Perhaps emboldened by Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, who stood by his segment ostensibly promoting the white nationalist “replacement” theory, Tucker Carlson has spent much of this week doubling down. “Demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party’s political ambitions,” Carlson said Monday night, cementing his position in the face of calls for his firing. “Let’s say that again for emphasis because it is the secret to the entire immigration debate.… In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country. They’re no longer trying to win you over with their program. They’re obviously not trying to improve your life. They don’t even really care about your vote anymore. Their goal is to make you irrelevant.”
And strangely, despite Fox News’s and Murdoch’s insistence that Carlson’s focus on this topic has to do with voting rights, and not racist conspiracy mongering, he appears to have drawn praise from a certain segment of adoring fans. “Holy shit, I just watched Tucker’s replacement segment. This is a turning point in the program,” wrote one user on 4chan’s /pol/ board––one of the few remaining online platforms that hosts self-described Nazis––in a thread praising Carlson for naming “the jew on national television.” Others on the thread shared their praise by posting a meme depicting Carlson as the far right’s cartoon frog mascot, Pepe, urging fellow 4chan-ers to “get your parents to watch right now to boost tucker’s ratings so murdoch doesn’t get cold feet,” and declaring, “HEIL TUCKER!”
Some posters were simultaneously excited by Carlson’s message and nervous for his future, warning that he was “FLYING TO CLOSE TO THE SUN.” As one user wrote, “The [Anti-Defamation League] pressure is massive on its own, but American Jewry will crush him if he doesn’t plan ahead.” Another promised to support him by “subscribing to fox nation for only 5 shekels per month,”while another urged readers to “just pay for it and support him. only reason he’s not getting called by fox is because he brings in money.”
Similar praise for Carlson was expressed in other online pockets of the far right, with many lauding the host for going where most media personalities are afraid to tread. “Tucker made it clear Monday night he had nothing to apologize for…. This segment was one of the best things Fox News has ever aired and was filled with ideas and talking points VDARE.com pioneered many years ago,” reads one article published on the white nationalist blog VDare, which praised Carlson for daring to “mention the Great Replacement”––a term that has been a mainstay on VDare’s site over the years. After encouraging VDare readers to “watch the whole thing,” the author wrote, “The best news: Fox stands by Carlson. The longer Tucker stays on air, the more the truth can remain unsuppressed.”
Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and popular media personality among young white extremists, responded to Carlson’s Monday night segment by tweeting, “This week Tucker redpilled 4 million people and there is nothing liberals can do about it.” He then listed the white nationalist talking points he believes Carlson got right: “Demographic replacement, ADL, Israel, it’s all there… a full redpill. On primetime Fox News for 4 million mainstream conservatives,” he wrote. “Can you feel it? We are inevitable.” Scott Greer, a conservative writer who left his contributor role at Carlson’s Daily Caller after it was revealed that he secretly published work on a racist blog, defended Carlson against the ADL’s criticism. “Tucker’s offense was speaking truth to power,” he tweeted.
Just as notably, other right-wing extremists were critical of the Fox host for not going far enough. Richard Spencer tweeted that Carlson is “just the latest stage in conservative failure,” concluding that his “voting rights” argument represents another “progressive dilution” of white nationalist rhetoric––like the Reagan-era GOP not-so-subtly referring to Black Americans as “welfare queens,” he noted. Arguments broke out on 4chan over whether Carlson’s safe-for-TV framing was actually helpful. “This is a step back,” wrote one user upset by Carlson’s attempt to claim that his argument was not racial in nature. “If only whites voted the last 10 presidents would be republican. White votes are being diluted. Tucker ultimately says replacement migration is happening okay, but he lies and says it’s not about race, this is misleading a lot of people who believe him. It is about race and he knows it. Who is being replaced? Mexicans?”
Others on the thread pushed back, suggesting that Carlson’s commentary was the perfect gateway drug to turn average Fox News viewers into extremists. “For the purposes of normie cuckservatives, this is based as fuck as baby’s first redpill,” wrote one. “This is very literally a pol talking point on Israel/Jews, and it is broadcast on the most watch news show in the country.”
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