We have to talk about Tucker Carlson, Replacement Theory, and the Right's usage of white supremacist paranoia and apocalyptic fearmongering to legitimize violence.
This is fascism. Period. We've seen it before in Germany and here in America.
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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/replacement-…
I want to be very frank here.
What Carlson has done in recent weeks is advocate for a full and open embrace of fascism, launder the violence of January 6th into a legitimized action, and now is pushing white supremacist/white terrorist concepts of Replacement.
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Carlson's behavior isn't accidental. It's an intentional story he's telling, complete with calculated escalations.
He is airing white supremacist propaganda to bring his audience into full support of violence suppression of the Left and people of color.
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Before we get into the history, and it is disturbing and important, we need to point out that Carlson previously employed a lead writer who was caught posting on white supremacist sites and trafficking the material from those sources into the show.
This trend is continuing.
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Replacement Theory is a 20th century holdover found in the work of men like Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard.
Their white supremacist tomes argued that the "white race" that had "civilized" the world was in danger of losing its control.
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These books were incredibly popular and earned Grant and Stoddard fame, fortune, and influence, including being turned into advisers for American immigration policy, which aggressively addressed the danger of "replacement" in its quotas and restrictions.
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This will sound familiar because it's an animating influence on the Right, but Grant and Stoddard warned of "cultural suicide" should white-controlled powers allow people of color to outnumber or "replace" them.
White supremacy was a project they advocated protecting.
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A lot of people are reading this and thinking, "This sounds like Hitler."
Because it does. Because Grant and Stoddard influenced Hitler. Because racist American ideas cross-pollinated with Nazi ideology. They were consulted, lionized.
We helped inspire Nazism.
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The history we lose sight of is that, before battle lines were drawn, Hitler admired America.
He loved its slavery, its genocide, its Confederacy, the racial stratification of Jim Crow, its white supremacist foundations.
He was inspired by its eugenics and white supremacy.
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If that isn't enough, it must be mentioned that Nazism and blatant white supremacy crossed the ocean again and found purchase here during the Depression.
20,000+ American Nazis rallied in Madison Square Garden.
They built camps. Supported Hitler explicitly.
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With the American First Committee (yes, that's where it came from) national hero Charles Lindbergh found a platform to openly endorse Hitler and call on Americans to join him in defending white supremacy against the rising tide of people of color.
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Lindbergh's message was explicitly Nazism.
The need for white people to control the world.
A conspiracy theory that Jews secretly controlled media and culture and that traitorous liberals, in league with people of color, were destroying the white race.
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This needs said: Fox News and the American Right are telling the same white supremacist story and selling the same conspiracy.
They say "we're losing OUR America," but what they're doing, not so subtly, is saying, "White America is being taken away."
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These stories about immigrants and caravans are just different chapters in a long white supremacist book.
It's about "replacement."
It's about loss of white supremacist power.
It's just told with a wink and a nod and flashy graphics, but it is a fascist story still.
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When we see the GOP at the border, dressed as guards and troops, it's just a symbolic nod toward this idea.
When they say they're "protecting" America, they're saying they're protecting white America from "invasion."
It's replacement. Over and over.
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This obsession with guns, with starting a new civil war, with "protecting America" is just an iteration of the same tired and played out and dangerous stories of "replacement."
They're threatening wars and violence if their political power is ever threatened.
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Make no mistake, this is what the moment is about. Changes in populations and democratic balance are leading to another moment of crisis in which white supremacists are going to advocate violence as "protection" against an "apocalypse."
It's about control.
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As the Right and white people lose their democratic advantage, they're going to push more and more for a complete destruction of democratic institutions, open society, and anything that might trouble their power.
This is the truth of "replacement."
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"Replacement Theory," which is the animating ideology of white terrorism, is a legitimizing of pre-emptive violence, a narrative that allows these people to pick up a gun, oppress others, and do whatever it takes to maintain power.
We're in the middle of this process.
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None of this is accidental, and it certainly isn't harmless.
The Right is embracing violence and open, admitted fascism. This will continue and escalate, especially if we continue to ignore it or deny that it's happening.
Trump wasn't the end, but a beginning.
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If you want to read more about this history and issue, there are plenty of books out there, including mine, AMERICAN RULE, which traces these white supremacist notions and American Fascism.
We need to learn this stuff before it repeats itself.
penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/a…
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