Tucker Carlson’s Great Replacement Theory
Tucker Carlson knows what heĢƵ doing.
He thinks people are stupid.
He frequently speaks in ways that racists can make use of his frequent rants for their purposes.
Then he expresses surprise that anybody would blame him for actions those racists took.
He now cleverly claims that he doesn’t even know what the term “Great Replacement Theory” is.
HeĢƵ lying.
He knows exactly what it is.
Last September, Matt Gaetz, that flame-throwing congressman from Florida once tweeted, “@TuckerCarlson is CORRECT about Replacement Theory as he explains what is happening in America.”
For Carlson and white supremacists, there are just too many non-white people attempting to grab a share of this Democracy.
And if they do, they theorize, those people will most certainly replace them.
That means immigrants, as well as Black and brown Americans – with the assistance of Jewish Americans – are crowding out white Americans.
I’m Black.
In case you didn’t know it, that means I’m supposedly “replacing” some 73-year-old white guy, who would make this country a lot better if I wasn’t here.
I’ve left before. (Vietnam)
I am not leaving again.
This “Great Replacement Theory” stuff is a sick philosophy that first surfaced in the media in August of 2017, during that deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. ThatĢƵ when white supremacists proudly walked through the streets carrying burning tiki torches, chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”
Of course, it didn’t stop there.
Americans awakened a little over a week ago and learned that an 18-year-old avowed racist had taken his cowardice to Buffalo, N.Y. – where he acted on it.
Not surprisingly, it was later revealed that he, too, knew all about the “Great Replacement Theory.”
That he’d used part of it as the basis for killing as many Black people as he could.
America never seems to run out of these kinds of people.
Thanks, in part, to them taking their cues from the Tucker Carlsons of the world.
Carlson should be ashamed of himself.
HeĢƵ not.
These days, his goal is to make more money – and to gather as many devotees as possible.
Fox News’ most popular host (3½ million viewers or so a night) has fanned the flames of racial hatred on his show for years.
HeĢƵ skillful enough to cloak his message in the familiar codes that white supremacists use to communicate with each other.
“This is a voting rights question. I have less political power because they’re importing a brand-new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that?” he asked during one of his famous Fox News diatribes.
It didn’t take long for many people in the media to point their fingers directly at Carlson, because of his apparent hate speech, cloaked in code words, for helping to provide a platform for white supremacy.
The day after the tragedy, Carlson appeared on Fox News, ready to throw the focus off of himself, and onto anybody but him.
He ran a series of video clips with people decrying hate speech.
Then, he went on the attack.
“So, what is hate speech? Well, itĢƵ speech that our leaders hate,” he surmised.
He left out the most important part. The one about how hate speech inspires racist vigilantes to slaughter innocent people.
He may disregard the fingers being pointed at him. And he foolishly denies his role in advancing the “Great Replacement Theory.”
So much so, that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer devoted a floor speech to CarlsonĢƵ antics the day following the Buffalo mass murders.
“Tucker Carlson has spewed rhetoric that echoes replacement theory 400 times on his show since 2016,” Schumer said.
And he went further. He sent a letter to the chairman of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, asking him to “immediately cease the reckless amplification of the so-called ‘Great Replacement theory'” on his networkĢƵ shows.
ItĢƵ worth noting that when Carlson and those other Fox News hosts imply that immigrants are “replacing” Americans, they could be talking about their boss – Murdoch – whoĢƵ an immigrant himself.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 40-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.