“Deplatforming Carlson from a nightly audience of millions is an unequivocal good, but the problem of white nationalism in the mainstream remains in the GOP.”
Washington, DC – The firing of Tucker Carlson removed one of the most sinister purveyors of white nationalism from prime time. Carlson constantly used his Fox News platform to push racist and white nationalist messaging, often aimed at immigrants.
Last year, Carlson explicitly argued that the racist “great replacement” theory is real when he stated that every immigrant who came to the US after 1965 and their descendants are ‘replacers’ who threaten the very existence of his version of the nation. That white nationalist conspiracy theory has motivated multiple mass murderers in Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo, among others, over the past few years. Nevertheless, Carlson continued to repeatedly use his massive megaphone to amplify the deadly conspiracy theory and encouraged Republican candidates to do the same.
As Huff Post’s Matt Shuham and Christopher Mathias noted in their coverage yesterday, there is a real deadly impact directly connected to these racist ideas:
On Monday, the same day news broke of Carlson’s ouster at Fox News, jury selection began in the trial of another Great Replacement enthusiast ― Robert Bowers, the white supremacist facing dozens of federal charges over the October 2018 killings of 11 Jewish people in a Pittsburgh synagogue.
Bowers allegedly carried out the massacre due to his belief in the conspiracy theory that Jews were helping fund a caravan of Latino migrants coming into the country. Fox News, and Carlson in particular, had spent weeks whipping up fear over the migrant caravan, repeatedly calling it an “invasion.”
Despite that, Carlson became one of the loudest and most vociferous champions of the invasion rhetoric that emanates from the “great replacement” theory. Unfortunately, as America’s Voice has documented, that dangerous rhetoric is now pervasive in the Republican Party from their campaign ads to official legislative hearings. And despite the death toll, they refuse to denounce it.
According to Zachary Mueller, Political Director at America’s Voice:
“Arguably, no one more than Tucker Carlson did more to mainstream white nationalism over the last several years. Thus, deplatforming Carlson from a nightly audience of millions is an unequivocal good, but the problem of white nationalism in the mainstream remains in the GOP. The vile racist conspiracy theories that were once confined to the dark edges of white nationalist circles are now commonplace throughout the ranks of elected Republicans. From the leadership on down, Republicans have lent legitimacy to the same racist fiction that motivated the domestic terrorists who attacked Pittsburgh, El Paso, and Buffalo, repeatedly amplifying those ideas in Congressional hearings, their political ads, and their daily messaging about the border.
Carlson did not receive his comeuppance because of his dangerously bigoted rhetoric, but the 100 little Tuckers who occupy elected office could and should face accountability for the threat they impose on our collective public safety and our fragile multi-racial democracy.”
