Fox ‘News’ has some of the slimiest people in the industry working for them … ol’ Rupert Murdoch sure does know how to pick ‘em. The only credible journalist at Fox is Chris Wallace, son of the long-esteemed Mike Wallace, and I often wonder why he doesn’t get a job at a more reputable network. Among the worst of the lot is Tucker Carlson, a man who would argue with a tin can if it were marked “Democrat” or contained lima beans.
Charles M. Blow has written an editorial for the New York Times that I think bears reading if you want to try to understand the current white supremacist movement by the Republican Party to disenfranchise Black, Hispanic, Asian and immigrant voters. The current push is nothing new, merely an upgrade of what white supremacists have always tried to do.
Tucker Carlson and White Replacement
This racist theory is rooted in white supremacist panic.
Charles M. Blow
Opinion Columnist
On Thursday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson caused an uproar by promoting the racist, anti-Semitic, patriarchal and conspiratorial “white replacement theory.” Also known as the “great replacement theory,” it stands on the premise that nonwhite immigrants are being imported (sometimes the Jewish community is accused of orchestrating this) to replace white people and white voters. The theory is also an inherent chastisement of white women for having a lower birthrate than nonwhite women.
“I know that the left and all the gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that 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. But, they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening, actually. Let’s just say it: That’s true.”
Carlson continued, “Every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter.”
The whole statement is problematic. First, what is the third world? This label originated as a way to categorize countries that didn’t align with Western countries or the former Soviet bloc. It’s now often used to describe poor countries, or developing countries, and by extension, mostly nonwhite majority countries.
When Carlson worries about immigrants from the third world, he is talking about Hispanic, Asian and Black people who he worries will outnumber “current” voters. Current voters, in this formulation, are the white people who make up the majority of the American electorate.
Second, and revealingly, he is admitting that Republicans do not and will not appeal to new citizens who are immigrants.
But although white replacement theory is a conspiracy theory, the fact that the percentage of voters who are white in America is shrinking as a percentage of all voters is not. Neither is the fact that white supremacists are panicked about this.
White supremacists in this country have long worried about being replaced by people, specifically voters, who are not white. In the post-Civil War era, before the current immigrant wave from predominantly nonwhite countries, most of that anxiety in America centered on Black people.
Judge Solomon Calhoon of Mississippi wrote in 1890 of the two decades of Black suffrage following the Civil War, “Negro suffrage is an evil.”
Calhoon worried that white voters had been replaced, or outnumbered, by Black ones, writing: “Shall the ballot remain as now adjusted, the whole country in the meantime taking the chances of the rapid increase of the blacks, and leaving, in the meantime, the whites as they now are in those localities where they are outnumbered?”
Calhoon would go on to become the president of the state’s constitutional convention that year, a convention called with the explicit intention of codifying white supremacy and suppressing the Black vote. States across the South would follow the Mississippi example, calling constitutional conventions of their own, until Jim Crow was the law of the South.
The combination of Jim Crow voter suppression laws and the migration of millions of Black people out of the South during the Great Migration diluted the Black vote, distributing it across more states, and virtually guaranteed that white voters would not be outnumbered by Black ones in any state. The fear of “Black domination” dissipated.
Indeed, as extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act was being debated in 1969, The New York Times made note of the fact that Attorney General John Mitchell, a proponent of a competing bill, was well aware that even if all the unregistered Black people in the South were registered, their voting power still couldn’t overcome the “present white conservative tide” in the South. As The Times added, “In fact, Mr. Mitchell is known to believe that Negro registration benefits the Republicans because it drives the Southern whites out of the Democratic Party.”
A reporter at the time asked an aide of a Republican representative, “What has happened to the party of Lincoln?” The aide responded, “It has put on a Confederate uniform.”
But now, in addition to Black voters voting overwhelmingly Democratic, there is a wave of nonwhite immigrants who also lean Democratic. And tremendous energy is being exerted not only by white supremacists in the general population, but also Republican office holders, to attack immigrants, curtail immigration, disenfranchise Black and brown voters and assail abortion rights.
One of the surest ways of preventing a Black person from voting is to prevent them from living. As The Times reported in 1970, Leander Perez, a man who had been a judge and prosecutor and “led the last stand against integration” in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish, once famously linked Black birth control to racial dominance, stating: “The best way to hate a [expletive] is to hate him before he’s born.”
I would even argue that the bizarre obsession with trans people is also rooted in part in white anxiety over reproduction.
The architects of whiteness in America drew the definition so narrowly that it rendered it fragile, unsustainable, and in constant need of defense. Replacement of the white majority in this country by a more multiracial, multicultural majority is inevitable. So is white supremacist panic over it.
Filosofa's Word 
So, so stupid of them. I don’t agree with GOP policies, but if they had any smarts at all, they would find a way to market their philosophy to the immigrant community and to the changing demographics of America. Instead, they will continue to cling to an ever-shrinking image of America in the past. They can only gerrymander for so long before that “strategy” stops working.
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Sigh. It is cruelty on the part of people like Tucker Carlson and certain members of Congress, but it is ignorance on the part of the person who believes this b.s. I fully agree with you that if the Republican Party had any interest in actually governing rather than lying and cheating to gain power and wealth, they would be re-thinking their platform, their ideology. Instead, they lie to the people they have sworn to ‘serve’, and meanwhile they are taking massive corporate donations from such as the fossil fuel and gun industries. I’m so fed up with the entire lot of them!
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Me too…me too….
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It’s the same narrative just different people here.
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Yes, and in the UK, Germany, France … it seems to be almost a global pandemic these days. Sigh.
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❤
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The sooner more immigrants make more States Democrat the better for all. At some stage the GOP will either have to die out completely or wake up and become a party with some policies which will have appeal to all sides in order to function in politics. That should mean more reasonable people and less racists.
Cwtch
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Hello David. I wish that was true. But in their waning days the Republicans have managed to so rig the system as to make it almost impossible to oust them in the near term and to delay their eventual demise in the long term. As their numbers decreased they had a choice, change to attract new members or change the system to keep their smaller numbers in power. They did the latter. To the point where they are only about a 1/3 of the population yet control over 65% of government power. In a lot of places they are so concentrated as to control almost 80% of the power through gerrymandering and other election rigging strategies. The US is in a bad state, a tipping point, and I am scared as to how it will fall. Hugs
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As you know, I fully believe that a blending of cultures is to the benefit of us all … it enriches our lives and expands our knowledge. I also believe that no one race/colour/ethnicity is better than another. Sadly, what has kept the GOP alive is the ignorant who buy into their b.s. of white supremacy. In theory, I agree with you 100% that the GOP must either reform else suffer a tragic death. But, the reality is that they are supported by millions, and in particular by wealthy corporations who see them as their puppets, the defenders of the wealthy as opposed to the populace. The challenge I think, at this point, is to educate and illuminate the Republican base, to teach them to THINK instead of simply following the latest Matt Gaetz or Josh Hawley or Marjorie Greene. Sigh.
Cwtch xxx
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Jill, I have really done my best to stop paying attention to what people named Carlson, Trump, Hannity, Ingraham, Graham, Cruz, etc. say. If they continue to choose to add no value with what they say or tweet, then truly what is the point.
Let me suggest a headline for future use. “(Insert name) said something (choose inane, denigrating, untruthful, seditious) again today as others in the Republican Party cringe.”
Taking the head of the party at his word is a fool’s errand. The others follow his lead. Keith
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Hello Keith. Dang I get your point, I really do. I hate listening to those same people. The problem is they are very well financially supported to promote that bile. I just read where the son of Murdock in charge of Fox News has doubled down on his racism support on the network. Damn, we don’t need that and it will be even more hard to combat. Three levels of racism are apart tearing the US. Street level that our local people could combat if it were not funded from above. The political level torn between their donors and the people they serve. Then there is the real problem, the big money who are white supremacist, who want their master white race and they have the money to try to get it. Billionaires like the Mercer family who funded most of the far-right media, also the other millionaires / billionaires who fund think tanks like the Heritage foundation. Their entire goal seems to be to create conditions where they can gain even more money over each other while denigrating the workers. They really want a slave class in the US and are still pissed the union got rid of that.
But back to your point of ignoring them, that is OK for you and people our age, but it won’t stop anything. They are now on a crusade of getting the youth to their cause, to fight for their made-up fictions. Look what the heck is happening on the island of Ireland right now. If older or more wealthy people can get the youth to fight hopeless fake ideals for them they damn well will.
That is happening right here in the US, just hidden more carefully. Hugs
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Like you, my friend, I am consciously and intentionally ignoring news from these jerks, from the former guy and others. BUT … there are times that we cannot simply turn a blind eye, that we must sit up and take notice. Sigh. No, I don’t take any of them at their word, but the reality is that some 40% of the people in this country do, so we need to at least be aware of what is being said. I wish it were not so.
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Jill, Scottie, thanks. I recognize we should not turn a blind eye, but ignoring what you already know the deceitful president is saying is a judicious use of your time. If Trump’s lips are moving, someone is being denigrated, name called as he pats himself on the back for his perceived greatness. And, then there is the lying. What tickles me is when he calls people something like “dumb son of a bitch” people fail to realize that beneath the veneer of his bombastic rhetoric is a very incompetent manager. And, this was not just in the White House, where conservative David Brooks said his White House was “equal parts chaos and incompetence.”
It behooves us to tell others why we don’t pay attention to the man and his sycophants .His words add little value. I remember a good a friend would tout the opinions of Ann Coulter often, then she made the mistake of asking me what I thought of her. I said I don’t put a lot of credence in what Ann Coulter says. She was stunned. Keith
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I agree … there are more important issues to focus on than what the former guy and his sycophants have to say. I just wish they would fall into a big hole somewhere and disappear altogether! I read this evening that most republicans in Congress and hopefuls are just trying hard to avoid falling into his path of displeasure. Isn’t it a damn shame that they are more afraid of him than of the opinions of their constituents???
Ann Coulter? Somebody actually thought Ann Coulter had a brain in her head? Wow! She and Laura Ingraham ought to be … on another planet in some other universe!
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Hello Jill. Every time a new person votes, regardless of race, every vote opposite is diluted by one more vote against. It has nothing to do with race, but math. But this replacement fear is scaremongering at the worst, because it is not true. No white person is being replaced. They are still there and can vote, until death. No one is taking their name and voting in their stead. I do not care how many new voters there are, and I sincerely hope there are a lot of new voters of every race and creed, I am not replaced as I am still here and able to vote, have my say. Now what are people like Tucker really afraid of? Really it is simple. They know how they treat POC now. They know what assholes they are, the assumed privileges they take, the way they use their being white to their advantage. Most white people I don’t think would do it deliberately, but some really do. Here is what people like Tucker are afraid of, they are worried that when POC are the majority they will treat white people the way the bad white people treat POC now. That terrifies them. The thing is it won’t happen. Because not all people are assholes like the racists. When we finally get rid of the idea of superiority and just accept people for people, it will be so much better for all the people. Hugs
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Reminds me of apartheid in South Africa in the 80s, and before. The racist whites (there were whites who did not feel this way, but they were mostly afraid to speak up or speak out) were so afraid they would be killed, or worse, treated by blacks the same way they were treating blacks–which is what they deserved–that they only made laws that pushed the blacks into corners they had to explode out of.
When the blacks finally did take over, they killed no one. They did take over the means of production, and some of the whites land that was used to produce food, but they mostly treated the whites as equals. There was no mass massacre of whites. Apartheid fears proved unfounded.
Republican fears will prove unfounded too. It is the white racists who commit atrocities because they fear. People of colour will not fear the whites, but will treat them fairly. Where white racists have no hearts, people of colour do. Whites should appreciate that!
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Hello Rawgod. As a young impressionable kid in the 1980’s in Germany I had the great fortune to meet a Welshman I spent time with. He predicted so many of the things we are experiencing today. But his tales of his times in South Africa during apartheid helping the black people was eye opening to this New England country boy who had never really met a POC before joining the military. His descriptions of hiding from the police after delivering medications and other stories made a huge impression on me. He was only about 5 foot 4 inches if that but had the soul of a warrior when it came to people having rights. If you think he was telling tall tales in a US base in Germany then let me explain that due to my position at the time I was able to verify much of what he told me. It is incredible the chances some took to change the country of South Africa and I was lucky as a young adult to have one as a friend. We are seeing that in our country right now. What happens next is up to us, I hope we also make the right choices / actions. Hugs
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Not sure why you would think I would not believe your stories, Scottie? Apartheid was a huge interest of mine. Racist to the Nth degree. But there was no internet then, real information was hard to find. But that changed one day when I totally accidentally found a copy of Black Consciousness in South Africa. It is still the most amazing book I ever read. Anyone interested in how Apartheid really got defeated should read it. Nelson Mandela barely had anything to do with it. The true hero was Stephen Bantu Biko, but the white Nationalists killed him in 1977, the biggest danger that existed to Apartheid.
And yes, if the Repuglygarbagecans get their way, there will soon be Apartheid in America. NOW is the time to stop them!
Hugs back from rawgod.
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Hello Rawgod. I did not word that sentence well. I was trying to convey the sense of the things this slight small man was trying to do with and for other people, running from police squads to hide people who were not legally allowed to be where they were, and they would be killed if found. The lengths he and others went to get what I would think should be normal supplies to these people in desperate need, things like medications / medical supplies. I just found it incredible and so intense.
You are correct that the Republicans want that for the US, and we must stop it at all costs. Hugs
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