The tension was palpable on Thursday after a liberal Fox News guest pointed out how the network has regularly aired content echoing or directly referencing “great replacement” ideology, a white supremacist conspiracy theory. A screed believed to be written by suspected Buffalo mass shooter Payton Gendron references the theory.
On a recent episode of The Faulkner Focus, Democratic political adviser Kristal Knight was asked about recent comments from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who said he’s going to start voting Republican because the Democrats have become the “party of hate.”
She responded that she felt the GOP and their conservative allies are the true party of hate, noting that top Fox News personalities like Tucker Carlson often explicitly mention the racist theory, which posits that elites are trying to replace white hegemony by encouraging immigration.
“We also have to remember the ‘Great Replacement’ theory that has been spewed on this network alone, and the Buffalo shooter referenced it,” Ms Knight said. “These are all remnants of the Republican Party. That’s the party of hate.”
A recent New York Times analysis found that Carlson mentioned some version of the theory at least 400 times on his show, sometimes explicitly. (“In political terms, this policy is called ‘the great replacement,’ the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries,” the anchor told one guest last September.)
“We’re gonna let them adjudicate that case without us commenting on it,” Faulker said in response to the allegation. “And you can have your opinion on whatever it is.”
“The idea of taking a horrible, horrible, unthinkable tragedy like what we saw in Buffalo, New York, and trying to advance a partisan political agenda off of it is just beyond reprehensible to me,” added conservative panelist Charlie Hurt.
Carlson, for part, says he is still not “sure exactly” what great replacement theory is, despite previously referencing it by name.
On an episode of his show this week, he said the theory in fact comes from the left.
“We are not guessing this. We know this. And we know it because they have said so. They have said it again and again and again. They have written books on it and monographs and magazine articles, they have bragged about it endlessly. They talk about it on cable news constantly, and they say out loud: ‘We are doing this because it helps us to win elections,’” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has called on the network to stop airing content that plays into white supremacist ideals, arguing it is inspiring violence.
"In a craven quest for viewers and ratings, organizations like Fox News have spent years perfecting the craft of stoking cultural grievance and political resentment that eerily mirrors the messages found in replacement theory," Mr Schumer said during a speech on the floor.
He also wrote a letter to Fox News’s leadership, including owner Rupert Murdoch.
“For years, these types of beliefs have existed at the fringes of American life,” Schumer wrote in the letter, which his office shared with reporters. “However, this pernicious theory, which has no basis in fact, has been injected into the mainstream thanks in large part to a dangerous level of amplification by your network and its anchors.”
The network has responded to such arguments, noting in one statement that Carlson wants America to work towards a “colorblind meritocracy,” and how he criticised the Buffalo shooter as a “mental patient” whose ideas weren’t valid.
