon, received more than 9 million views.
9 million views – nuts. https://t.co/ByIzCgrP0E
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) January 23, 2024
Although he has reason to be optimistic about his own prospects, Catturd told Carlson that he shared the same apprehensions many are grappling with about the future of the country, as the Biden administration continues to push America past the brink of constitutional crisis.
“We’re in trouble,” Catturd said in response to Carlson’s question about what lay in store for the coming year. “Sometimes I can’t see a way out of it anymore.”
Gaslighting public officials have succeeded, he noted, in convincing a large portion of the public to deny basic, empirical truths and, instead, to see everything as being morally and factually subjective.
“If you can convince your voters that men can have babies—think about that—you’ve got ’em,” Catturd said.
After the interview, Catturd thanked his followers, noting that he was very nervous but was put at ease by Carlson, calling the TV host an “easy-going, down to earth” man.
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
