Extremism experts, media watchdogs, and progressive groups are scrutinizing Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, claiming a link exists between the top-rated host's "great replacement" rhetoric and the apparent thinking of the suspect in Buffalo's fatal rampage over the weekend.
The white suspect suspected of killing ten people and injuring three others at a supermarket in a mostly Black neighborhood on Saturday allegedly penned a "manifesto" advocating the white supremacist "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which Carlson has promoted on his weeknight show.
The idea is based on the false premise that a cabal of Jewish and Democratic elites are scheming to "replace" white Americans with people of color through immigration policy, greater birth rates, and other social changes. Before making it to the mainstream of conservative media, the idea circulated on the far-right fringes.
"On his broadcast, Tucker Carlson made comments that directly reference this conspiracy theory," Michael Edison Hayden, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, stated."The rhetoric that he espouses has its roots in white supremacist literature," Hayden continued, listing instances of white nationalist websites and other publications. Carlson, he continued, "stops short of pinpointing" Jewish people as the "replacement's orchestrators, instead using more broad phrases like "the elite."Carlson criticized the "horrifying amount of violence in the United States" in his opening monologue on Monday, but appeared to separate himself from the events in Buffalo. He stated the suspect's 180-page dossier was a "rambling pastiche of slogans and online memes," as well as a "product of a disordered and chaotic mind." He also accused Democratic leaders of profiting from the gun carnage.
The suspect's alleged document does not mention watching "Tucker Carlson Tonight," a Fox News staple since 2016. Carlson was criticized by Fox News, but a spokeswoman for the network pointed NBC News to on-air statements in which the presenter disavowed political violence.
On his show, Carlson has espoused various aspects of the "replacement" hypothesis. According to a recent research released in The New York Times, Carlson supported the premise that elites aim to replace white voters with immigrants or individuals from the "Third World" in more than 400 episodes.
"I know that the left and all the little 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 who are currently casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World," Carlson said in April 2021, for example.
"Buffalo is the latest in a terrible string of mass killings that have been inspired by the virulently antisemitic and racist 'great replacement' conspiracy theory," said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. Words have severe repercussions."Greenblatt continued, "This is why we've long pushed Fox News to cease giving Tucker Carlson a forum to promote such ugly and deadly rhetoric." "It's past time for Tucker to pay the price for his comments." (Greenblatt's group has previously asked for Carlson to be fired from Fox News.)
Since 2018, the theory has been cited in several mass shootings, including by the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, the man accused of killing 23 people inside a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, and the man who pleaded guilty to murdering one and injuring three at a Poway, California, synagogue in 2019.
The renewed examination of Carlson's opinions came as Fox News prepared for its annual "upfronts" presentation in New York City, a television industry event when network executives push firms to buy on-air commercials.
Many blue-chip corporate advertisers have looked to abandon Carlson's show in recent years, yet many large American firms continue to advertise on Fox News.
Following the tragedy in Buffalo, NBC News contacted spokespeople for 14 companies who apparently advertise on Fox News, including General Motors and WeightWatchers, to see if they planned to continue advertising on the network.
"We do not advertise on Tucker Carlson or other similar shows," GM said in a statement, "however we do advertise on Fox News." A GM spokeswoman referred NBC News back to the initial statement when asked if the firm expects to continue advertising on the network.
Carlson's show does not feature any WeightWatchers advertisements. A later email to the company's communications office inquiring if it planned to continue advertising on Fox News received no response.
The other 12 firms' spokespeople did not immediately respond to emails received late Sunday night.
Carlson's established history of provocations apparently does not disturb the bosses of Fox News, according to Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive nonprofit organization that studies far-right media.
Carlson is far from the only prominent right figure who has embraced "replacement" terminology. According to The Washington Post, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the House's No. 3 Republican, echoed the racist theory in Facebook adverts.
"Despite vile and inaccurate reports, Congresswoman Stefanik has never pushed for any racist position or made a racist statement," Stefanik's senior assistant Alex DeGrasse said in a statement posted on Facebook on Monday.
Carlson, however, wields influence over large sections of the American public like few other people in the modern conservative movement as the host of the country's top-rated weeknight cable news show.
According to a poll issued last week by The Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, approximately one-third of American adults believe an attempt is underway to replace native-born Americans with immigrants in order to gain an electoral edge.
In an article describing the findings, the Associated Press said, "Those views match increasing anti-immigrant sentiment spewed on social media and cable TV, with right broadcasters like Tucker Carlson exploiting fears that new arrivals will erode the native-born population."
According to the AP piece, these sentiments are not shared by the majority of Americans, with two-thirds of poll respondents believing that the country's diverse population makes it stronger.
"I believe that killers are eventually accountable for their conduct," Gertz added. "I also believe that spreading crazy conspiracy theories in ways that give targets for their audience and followers is extremely risky for important public personalities."
"Eventually, people begin to take that seriously," he continued, "and when they act, it becomes a terrible situation."
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