For the past year, Tucker Carlson has embarked on a dedicated campaign to insert the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, a core belief of white nationalist ideology, into mainstream Republican discourse. During the September 23 broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson explicitly referenced the term “great replacement” using a deceptively presented outake of remarks then-Vice President Joe Biden made in 2015 to accuse him of believing that “non-white DNA is … the source of our strength.” Carlson told viewers Biden had invoked “the language of eugenics,” indicating an effort to replace “legacy Americans” and “change the racial mix of the country” in order to gain political power.
White nationalists and far-right personalities are celebrating Tucker Carlson's latest racist “great replacement” monologue
“This week alone both Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk addressed and acknowledged the Great Replacement. That was unthinkable even six months ago.”
Written by Nikki McCann Ramirez
Research contributions from Kellie Levine & Alex Kaplan
Published
Following the monologue, the Anti-Defamation League reiterated its call for Fox to fire Carlson from the network. Carlson’s toxic combination of conspiracy-mongering and racist commentary has been bolstered by Fox Corp. and the Murdoch family’s all but explicit approval of his caustic programming, and it has resulted in a sharp increase in the instances of fearmongering about white replacement, genocide, and race war on Tucker Carlson Tonight.
Carlson’s long history of endorsing, repackaging, and broadcasting white nationalist principles for layperson cable viewers has made him a favorite among extremist cohorts. The white supremacist website Daily Stormer has called Carlson “literally our greatest ally,” and white nationalists and far-right personalities were quick to make their approval known of Carlson’s most recent tirade.
On 4chan’s /pol/ board, users celebrated Carlson as the “only person calling out this Haitian migration surge for what it is, white replacement,” and “literally naming ‘the great replacement’ on cable TV.”
White supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes cheered Carlson’s comments, lauding his use of “groyper” rhetoric. Fuentes also praised TurningPoint USA founder Charlie Kirk’s “rhetoric” who the next afternoon had called for Texas to “deputize a citizen force, put them on the border” in order to protect “white demographics in America.”
Vincent James Foxx, a far-right video blogger affiliated with the white nationalist street-fighting group the Rise Above Movement, highlighted that Carlson had shared the great replacement theory with his millions of Fox viewers and encouraged his followers to share the clip.
Reacting to Carlson’s monologue, Joseph Jordan, known by his online pseudonym “Eric Striker” criticized the possibility that Republicans would simply refuse to act as Democrats ran out “the white biological clock.” Jordan reiterated Carlson’s call for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to intervene directly at the southern border.
Jordan has reportedly been affiliated with the neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn, is a prolific contributor of antisemitic articles at The Daily Stormer, and hosts the antisemitic YouTube show The People’s Square.
Far-right social media account The Columbia Bugle tweeted about Carlson “exposing” Biden’s immigration policy.
Tommy Robinson News, an account dedicated to following Tommy Robinson (birth name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), boosted The Columbia Bugle’s language in a tweet. Carlson interviewed Robinson in 2018 when he was released from prison pending another trial for contempt of court charges. Robinson is the former leader of the English Defense League, an anti-Muslim extremist group.
While sharing a video, Gab founder Andrew Torba said, “This week alone both Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk addressed and acknowledged the Great Replacement. That was unthinkable even six months ago. The Overton Window is shifting rapidly.”