- INSIDER's Manny Ocbazghi opines that Fox News pundits have been echoing white supremacist talking points during segments on immigration.
- These talking points are tied to a conspiracy theory called "The Great Replacement."
- The Great Replacement theory says that nonwhite populations around the world are maliciously marginalizing and deliberately replacing white populations.
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Following is a transcript of the video.
Manny: Ever since Fox News started in 1996, they have been on one.
- And by the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.
- Poor families in America have, 99% of them have a refrigerator.
- A fist bump, a pound, a terrorist fist jab?
Manny: Recently though, Fox News opinion programs have been accused of something far more sinister.
Tucker Carlson: How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Can you think, for example, of other institutions such as, I don't know, marriage or military units in which the less people have in common, the more cohesive they are?
Jared Taylor: Diversity of the kind we're all supposed to be celebrating, whether it's religious or racial or linguistic or cultural, all of that, they are sources of tension and conflict.
Manny: That's Jared Taylor, a popular white supremacist. If you're asking, "Why in the world does Tucker Carlson sound like that guy?" You are not alone. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Fox News opinion programs have been echoing white supremacist talking points to their millions of viewers...oh no, wait, that's exactly what I'm saying. Here's how they do it.
By now, we all know what racism is. It's racist to assume that I'm good at basketball. It's true, but it's racist. White supremacists have a specific purpose, though. They believe in policies that will lead them to the ultimate goal: a whites-only society. That's because they believe that white people are inherently superior to other races, and, therefore, shouldn't coexist with them. However, that goal is threatened by what they call The Great Replacement.
The Great Replacement is a white supremacist theory that says white populations around the world are being maliciously marginalized and replaced by people of color. In reality, we just want you to season your food a bit, but. The Great Replacement is the framework through which Fox News opinion programs parrot white supremacy.
Cristina López: It's an ideology that is deployed with a lot of fear.
Manny: Cristina López is the Deputy Director of Extremism at Media Matters.
López: There's a lot of fear and victimization behind it. They convince audiences that every nonwhite population is a risk. But you see it a lot in Fox News and primetime, specifically, with anti-immigrant segments.
Laura Ingraham: The America that we know and love doesn't exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people, and they're changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us don't like.
Carlson: Latin American countries are changing election outcomes here by forcing demographic change on this country at a rate that American voters consistently say they don't want.
Lou Dobbs: Put out welcome wagons! Pile 'em high because we're just going to consign tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans to their deaths.
Manny: This Great Replacement rhetoric is effective at fueling anxieties that Americans already have. If you're concerned about the economy, the job market, or healthcare coverage, The Great Replacement theory provides you with someone to blame.
López: This has been incredibly successful with fear mongers. You'll see Tucker Carlson talking about how "this town doesn't look the same as it used to look."
Carlson: In the year 2000, Hazelton was less than 2% Hispanic. Today, thanks to mass immigration, Hazelton is majority Hispanic.
Manny: When it comes to Great Replacement rhetoric, Tucker Carlson has faced scrutiny before. In August 2018, Tucker said that the South African government was seizing lands from white farmers because they were white.
Carlson: That is literally the definition of racism.
Manny: It's a talking point that until then lived only on extremely partisan platforms on the internet. Users on white supremacist platforms like Stormfront said South Africa was committing, quote, white genocide. In an investigation, the BBC found no proof that farmers were being killed at a higher rate than average citizens, and homicides where farmers were the victims were at a 19-year low.
However, soon after Tucker's segment, the president of the United States tweeted that he was ordering Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate these claims. He even tags Tucker Carlson in the tweet.
Erroneous white supremacist rhetoric echoed by Fox News made it to the ear of the president of the United States, influencing him to make it part of our government's day job.
Can you hear me? To truly understand what's at stake here, there's one more place that The Great Replacement rhetoric is common.
In October 2018, a mass shooting occurred at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Just before the attack, the shooter condemned a Jewish-run refugee charity, claiming that they bring in invaders that kill our people, which echoes a common Great Replacement narrative. In March 2019, another mass shooting occurred at two mosques in New Zealand, killing 49 people. Before that attack, the shooter wrote a manifesto. Its title: "The Great Replacement."
Fox News did not influence these attacks, but it's concerning that rhetoric associated with extremist concepts like The Great Replacement can be heard on air. I reached out to Fox News with my argument, and they provided me with two statements.
"We will not allow voices like Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs or Tucker Carlson to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts from the intolerant partisan activists like Media Matters whose only goal is to silence conservative thought they don't agree with."
And, through a spokesperson, Laura Ingraham said, "My comments were based on research published in The Washington Post on immigration and America's changing demographics. Attempts by left-wing media outlets to attribute nefarious motives to my remarks speaks to their intolerance and bias, not mine."
Again, the only thing I'm intolerant of is unseasoned food, but...
At the end of the day, the language we use can have a lasting impact on those on the receiving end of it. It cannot be the case that this kind of rhetoric has this much influence.
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