TWIBS: Peterson, Carlson Alleged to be Russian Agents by Prime Minister
Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, recently alleged disgraced right-wing mouthpieces Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson to be controlled and funded by the Kremlin. Was he totally off base, or is there more to the story… ?
Humor by Alyssa Steinsiek
This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s oldest column! Every Friday, Alyssa Steinsiek digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
Jeez… you know who we haven’t talked about in a while? Coma guy and red meat aficionado Jordan Peterson! The Canadian sorta-psychologist rose to prominence in 2017 for loudly, angrily and stupidly criticizing parliament’s Bill C-16, which Peterson insisted criminalized misgendering trans people but in fact simply amended the Canadian Human Rights Act to extend equality to trans Canadians. Now, however, he’s in the news for… allegedly being a Russian agent?! I love The Americans!
First, a fun fact: Peterson hasn’t seen a patient since 2017. Instead, he spends most of his time running a podcast where he invites idiots to engage in noise pollution by discussing their acrid musty thoughts about cancel culture together. Or… something like that, I don’t know, I’m not listening to the damn thing. Peterson likely spends most of his time podcasting because he may lose, or perhaps has already lost, his license to practice for refusing to undergo media training, which his profession’s governing body ordered him to do because “[his] online commentary on a range of issues, from gender transition to climate change, posed a moderate risk of harm to the public and undermined public trust in the profession of psychology.”
Sick burn, Ontario’s College of Psychologists.
So, while speaking last week at a public hearing about election interference, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed that Jordan Peterson—and disgraced Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson—were funded by state-owned propagandist media outlet RT, formerly Russia Today. Carlson isn’t shy about his fondness for Russia, repeatedly broadcasting from Moscow and interviewing Vladimir Putin himself earlier this year. He and Peterson deny any financial entanglement with the Kremlin, but… is it so far-fetched?
In early September, Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused RT of funneling $10 million into right-wing YouTubers and internet celebrities, “[engaging] in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus.” Two RT staffers, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, were indicted by the Justice Department and charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Of note, they were alleged to have worked alongside an unnamed Tennessee-based company that does contract work with online influencers.
NPR reported that details in the indictment match Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company that does contract work with online influencers (surprise!) founded by conservative Canadian YouTuber Lauren Chen and her husband. NPR also pointed out that Lauren has a show on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV, works with right-wing activist group Turning Point USA, and even wrote opinion pieces for RT in 2021 and 2022. I have to say, Lauren, you may not be beating these allegations!
So, if we believe the federal government (and just this once, I am inclined to), a state-owned Russian propagandist media outlet has been spending millions of dollars to undermine American elections using conservative online personalities like Jordan Peterson… who, incidentally, has worked with Lauren Chen in the past.
Here at Assigned Media, we can’t just say that Peterson is a bought and sold puppet for a hostile foreign nation’s government without any hard evidence. In fact, I should point out that Peterson denies these allegations, albeit tongue-in-cheek.
What I can say, however—and this is totally unrelated to anything else I’ve said in this article—is, emphatically, come on.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer who spends too much time playing video games!
