All Things Wildly Considered: Tucker Carlson: The Great Replacement Theory And The Tragedy In Buffalo

Monday, May 16, 2022

Tucker Carlson: The Great Replacement Theory And The Tragedy In Buffalo

A video that compiles numerous instances of Fox News host Tucker Carlson pushing a racist conspiracy theory is going viral on Twitter.

Adherents of "The Great Replacement Theory" believe a conspiracy is afoot to replace white Americans with immigrants and people of color. So-called replacement theory has inspired recent violence, including the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and a 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Ideas from the conspiracy theory reportedly filled a manifesto apparently posted online by Payton Gendron, the white 18-year-old who authorities identified as the gunman who targeted Black people in Saturday's rampage at a supermarket in Buffalo.

Once a fringe conspiracy theory pushed by white supremacists, replacement theory has seeped into the mainstream and has been promoted by some conservative politicians and commentators.

(Khaleda Rahman . “Video of Tucker Carlson Repeatedly Touting 'Replacement Theory' Goes Viral.” https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-promotes-replacement-theory-viral-video-1706823. Newsweek. May 16, 2022.)

Carlson has been arguing that Democrats are encouraging immigration to increase the number of "obedient" voters since joining the network's prime-time lineup in 2016.

On Sunday night, MSBC host Mehdi Hasan shared a video on Twitter that compiled several clips of Carlson promoting replacement theory.

"Tucker Carlson pushing Great Replacement Theory, all in one place, courtesy of the @MehdiHasanShow on @MSNBC," Hasan wrote alongside the clip. "Watch/share/be disgusted."

Newsweek reports …

“The minute-long video begins with a segment featured on his show in April last year, where Carlson passionately argued that Democrats are trying to 'replace' the current electorate.

"'So I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term replacement, if you suggest 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,' he said.

"'But they become hysterical because that's that's what's happening actually. Let's just say it. That's true.'"

"'Demographic change is the key to the Democratic party's political ambitions,' Carlson said in another segment from an episode just days later.

"'In other words you're being replaced and there's nothing you can do about it so shut up!' he says before laughing hysterically in another clip from a later show in April 2021.

Carlson even said in an August episode: "Our country is being invaded by the rest of the world." And, he said, "I'm going to state unequivocally the country is being stolen from American citizens as we watch."

And in a final clip from September last year, Carlson references the theory by name. "In political terms, this policy is called the 'Great Replacement,' the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries."

An investigation by The New York Times found 400 instances where he talked about Democrats and others trying to force demographic change through immigration.

Carlson promotes a racist ideology that is seeping into the mainstream. And now, ideas from “The Great Replacement Theory” filled a racist writing supposedly posted online by the white 18-year-old man accused of targeting Black people in the Buffalo rampage.

Clearly, Carolson's belief, and the belief of many other advocates of White fragility like him, is that their replacement is being achieved both through immigration of nonwhite people into societies that have largely been dominated by White people, as well as through simple demographics, with White people having lower birth rates than others.

The theory's more racist adherents believe Jews are behind the so-called replacement conspiracy. When white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, their chants included “you will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us.”

(David Bauder. “Theory of white replacement fuels racist attacks.” https://news.yahoo.com/explainer-theory-white-replacement-fuels-052724927.html. Associated Press. May 16, 2022.)

Proof of a mainstream adherence to the twisted view? In a poll released last week, The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 1 in 3 Americans believe an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gain.

(David Bauder. “Theory of white replacement fuels racist attacks.” https://news.yahoo.com/explainer-theory-white-replacement-fuels-052724927.html. Associated Press. May 16, 2022.)

On a regular basis, many adherents to the more extreme versions of The Great Replacement Theory converse through encrypted apps online and tend to be careful. They know they’re being watched.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik's campaign committee was criticized last year for an advertisement that said “radical Democrats” were planning a “permanent election insurrection” by granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants who would create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.

Click here to watch Carlson

What It Is

The Great Replacement is a coordinated political effort by White nationalists to promote a far-right conspiracy theory. It aligns with, and is a part of, the larger White genocide conspiracy theory.

Why the popularity? According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, President Donald Trump referenced the Great Replacement, and a 2019 tweet in favor of his proposed Border Wall was interpreted by many as endorsing the theory. They also stated that Trump's Twitter account was one of the most influential accounts promoting the theory.His history of describing Muslims and migrants as "invaders", according to SBS News, closely mirrors the language of explicit supporters of the theory.

(Nosheen Iqbal and Mark Townsend. "Christchurch mosque killer's theories seeping into mainstream, report warns.” The Guardian. July 07, 2019.)

According to a study conducted by University of Chicago political scientist Robert A. Pape, most of the January 6 rioters believed in the Great Replacement idea. Moreover, many Republican voters and lawmakers also believed in it.

Pape concluded in April 2021: “To ignore this movement and its potential would be akin to Trump’s response to covid-19: We cannot presume it will blow over. The ingredients exist for future waves of political violence, from lone-wolf attacks to all-out assaults on democracy, surrounding the 2022 midterm elections.”

(Robert A. Pape "Opinion | What an analysis of 377 Americans arrested or charged in the Capitol insurrection tells us." The Washington Post.” April 6, 2021.)

How hate-filled and irresponsible are Great Replacement advocates? Simply look at the recent history of deadly attacks spurred by the conspiracy, consider the blind adherence of masses of people to readily accept the lie, and you will realize this gonzo hypothesis is sinister in its very face and is not a nonviolent design.

Adolphus Belk Jr., professor of political science and African American studies at Winthrop University, said white nationalist movements arise when people of color are seen as a threat in the political and economic realms.

Belk said what makes individual extremists and white nationalist groups so dangerous are the lengths they are willing to go to in order protect their position in society.

"They are willing to use any means that are available to preserve and defend their position in society ... it's almost like a sort of holy war, a conflict, where they see themselves as taking the action directly to the offending culture and people by eliminating them," Belk said.

(Dustin Jones. “What is the 'Great Replacement' and how is it tied to the Buffalo shooting suspect?” https://www.npr.org/2022/05/16/1099034094/what-is-the-great-replacement-theory. NPR. May 16, 2022.)

Self-proclaimed pundits like Tucker Carlson deal in dangerous lies that cause terrible damage and then they hide behind media smokescreens promoted by unreliable agencies like Fox News. It makes one wonder how freedom of the press ever applied to their speech. After all, one important limit on the press concerns speech designed to incite immediate violence or unlawful activity.

These prohibitions were established in two separate rulings. In the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the court ruled that only speech that is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action" can be legally censored. In an earlier decision, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes compared such speech to shouting fire in a crowded theater, creating a "clear and present danger." “Fighting words" are also illegal. In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the Court ruled that speech that "inflicts injury or tends to incite an immediate breach of the peace" has so social value and can be curtailed.

It is imperative to understand how bias and doomsday media sources actually promote a present clash of civilization in which White men are in a weaker position because their women are not doing the work of reproducing. They are really saying things like: “Look, Muslims have got their women where they need to be, and we’re not doing a good job at that.”

The concern over birthrates has hit a fever pitch in part because of recent studies showing sperm counts and testosterone declining. Some men are buying sperm counters to use at home, and some are turning to testosterone replacement therapy, convinced that modernity has feminized them. These have given old fears a new scientific sheen and led many in these communities to more apocalyptic, violent politics.

Nellie Bowles, tech and internet culture reporter for The New York Times, says that once a group of people in an online forum agree that declining White birthrates are an existential threat, then the conversation turns to policies. In some cases the response is that nonwhites should be killed. Often the response is White women need to be re-educated.

“What’s gaining more of a foothold is the idea of reversing a woman’s right to vote,” she said. “That was something I used to see in the overtly neo-Nazi spaces, but now I’m seeing it introduced in less extremist spaces. First introduced as a joke, of course, then as an acceptable policy that maybe not all users agree with but is worth discussing.”

(Nellie Bowles. “'Replacement Theory,’ a Racist, Sexist Doctrine, Spreads in Far-Right Circles.” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/technology/replacement-theory.html. The New York Times. March 18, 2019.)

Last Word

Advocates of the Great Replacement Theory are getting people killed. Sometimes words from a mouth effectively fill guns with bullets. Once locked and loaded, these weapons become useful tools not only to extremists but also to crackpot individuals who believe their mission is to eliminate threats – so they attack at places like Charlottesville, the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, and now Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo.

You can dismiss this warning in my blog entry as liberal propaganda or as wrongful blame for just another disturbed mass shooter. However, when you do so, you also dismiss the root of the hatred. That dismissal obscures many legally sanctioned acts of violence inflicted upon America’s non-white populace every day.

Journalist Michael Harriot puts it in perspective so well …

“The fight to create a less perfect union isn’t just reflected in white extremist terrorism and Fox News’s primetime lineup. It is an all-encompassing strategy bent on rewinding progress to a time when whiteness was synonymous with purity and perfection. Not since Reconstruction has this country so blatantly sought to reverse progress and strip away the most fundamental rights, including the right to vote, a woman’s right to control her body, and even the right to exist as a full and equal human being.”

(Michael Harriot. “From Jim Crow to Buffalo, replacement theory’s trail of destruction runs across American history.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/16/white-supremacy-replacement-theory-civil-rights. The Guardian. May 16, 2022.)

On Saturday, May 14, 2022, an 18-year-old white supremacist traveled more than 200 miles to target innocent Black residents of Buffalo, New York, in an attack inspired by the “Great Replacement Theory” The theory is part of “Make America Great Again” White nationalism. The goal is to weaponize whiteness at the expense of everyone else’s freedom in the hopes of protecting White sovereignty. Tucker Carlson is a staunch proponent of this theory … just listen to his words … and now, expect him to weasel out of any blame or association with the violence he helped reek.

Footnote:

J.D. Vance wants you to know that only one invasion should overwhelmingly preoccupy your attention right now. It’s not the invasion of Ukraine, where war crimes are mounting and we’re seeing horrifying imagery of murdered civilians littering the streets.

Vance, who credits the former president’s endorsement for helping him to victory in last week’s Ohio primary, is another vocal exponent of the discredited theory.

“You’re talking about a shift in the democratic makeup of this country that would mean we never win, meaning Republicans would never win a national election in this country ever again,” he claimed at a campaign event in Portsmouth last month.

Vance also released an ad fleshing out what he really means when he declares our border an emergency.

“Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans,” says the ad, “with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.”

The claim that migrants represent “Democrat voters” is a form of “great replacement theory” rhetoric. This idea, which posits a nefarious elite scheme to replace native-born Americans with outsiders via migration-enhanced demographic change, comes in various forms.

One version is explicitly race based, envisioning “white genocide,” which Vance isn’t necessarily employing. Another version is more overtly partisan: It posits that immigration is really a plot by liberal and Democratic elites to replace conservative voters with “more obedient voters from the Third World,” as Fox News’s Tucker Carlson heinously puts it.

Vance’s formulation is in line with Carlson’s, albeit with a twist: He suggests “Democrat voters” in the form of migrants are one factor “killing Ohioans.” That’s partly a reference to drugs crossing the border, but the hint at an apocalyptic demographic threat is obvious.

(Greg Sargent. “As vile as it gets: J.D. Vance goes full ‘great replacement theory.'” The Washington Post. April 06, 2022.)

“Tucker Carlson is the only powerful figure who consistently challenges elite dogma – on both cultural and economic questions. That is why they try to destroy him. Don’t fall for it this time, or any other.”

– J.D. Vance @JDVance1