The book you are asking about is Jason Zengerle’s Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind, a reported biography-cum-media study of Carlson’s rise and transformation within conservative media over roughly three decades.flyleafbooks+1

Core idea: Zengerle uses Carlson’s career as a lens on the radicalization of American conservatism and the degeneration of political journalism into for‑profit outrage and agitprop.washingtonpost+1

• Carlson’s trajectory—from mildly heterodox, bow‑tied libertarian magazine writer and TV pundit to MAGA movement star and far‑right culture warrior—embodies how incentives in cable news and digital media reward extremism over reporting.bookmarks+2

• The book argues that “character meets technology”: Carlson’s personal ambitions and resentments are amplified by a media ecosystem that prizes provocation, spectacle, and audience capture.bookmarks+1

• Zengerle ultimately frames Carlson as a kind of morality tale about the decline of traditional political journalism and the rise of entertainment-driven propaganda that shapes both public opinion and governing elites, including Donald Trump.npr+2

Main strengths:

• Deep reporting and narrative verve: Reviewers highlight the book as “thoroughly researched,” “vigorous,” and “breezy, entertaining and ultimately disquieting,” blending professional biography with media criticism.kirkusreviews+1

• Structural insight into conservatism: By following Carlson’s shifts across CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and The Daily Caller, the book shows how the conservative movement’s center of gravity moved from policy journals and legacy outlets toward grievance politics and conspiratorial populism.wnycstudios+2

• Media‑critique frame: Zengerle persuasively details how television and then the internet began “rewarding extremes, privileging provocation and punditry over somber fact‑finding,” turning figures like Carlson into avatars of a more fanatical style of right‑wing politics.flyleafbooks+2

• Attention to power and consequences: The book tracks how Carlson’s themes and obsessions migrated into the Trump White House and Republican governing agenda after 2024, underscoring that this is not just a story about a TV host but about policy, appointments, and elite behavior.washingtonpost+2

• Character study: Reviewers describe Carlson as emerging as “by turns charming, funny, repulsive, and base,” giving the narrative psychological texture rather than cardboard villainy.scribepublications+1

Main weaknesses / limitations:

• Normative standpoint: Some critics note that although Zengerle “steers clear of polemic,” the book is still “highly opinionated,” which may limit its persuasive power for readers already sympathetic to Carlson or the MAGA right.audiofilemagazine+2

• Emphasis on career over ideology’s roots: The focus on media incentives and professional maneuvering can underplay deeper intellectual and sociological currents on the right (religion, race, class realignment) that predate Carlson and continue beyond him.flyleafbooks+2

• Uneven moral accounting: At least one review suggests Zengerle sometimes downplays or contextualizes early racist or ugly moments in Carlson’s life—presenting them as “cheeky” rather than fully reckoning with them—which may feel too forgiving or narratively convenient.nytimes​

• Audience scope: The dense media-history angle and detailed recounting of programming decisions, ratings, and intra‑conservative feuds may feel narrow or insiderish if a reader is not already interested in U.S. media ecosystems.bookmarks+1

Why it is a relevant work now:

• Key to understanding Trump‑era and post‑Trump conservatism: Carlson, as portrayed here, is not a sideshow but a central node through which populist nationalism, conspiratorial thinking, and anti‑liberal ressentiment were mainstreamed for millions of viewers and Republican elites, including the current president.npr+2

• Case study in media radicalization: The book offers a concrete, person-centered narrative of how an ostensibly mainstream journalist can be structurally nudged—and personally incentivized—toward extremism as outrage becomes the business model of news.washingtonpost+2

• Insight into the politics of entertainment: Zengerle’s story shows how “dangerously, perhaps fatally, entertaining” personalities can erode distinctions between news, opinion, and propaganda, shaping not only voter attitudes but also elite decision‑making.bookmarks+1

• Useful for media literacy and democratic theory: For scholars, journalists, and politically engaged readers, the book functions as a detailed illustration of how the reward structures of contemporary media interact with individual ambition to distort public discourse and destabilize democratic norms.flyleafbooks+2