Dan White is a generic enough name that it could refer to someone else. How well known was the murderer Dan White in 1991 when Tucker graduated college?
It's a generic name, but what other Dan White is notable enough for a society to be named after? Anyone who takes a remote interest in politics knows who Dan White.
I didn't recognize the name, and I've seen the movie Milk, listened to multiple podcasts about him, and have posted on this forum for (sigh) almost 18 years.
And I would assume that White would have been more obscure in 1991 than he is now, as Milk hadn't been lionized yet then.
Carlson knew who Dan White was. It both adds up and there’s no good alternative explanation.
People joking about murdering gays was not an outrageous act 30 years ago. It was just edgy or masculine. Remember that this was the heyday of AIDS jokes, it was funny to a large number of Americans to talk about gay men dying or being killed. It’s how it was and it seemed normal to us then.
Milk was certainly lionized by then especially as there were so few other gay leaders. Here is a story about incoming gay freshmen at Harvard in 1994 watching “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk” as a social. The movie had started screening for freshmen in... 1991. Coincidence? No.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1994/9/16/gay-first-years-gather-at-union-for/Average people didn’t know who White was, but conservatives obsessed with their gay classmates did.
