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The simplest answer to this inquiry is that it didn’t.
I daresay that Carlson did, indeed, have a nice time when he visited Moscow. As a rich foreign tourist who was being carefully minded by the Russian government, he was undoubtedly exposed to the Moscow that its champions wanted him to see. And that city, I’ll wager, is pretty swell. But still. Better than every city in the United States? The idea is ridiculous. I have been to Moscow. I have also been to most of the major cities in America. There is no sense in which Moscow could be placed at the top of the list. There is a small part of the place that is rather pretty, and, thanks largely to the mafia, a few good restaurants have popped up, but the rest of it remains as bleak and moribund and soulless as it was during the Soviet era. It is a museum, and an ugly one at that.
As for the “food” and “service,” which Tucker considers superior to that of the United States? What rot! Forget New York, New Orleans, Charleston, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, or Las Vegas, the food and service are better in Milwaukee than they are in Moscow. Walk into an average joint anywhere in the United States and you will likely leave pleased with your drinks and your meal. In Moscow? Not so much.
Carlson says that Moscow is “clean” and “safe.” When I was there, it was neither. Moscow has a chronic homeless problem — at night, you see people warming themselves by lighting fires inside discarded oil drums — and it is teeming with petty crime. I saw an old lady pushed down a flight of stone steps by a beggar, I saw a black teenager punched for no obvious reason (although we know why), and my father and I were mugged on that ornate subway that naive visitors always gush about. It is true that none of this would have happened to us if we’d been there to interview Vladmir Putin, but that’s rather the point, isn’t it? When you’re a guest of the government — especially of a totalitarian government — you’re treated to the full girlfriend experience.
Were he pushed, I suspect that Carlson would defend his apologia by pointing to American cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. — all of which are, indeed, extremely badly run. But he would still be wrong. San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., need to get their act together, no doubt, but if I had to choose between living in Moscow or in any of those places, I’d choose any of those places in three seconds flat. Any American who wouldn’t is a fool. Moscow is a drab mausoleum in an economic backwater that is ruled by a dictator. I have no time for the blanket dismissal of Russian culture that we have seen in some quarters since 2022, but, by the same token, I am profoundly uninterested in lionizing the place either. Certainly, Russia is a different sort of villain than it was between 1917 and 1990, but it is a villain, nevertheless. Whether they are native-born or they moved here by choice, Americans ought not to envy it.
Do they? No, and yes. No, in that, for now, Tucker’s particular brand of trollish Russophilia has been confined to the silliest corners of the Too Online, “based” American Right. Yes, in that this sort of thing only happens when a people forget who they are and start looking elsewhere for inspiration.
Last summer, the Pew Research Center asked Americans whether the United States was the greatest country in the world, one of the greatest countries in the world, or not a great country at all. Appropriately, much of the discussion of the results focused on the negative answers given by young Americans and by self-described Democrats. Just 9 percent of Americans aged between 18 and 29 contended that the United States was the greatest country in the world, with a remarkable 43 percent choosing the “other countries are better than the U.S.” option. Among Democrats, those numbers were 9 percent and 36 percent. When combined, this became even worse. Only 4 percent of Democrats aged 18–29 said that the United States was the best country in the world, with 50 percent saying that it wasn’t great at all. Among Democrats aged 30–49, meanwhile, those numbers were 8 percent and 40 percent. Sometimes, stereotypes really do hit the mark.
Naturally, I was appalled by this. But, all in all, I had a different reaction to the numbers than most conservatives, in that what bothered me far, far more than the Democrats’ indifference toward America was that the Republicans’ numbers weren’t that much better. I expected Democrats aged 18–29 and 30–49 to be indifferent or hostile toward America. That’s what Democrats are for. What I didn’t expect to see — what, frankly, shocked me — was how lukewarm the Republicans were by contrast. Only 31 percent of Republicans said that the United States is the greatest country in the world, with 51 percent saying it’s one of the greatest countries, and 17 percent saying it’s one of the worst. That is astonishing. Even more alarming is that, among Republicans aged 18–29, more (28 percent) believe that “other countries are better than the U.S.” than believe that the “U.S. stands above all other countries in the world.” How sad.
At this point, I am accustomed to being given snooty lectures on this topic, and, at this point, I simply don’t care. I believe all the stuff about America that immigrants are supposed to believe, and I believe it unashamedly and unironically. Having traveled widely, it seems profoundly obvious to me that far and away the best place to live in the world is the United States, and that far and away the best time to live here is right now. Yes, our president is a vegetable. Yes, the guy trying to replace him is a scoundrel. Yes, we have all manner of problems to address, from inflation to debt to crime to foreign affairs to a rising ride of cultural illiberalism. But the important question in this realm is not “what” but “as opposed to what,” and, simple country boy at heart that I may be, even I know that the correct answer to this inquiry sure as heck ain’t Moscow.
Give Me Any American City over Moscow Any Day
“The city of Moscow,” Tucker Carlson announced this week, from his populist redoubt at the World Government Summit in Dubai, “is so much nicer than any city in my country. I had no idea. It is so much cleaner, and safer and prettier, aesthetically. Its architecture, food, and services than in any city in the United States. And this is not ideological. How did that happen?”The simplest answer to this inquiry is that it didn’t.
I daresay that Carlson did, indeed, have a nice time when he visited Moscow. As a rich foreign tourist who was being carefully minded by the Russian government, he was undoubtedly exposed to the Moscow that its champions wanted him to see. And that city, I’ll wager, is pretty swell. But still. Better than every city in the United States? The idea is ridiculous. I have been to Moscow. I have also been to most of the major cities in America. There is no sense in which Moscow could be placed at the top of the list. There is a small part of the place that is rather pretty, and, thanks largely to the mafia, a few good restaurants have popped up, but the rest of it remains as bleak and moribund and soulless as it was during the Soviet era. It is a museum, and an ugly one at that.
As for the “food” and “service,” which Tucker considers superior to that of the United States? What rot! Forget New York, New Orleans, Charleston, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, or Las Vegas, the food and service are better in Milwaukee than they are in Moscow. Walk into an average joint anywhere in the United States and you will likely leave pleased with your drinks and your meal. In Moscow? Not so much.
Carlson says that Moscow is “clean” and “safe.” When I was there, it was neither. Moscow has a chronic homeless problem — at night, you see people warming themselves by lighting fires inside discarded oil drums — and it is teeming with petty crime. I saw an old lady pushed down a flight of stone steps by a beggar, I saw a black teenager punched for no obvious reason (although we know why), and my father and I were mugged on that ornate subway that naive visitors always gush about. It is true that none of this would have happened to us if we’d been there to interview Vladmir Putin, but that’s rather the point, isn’t it? When you’re a guest of the government — especially of a totalitarian government — you’re treated to the full girlfriend experience.
Were he pushed, I suspect that Carlson would defend his apologia by pointing to American cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. — all of which are, indeed, extremely badly run. But he would still be wrong. San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., need to get their act together, no doubt, but if I had to choose between living in Moscow or in any of those places, I’d choose any of those places in three seconds flat. Any American who wouldn’t is a fool. Moscow is a drab mausoleum in an economic backwater that is ruled by a dictator. I have no time for the blanket dismissal of Russian culture that we have seen in some quarters since 2022, but, by the same token, I am profoundly uninterested in lionizing the place either. Certainly, Russia is a different sort of villain than it was between 1917 and 1990, but it is a villain, nevertheless. Whether they are native-born or they moved here by choice, Americans ought not to envy it.
Do they? No, and yes. No, in that, for now, Tucker’s particular brand of trollish Russophilia has been confined to the silliest corners of the Too Online, “based” American Right. Yes, in that this sort of thing only happens when a people forget who they are and start looking elsewhere for inspiration.
Last summer, the Pew Research Center asked Americans whether the United States was the greatest country in the world, one of the greatest countries in the world, or not a great country at all. Appropriately, much of the discussion of the results focused on the negative answers given by young Americans and by self-described Democrats. Just 9 percent of Americans aged between 18 and 29 contended that the United States was the greatest country in the world, with a remarkable 43 percent choosing the “other countries are better than the U.S.” option. Among Democrats, those numbers were 9 percent and 36 percent. When combined, this became even worse. Only 4 percent of Democrats aged 18–29 said that the United States was the best country in the world, with 50 percent saying that it wasn’t great at all. Among Democrats aged 30–49, meanwhile, those numbers were 8 percent and 40 percent. Sometimes, stereotypes really do hit the mark.
Naturally, I was appalled by this. But, all in all, I had a different reaction to the numbers than most conservatives, in that what bothered me far, far more than the Democrats’ indifference toward America was that the Republicans’ numbers weren’t that much better. I expected Democrats aged 18–29 and 30–49 to be indifferent or hostile toward America. That’s what Democrats are for. What I didn’t expect to see — what, frankly, shocked me — was how lukewarm the Republicans were by contrast. Only 31 percent of Republicans said that the United States is the greatest country in the world, with 51 percent saying it’s one of the greatest countries, and 17 percent saying it’s one of the worst. That is astonishing. Even more alarming is that, among Republicans aged 18–29, more (28 percent) believe that “other countries are better than the U.S.” than believe that the “U.S. stands above all other countries in the world.” How sad.
At this point, I am accustomed to being given snooty lectures on this topic, and, at this point, I simply don’t care. I believe all the stuff about America that immigrants are supposed to believe, and I believe it unashamedly and unironically. Having traveled widely, it seems profoundly obvious to me that far and away the best place to live in the world is the United States, and that far and away the best time to live here is right now. Yes, our president is a vegetable. Yes, the guy trying to replace him is a scoundrel. Yes, we have all manner of problems to address, from inflation to debt to crime to foreign affairs to a rising ride of cultural illiberalism. But the important question in this realm is not “what” but “as opposed to what,” and, simple country boy at heart that I may be, even I know that the correct answer to this inquiry sure as heck ain’t Moscow.
