THE INVISIBLE CURRENT: On the Power of Certain Topics.

CONVERSATIONS UNDER THE KNIFE

—A Mrs. Begonia Contretempt Supper-Club Interview with Mr. Tucker Carlson

Filed under : Cultural Autopsy

Council Note: This dialogue is a satirical reconstruction inspired by the manner and themes of Mr. Tucker Carlson’s broadcasts.

No endorsement or collaboration is implied; the exchange is presented in the spirit of cultural parody and philosophical inquiry.

SCENE:

The familiar amber light lingers, but the place might as well be a fallout shelter. Tonight they’re deep beneath the Gist & Tangent Pub — in the bunker affectionately known as Archie’s Place — where conversation and survival share the same rations.

MRS. BEGONIA:

Before we begin, a little context for our viewers. Juju comes to us through the Atlantic trade routes — West African in origin, French by adoption — meaning charm, spirit, or power residing in an object or act. In modern use, it’s shorthand for unseen influence: the moral magnetism that makes things flourish—or fail.

Tonight, Mr. Carlson, we’ll examine the juju behind some of your favorite subjects.  Not whether they’re right or wrong, but whether they hum or hollow out the world.

TUCKER:

(laughing softly)

You’re asking me to rate the energy field of civilization.  That’s more honest than most polling I’ve seen.  I’m game.

MRS. BEGONIA:

Let’s start with the government — your “Deep State.” You’ve called it many names.  What sort of juju does it carry?

TUCKER:

Old juju. Stale. It’s power that’s forgotten it’s borrowed.  Bureaucracy should serve the living, but it begins to worship its own paperwork. You can almost hear the files whispering. People think secrecy is strength, but it’s really fear wearing a necktie.

MRS. BEGONIA:

So the energy curdles when accountability evaporates?

TUCKER:

Exactly. Sunlight doesn’t just disinfect — it revives.  Hidden power always ends up haunted.

MRS. BEGONIA:

Borders, then.  You speak of them not as fences but as sacred geometry.

TUCKER:

That’s right. Every society needs edges; they’re what let the center breathe. Good juju requires form — like a riverbank giving shape to the current. Erase the line and you don’t get compassion; you get confusion. A nation without borders is like a soul without skin — bleeding sympathy until it faints.

MRS. BEGONIA:

And yet you’d admit that walls can become coffins.

TUCKER:

Of course. A border should be a diaphragm, not a dam. Movement gives meaning, but only when rhythm is kept. The old melting pot worked when the stew still had a recipe — when European immigrants brought their own herbs but shared the same broth. It thickened into something recognizable, something nourishing. Now we keep tossing in whatever comes to hand and wonder why the pot keeps boiling over.

MRS. BEGONIA:

Let’s move to money. You’ve called the market both miraculous and monstrous. Where lies the dividing line?

TUCKER:

In intention. When trade rewards creation, it’s blessed — an exchange of gratitude. When it rewards manipulation, it’s cursed — a ritual of appetite. We turned craftsmanship into speculation, and wondered why everything started humming the wrong key.

MRS. BEGONIA:

So currency itself becomes conductive — a wire for either worship or waste.

TUCKER:

Yes. Money amplifies whatever spirit it touches. If a nation loses reverence for honest work, its currency loses weight even before its value.

MRS. BEGONIA:

You’ve also spoken of foreign entanglements — especially the Middle East — in almost exorcistic terms.

TUCKER:

Because we keep mistaking interference for influence.  We pour wealth and willpower into other people’s quarrels and call it virtue.  That’s bad juju — not because the people are good, but because the pattern is pride. Empires think they’re gods until the tab comes due.

(The lights flicker. A faint rumble echoes through the bunker.)

TUCKER:

Whoa—what was that? Did we just lose power?

MRS. BEGONIA:

(glancing upward, unbothered)

No need for alarm, Mr. Carlson. We have our own generators. That’s just the AIPAC meeting next door—thunderous Republican applause always rattles the grid down here.

(The lights steady again. The can of Ju-Ju Beans wobbles but holds.)

So what was I saying? —Good juju would be humility — the courage to mind our own garden. If we tended our borders and our spirit, most foreign fires would burn themselves out.

MRS. BEGONIA:

You describe isolation as a kind of hygiene.

TUCKER:

Clean hands, clear conscience. It’s not indifference; it’s sanity.

MRS. BEGONIA:

And the press — your own profession. Surely there’s juju there worth charting.

TUCKER:

There is. Media can be a mirror or a spell. When it asks questions out of wonder, it shines; when it asks out of agenda, it drains. Most television today runs on synthetic juju — manufactured outrage with no soul behind the spark.

But every so often, someone tells an unscripted truth on air, and for half a second the country remembers it’s still alive.

MRS. BEGONIA:

You mean sincerity as the last renewable resource.

TUCKER:

Exactly. And the most rationed.

MRS. BEGONIA:

One final incision. What, in your view, still carries good juju in public life?

TUCKER:

Courage without bitterness. There’s plenty of rebellion, little resolve. Real courage stands up because it must, not because it sells. It doesn’t hate what it defends. That, Mrs. Begonia, is the rarest current left.

MRS. BEGONIA:

(softly)

Then perhaps you are an electrician of national nerve. Keep the voltage steady. The lights, for the moment, still hold.

(smiles faintly)

We’ll know which bad ju-ju caused it if you ever lose your power, Mr. Carlson — a power failure always leaves fingerprints.

(The candle wavers once, then steadies as the studio fades to black.)

Mrs. Begonia Contretemp— Cultural Surgeon-at-Large

Transcribed for the Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists Timestream