Who’s pushing The Great Replacement?
by digby
I don’t think enough has yet been written about Fox News’ responsibility for the El Paso terrorist’s “worldview.” Sure, a lot of it has been pushed by the extreme right fringe. But really, it’s pretty mainstream and the one’s who’ve been most responsible for maintreaming it are big stars on Fox News:
Media Matters collected the evidence:
Fox News figures have repeatedly warned of an immigrant “invasion”
The shooter who killed 20 people and injured dozens in El Paso, TX, over the weekend first posted online a document outlining the white nationalist “great replacement” theory to which he subscribed. Fox News has long mainstreamed this theory’s rhetoric.
In a 2,300-word screed posted online, the El Paso gunman appeared to draw inspiration from previous terror attacks, including an attack on Muslims in Christchurch, New Zealand, which he cited. The perpetrators in these attacks were motived by the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory that white people are being systematically “replaced” by people of color through mass immigration, possibly orchestrated by a globalist group that seeks to rule the world. Anti-Semites often hold people of Jewish faith responsible for this percieved globalist takeover — during a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA, the protestors infamously changed “Jews will not replace us,” referencing the theory. On Fox, the responsible group is typically the Democratic Party.
The gunman in El Paso described immigrants as “invaders” flooding into the United States, which is rhetoric that both President Donald Trump and Fox News personalities frequently employ. Fox hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, who both have a history of pushing white nationalism and bigotry on cable airwaves, blatantly push the theory that white Americans are being replaced through immigration to the benefit of Democrats. Variations of the white supremacist “great replacement” theory have also appeared on other Fox programs.
Here is a noncomprehensive list of Fox News media figures pushing the “great replacement” theory that inspired the El Paso shooter:On her Fox show, Laura Ingraham fearmongered that Democrats “want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever increasing number of chain migrants.”
Ingraham fearmongered on her podcast that Democrats support “replacing the current American population” with “new immigrants.”
Ingraham warned that undocumented immigrants are coming to “replace kind of the old America with a new America.” She added that this would be an “electoral lock forever” for Democrats.
Fox host Pete Hegseth said Trump has reached an agreement with Mexico to “stop the invasion — it is an invasion — of illegal immigrants.”
Discussing uncodumented immigrants, Ingraham claimed that “this is an invasion of the country.” Telling her listeners that “they want to tell you you can’t say that anymore,” she doubled down on claiming that “they are invading the country.”
On her podcast, Ingraham claimed Congress wants to change America “demographically” by “bring[ing] so many new people into the country that don’t have an affinity for our country.” She added that these are changes “that nobody voted for.”
Fox contributor Lawrence Jones defended putting migrants seeking asylum in camps on the border because they’re “invading the U.S. border.”
On Fox & Friends, Jones said that the, unlike Jews in Nazi Germany, migrants in America are “invading the U.S. border,” justifying the treatment of migrants in camps at the border.
Ingraham and her guest Pat Buchanan warned that immigration will change “the whole character and composition of the nation.” Buchanan added that “we’re becoming a different country without consulting the American people, who never voted for any of this. … You’re talking about the destiny of a country.”
Ingraham again warned that “the Democrats want to replace many of you.”
Ingraham complained that immigrants create “huge assimilation problems, especially with those coming from very different cultures.” She added that “we’re dealing with a total breakdown in the values of this country that I grew up in, and it’s just disgusting.”
Speaking to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Ingraham said his state is “completely overrun by this illegal invasion” and “calling it anything but an invasion at this point is just not being honest with people.”
On his Fox show, Tucker Carlson fearmongered about immigrants replacing an aging American population. He asserted that he isn’t “against the immigrants” but rather “for the Americans” because “nobody cares about them. It’s like, shut up, you’re dying, we’re gonna replace you.”
Carlson fearmongered that “Latin American countries are changing election outcomes here by forcing demographic change on this country.”
Carlson said that the U.S. “was a better country than it is now in a lot of ways” back when it was “more cohesive.”
On his show, Carlson ominously warned that immigration will “change this country completely and forever.” He complained that asking questions about our immigration goals spurs an “endless drone of self-righteous children barking about racism.”
Fox contributor Mike Huckabee referred to the migrants seeking asylum as “the invasion — and that’s what it is,” claiming migrants are “running over the border.”
Fox contributor and Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren called for people to be “upset and outraged” over a caravan of asylum-seekers because it is an “invasion by foreigners.”
Carlson warned that Democrats want “demographic replacement,” with a “flood of illegals” to create “a flood of voters for them.”
Carlson claimed he doesn’t “even know what ‘white nationalist’ means” before saying that “if you have a country full of 335 million people who don’t share common values, why does that country not break apart?” He complained that “the left” never “thinks about [this], even as it encourages massive immigration into the country.”
Carlson fearmongered that Democrats “are the party of foreign voters now” and “foreign citizens will be electing our political leaders.”
Carlson said that “our leaders are radically and permanently changing our country, wholly on the basis of their faith that diversity is, in fact, our strength.”
Carlson characterized protests advocating for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, as “a literal horde of illegal immigrants storm[ing] Capitol Hill.”
Fox host and Trump ally Sean Hannity fearmongered about immigration while his guest, then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), warned that Democrats “want to replace us with this massive flow.”
Carlson claimed immigration leads to wage declines and cited a study that he said says it causes a reduction in “the attractiveness of men as potential spouses thus reducing fertility and especially marriage rates.”
Carlson pushed the conspiracy theory that Democrats are encouraging noncitizens to vote to win elections.
Carlson ranted about the “invasion” of refugees who are “profoundly chang[ing] the demographics” of Europe “in ways that pretty much nobody who was born there ever asked for.”
Carlson expressed concerns about threats of white “genocide,” which is a common white supremacist trope.
On The Ingraham Angle, conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza warned that Democrats “have a special interest in the illegals” because they want to “transform the demographics of America.”
Carlson said that “in case you’re trying to follow the reasoning at home, by asking Mexico to stop encouraging an illegal invasion of our country, we are ‘jeopardizing our relationship with Mexico,’” quoting Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke.
Carlson guest retired Col. Douglas MacGregor warned that Democrats are trying to replace whites with “the Latinos, the Mexicans” to “transform the United States.”
Carlson said a rise in white nationalism isn’t surprising because “when you change a society as old as a European society, or even one as old as ours, completely through immigration in a short period of time … some people won’t like it.”
While discussing the fifth migrant child to die after being taken into U.S. custody, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade characterized migrants seeking asylum as a “flat-out invasion.”
Fox Business host Stuart Varney said that he’s “going to call it an invasion, like it or not.”
During an interview with Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX), Varney said that he “simply cannot imagine that middle America, that American voters, accept this invasion.”
Carlson guest Mark Steyn, who is also scheduled to appear on his show on August 5, said that “white supremacists are American citizens. The illegal immigrants are people who shouldn’t be here.”
A guest on Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs Tonight said of immigration: “We’ve seen this in Europe, we’re seeing it here, and they are attempting to replace us.”Fox & Friends guest and current CNN commentator Steve Cortes warned that “illegal immigrants are burglars, are thieves who are there to harm your security and steal your prosperity.”
I suspect that if you read portions of the racist screed to Fox News viewers without telling them that the words were from the El Paso terrorist, many would nod in agreement thinking this is a perfectly normal thing to believe. In their world it’s mainstream.
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