Tucker Carlson Is, Has Been, And Always Will Be, Tucker Carlson
On Friday, Tucker Carlson, the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight (with Tucker Carlson) got into some trouble for stating the following on Fox News Primetime:
I’m laughing because this is one of about 10 stories that I know you have covered where the government shows preference to people who have shown absolute contempt for our customs, our laws, our system itself and they are being treated better than American citizens. Now, I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term “replacement,” if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening actually. Let’s just say it: That’s true.
If you change the population, you dilute the political power of the people who live there. So every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter. So I don’t understand what we don’t understand cause, I mean, everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it. Oh, you know, the white replacement theory? No, no, no. This is a voting right question. I have less political power because they are importing a brand new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that? The power that I have as an American guaranteed at birth is one man, one vote, and they are diluting it. No, they are not allowed to do it. Why are we putting up with this?
The statement was criticized by groups like Media Matters For America and the Anti-Defamation League. It was however praised by people like The Columbia Bugle, Scott Greer, Liberty Hangout, and other “very fine people.” Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist host of America First, however, actually went against Tucker for being too nice to those damn globalists:
Of course replacement migration is obviously racial and Tucker probably understands that but is unwilling to say it, maybe because he would get fired if he did. I just wonder how effective it is to go halfway in and not just stop there, but then explicitly dispute the rest.
Maybe he would get fired for saying replacement migration is racial. But then why not just say replacement is happening and leave it at that? Why always go out of your way to clarify that it’s “never about race”? It definitely is, so to say it isn’t is either ignorant or a lie.
For those unaware, there is a conspiracy theory promoted almost exclusively by white nationalists and white surpremistis known as “the Great Replacement.” The idea is that “powerful groups” (which usually means the Jews) are attempting to “replace” white people in the United States through massive amounts of immigration. The theory has been promoted by such men as Benton Harrison Tarrant, the man behind the Christchurch terrorist attack, and Patrick Crusius, who shot up a Walmart in El Paso, Texas on 8/3/2019.
The theory was created by Renaud Camus, a French writer who coined the term in his 2011 book of the same name. According to a poll in December 2018, a quarter of the French population agree with Camus that white people are being replaced.
However, here’s an important question about this incident: How is any of it surprising? Less than a month ago (4/14/2021) John Oliver spent twenty-five minutes of Last Week Tonight breaking down Tucker Carlson and his association with various racist groups. Inculding the fact that his work has been praised by James Allsup and David Duke and that the ironically named Don Black and his family watch his show twice, once for enjoyment and once to take notes on how he delivers his message. (Derek Black, the son of Don Black, says they feel Carlson has made white surpremist talking points better than they have.)
What John Oliver said was not even new insight, on 7/21/2017, roughly three months after Tucker Carlson Tonight first premiered, Carlos Maza of Vox talked about how he was supported by people like Richard Spencer and Andrew Anglin. The video looks at how Carlson talked about immigrants, pointing out how previously conservatives like Bill O’Reilly (who used to have Carlson’s timeslot) specifically targetted “illegal immigrants” but said that “Americans should welcome legal immigrants.” Maza also points out Carlson’s rejection of “multiculturalism,” a well known right-wing boogeyman that Carlson blamed on, you guessed it, immigration. The video even ended by comparing things Carlson said on his show and comments made by the infamous David Duke and Richard Spencer.
(I should note, just being against “illegal immigration” and “multicultualism,” even if those are positions I disagree with, does not make one a racist. Maza does not even call Carlson a racist in his video, instead simply pointing out that his lanague could be used by racist groups to move politics in a racist direction. The issue with Carlson is not that “he’s a racist” (maybe he is, maybe he isn’t) but instead that his views, possibly on accident, lead to the normalization of racism in the United States.)
This is not even the first time he has said something like this. On 10/28/2018, Tucker Carlson went on PragerU to produce a video called “Illegal Immigration: It’s About Power.” Here is Tucker Carlson praising the brutal anti-immigration tactics of Ceaser Chavez, which he describes in the following manner:
[In 1979], Chavez dispatched armed union members into the desert to assault Mexican nationals who were trying to sneak across the border. Chavez’s men beat immigrants with chains and whips made of barbed wire. Illegal aliens who dared to work as scabs had their houses fire-bombed and their cars burned.
Chavez wasn’t embarrassed about any of this. He bragged about it.
It should be noted that, while Carlson argues that this view is uncontroversial, that was far from the case. Many at the time criticized Chavez’s view, especially considering he blamed this illegal immigration on the CIA. Even Liza Hirsch, who Chavez appointed to oversee his “Illegal Campaign” thought that Chavez had repeatedly crossed a line with his talk of illegal immigrants.
The video ended with Carlson saying “the point” of illegal immigration is the following:
The payoff for Democrats: permanent electoral majority for the foreseeable future. In a word: power.
That’s the point, no matter what they tell you; American workers be damned.
Once again, the idea is that Democrats are trying to “replace” white voters in order to win elections. This is what Carlson said, because that is what Tucker Carlson has been saying for years.
This is not to say that what Tucker Carlson shouldn’t “offend” you, you should be abhored at both the fact that what he said is obviously nonsensical and also the fact that Carlson has been saying this for years. However, people should not be pretending that what Carlson says now is any different from what he always said.
