Tucker Carlson regularly demonizes immigrants on his Fox News show. (Richard Drew/AP)
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TrumpTV's Tucker Carlson's Own Show Belies His Claim That "White Supremacy Is A Hoax"
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Lobo
Aug 7, 2019, 10:01:47 PM8/7/19
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In the same breath he also called Russian interference in our elections a "hoax". Not just his boss Trump's part in it, but the well-documented Russian interference, period. And, of course, it's FOX/rightwing dogma that global warming is a "hoax", and will be even after FOX's studios are underwater.
Tucker Carlson’s claim that white supremacy is a hoax is easy to prove wrong. Just watch his show.
August 7 at 11:21 AM
In his ongoing and remarkably successful quest to be the worst of the Fox News nighttime hosts, Tucker Carlson hit a new low on his Tuesday show.
White supremacy, he claimed, isn’t a real problem in America: “This is a hoax, just like the Russia hoax. It’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power.” (Let’s set aside, for a moment, the truth that the Russian attacks on America’s voting integrity, to help Donald Trump become president, are anything but a hoax, as the Mueller report made abundantly clear.)
And, Carlson insisted, he has empirical evidence: “I’ve lived here 50 years and I’ve never met anybody, not one person who ascribes to white supremacy,” he said, adding, “I don’t know a single person who thinks that’s a good idea.”
[‘It’s not actually a real problem in America’: Tucker Carlson calls white supremacy a ‘hoax’]
Hmm. Maybe his sample size is a bit flawed.
Anyway, Carlson’s wrong. Here’s the dictionary definition of white supremacy: the belief that white people are superior to people of other races and therefore should be dominant over them.
It’s undeniably one of the core tenets of the opinion-mongers at Fox News — and of some portion of its supposedly straight news coverage, too. (Remember the network’s feverish attention to “the caravan” of migrants moving northward toward the United States — and how abruptly that coverage faded after it was no longer useful as a Republican talking point in the 2018 midterms?)
Understand: I’m not suggesting that Carlson or his Fox colleagues are stashing their Klan robes in the newsroom closet. They may not display the most obvious and virulent strain of white supremacy or belong to organizations dedicated to the cause or pick up assault weapons and destroy innocent lives, as the El Paso gunman allegedly did on Saturday. (Remember, his 2,300-word screed — let’s not dignify it with the term “manifesto” — stated: “This attack is a response to Hispanic invasion of Texas.”)
Nevertheless, Carlson’s nightly show does a great deal to portray nonwhites as the dangerous “other,” a force to be beaten back to save America.
His denials and rhetoric must be called out for the lies that they are.
Consider his and his Fox colleagues’ insistence on using the word “invasion” to describe migrants coming to America — generally people of color from countries south of the border.
Here’s what a recent Media Matters study found about the use of that term so far this year on Fox News: There have been more than 70 on-air references to an invasion of migrants; there have been at least 55 clips of President Trump calling migrants an invasion. And Carlson himself spoke of the United States being invaded nine times, including “This is an invasion, and it’s terrifying.”
Carlson’s colleague Brian Kilmeade argued: “If you use the term ‘an invasion,’ that’s not anti-Hispanic. It’s a fact.”
No, it’s racist propaganda.
As Ben Zimmer wrote recently in the Atlantic, exploring the ugly history of the term: “The American brand of nativism has long relied on menacing images of immigrant invaders. The ‘invasion’ trope has gone hand in hand with similar metaphors of contamination and infestation.”
Or, as Rolling Stone’s Jamil Smith put it: “By likening people to insects or vermin, even if he considers them criminals, [Trump] provides himself license to be an exterminator. We know that story.”
Recognizing the white supremacy at work here does not deny that there is a real need for sensible, humanitarian immigration reform, including aid to the countries from which immigrants are fleeing as they try desperately to find a better life. Nor does it translate to support for open borders.
I really don’t know what drives Carlson to be so hate-filled and divisive. Is it all about ginning up ratings by playing to audience prejudices, rage and fear of “replacement” by immigrants?
Does he really believe what he says? Is he an egalitarian, tolerant fellow in his heart of hearts?
The cause of this damaging rhetoric doesn’t matter. But the results certainly do.
The Fox-Trump feedback loop constantly reinforces the notion that black and brown people are to be feared and despised — whether they are in “rat-infested” cities like Baltimore, as Trump would have it, or at the Mexico-Texas border.
Tucker Carlson has become one of the most high-profile perpetrators of this appalling and divisive message, one constantly amplified by the president.
So if Carlson thinks he hasn’t met a single white supremacist, he might want to take a searching look in the mirror.
For more by Margaret Sullivan visit wapo.st/sullivan.
ImStillMags Mags
Aug 7, 2019, 10:04:57 PM8/7/19
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Carlson was a prick when he started on CNN...when he left to go to Fox he was a complete dick ON AIR about it.
Lobo
Aug 7, 2019, 11:32:29 PM8/7/19
to political...@googlegroups.com
He's been a complete asshole for as long as I can remember; including when he was doing that 2 person argument show with Paul Begala on CNN. (Begala was an asshole too, but at least he was OUR asshole...). Now, of course, he's just another Trump flunky.
PirateLT
Aug 8, 2019, 9:46:40 AM8/8/19
to Political Euwetopia
Has to protect his base.
plainolamerican
Aug 8, 2019, 9:53:49 AM8/8/19
to Political Euwetopia
Carlson is a frequent critic of immigration.[79] Carlson has been accused by Erik Wemple of The Washington Post and by writers for Vox of demonizing immigrants, both those who immigrated to the U.S. legally and illegally.[80][81][82][83]He has opposed demographic changes in the United States, writing that the demographic change seen in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which saw Hispanics go from a small minority to a majority over a 15-year period, is "more change than human beings are designed to digest".[83] In 2018, Carlson suggested that mass immigration makes the United States "dirtier", "poorer" and "more divided".[84][85] In response to criticism of this, he has said that "we're not intimidated" and "we plan to try to say what's true until the last day. And the truth is, unregulated mass immigration has badly hurt this country's natural landscape".[86] Of illegal immigration, Carlson said in May 2019, "The flood of illegal workers into the United States has damaged our communities, ruined our schools, burdened our healthcare system and fractured our national unity."[71]
Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center said that "Carlson probably has been the No. 1 commentator mainstreaming bedrock principles of white nationalism in [the US]," and accused him of promoting the white genocide conspiracy theory, the idea that white people are under attack by minorities and immigrants.[87] Anti-Defamation League's Jessica Reaves has compared Carlson's defense of the nuclear family to white supremacist anti-immigrant rhetoric.[88]
According to CNN, Business Insider, Vox and GQ, Carlson's show has promoted and echoed white supremacist discourse.[89][90][91][92] Neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol described the views Carlson expressed on his show as "ethno-nationalism of some kind";[93] Carlson responded that Kristol had "discredited himself years ago."[94] Carlson has denied being a racist and has said that he hates racism.[3]
Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, referred to Carlson as "literally our greatest ally", and to his show as "basically 'Daily Stormer: The Show'".[95] According to independent analysis, Carlson has been featured on 265 articles published by The Daily Stormer during a two-year period.[95] Carlson has also been repeatedly praised by members of Identity Evropa, a major North American neo-Nazi organization.[96]
In call-in segments Carlson made from 2006 to 2008 on the radio show of Bubba the Love Sponge, Carlson stated that Iraq was not worth invading because it was a country made up of "semiliterate primitive monkeys" who "don't use toilet paper or forks." He also criticized "lunatic Muslims who are behaving like animals", and said that any presidential candidate who vowed to "kill as many of them as [they] can" would be "elected king". Recordings of these segments were released online on March 2019 by the progressive non-profit Media Matters for America. The Washington Post labelled these comments racist.[97] Carlson also made demeaning remarks towards women, made light of rape, defended then-alleged criminal Warren Jeffs and used homophobic slurs.[98][97] Carlson declined to apologize for his comments.[99]
In 2018 and 2019, the show was the target of an advertiser boycott. Advertisers began leaving the show after Carlson's said that U.S. immigration make the country "poorer, dirtier and more divided." According to Fox News, the advertisers only moved their ad buys to other segments.[100] By early 2019, the show had lost at least 26 advertisers.[101][102]
When Mitt Romney condemned then-candidate Donald Trump after Trump evaded questions about David Duke’s support,[103] saying it was a "disqualifying and disgusting response [...]. His coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America", Carlson criticized Romney. Carlson said "Obama could have written" that.[104]
Carlson concluded his July 9, 2019 Tucker Carlson Tonight episode with a 3-minute monologue about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN); he criticized Omar for being un-grateful to the United States, where she had been granted asylum, and called her "living proof that the way we practice immigration has become dangerous to this country." His monologue was described by The Guardian as "scathing", "racially loaded", and "full of anti-immigrant rhetoric".[105]Congresswoman Omar responded immediately on Twitter, saying that "advertisers should not be underwriting this kind of dangerous, hateful rhetoric."[106] In their July 10 article on the incident, The Daily Beast said that, mainly because of "right-wing attacks that have then been amplified by members of Congress and the president", Omar has been receiving death threats since she was elected to Congress.[107] According to the article, while Carlson "has devoted numerous segments" of his show to criticizing her, this time Carlson "took his anti-Omar stance even further."[107]
Days after the 2019 El Paso shooting which was committed by a man who released an anti-immigrant manifesto complaining of a "Hispanic invasion", Carlson described white supremacy as a "hoax" and "a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power". He asked rhetorically, "the combined membership of every white supremacist group in America - would they be able to fit inside a college football stadium?"[108][109][110] According to The Washington Post, "Carlson’s argument is belied by many experts and seemingly contradicted by a recent wave of deadly attacks by men motivated by those views."[111]
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