On Thursday night, Fox host Tucker Carlson raged against President Joe Biden’s newly unveiled infrastructure package, the American Jobs Plan, in a rant which appeared tailored to two very specific audiences: those who deny the scientific and experiential evidence that our planet is dangerously warming, and those who deny the historic and present reality of inequity and racial injustice.
To help him make the case for the former, Carlson invited climate denier and Fox regular Marc Morano to spew wild claims against the Green New Deal and attacks on climate advocates. And in an appeal to the latter, Carlson mocked Biden’s infrastructure plan as “a mashup of intersectional theory from Wesleyan and some kind of South African-style spoils system.”
In reality, Biden’s plan calls for modest investment in America’s infrastructure including roads and bridges, but also water infrastructure, broadband, and clean energy, which is intended to create a more equitable and sustainable economy. It is lauded by both labor leaders and economists, who predict it will create 2.3 million jobs by 2024, injecting $5.7 trillion into the economy and raising per capita income by $2,400. And the proposal already has support from the majority of the American people -- but that is not who Carlson appears to be talking to.
Carlson suggests measure to address historic inequities and environmental injustices in Biden’s plan are reparations
Carlson’s monologue on the infrastructure plan, running approximately 15 minutes, cited the climate and equity elements of Biden’s plan to claim that it is not actually about infrastructure at all -- which is core to the right-wing medias’ attack on the plan and an already well-worn narrative on Fox News.
“First and most obviously, is this really about infrastructure -- bridges, roads, airports, things we can actually use -- or is it yet another weird climate scheme-slash-power grab-slash-race-based redistribution plan,” the Fox host asked. “What exactly is this?”
Carlson’s answer excluded any mention of the biggest ticket items in the package -- such as the $621 billion for transportation infrastructure and resilience, including the repair and construction of roads, bridges, investments in public transit and rail service, as well as improvement to ports, waterways, and airports -- and instead focused heavily on elements of the plan intended to redress historic inequities and environmental injustices: