In the wake of the El Paso shooting, Fox News pundit with the ear of the president Tucker Carlson told his audience that white supremacy isn’t a problem. Watch:
Tucker Carlson: White supremacy is “actually not a real problem in America.” Calling white supremacy and issue is “a hoax” and “a conspiracy theory used to divide the country” pic.twitter.com/ydzmJ0L7UI
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) August 7, 2019
Carlson said in his rant said, “the combined membership of every white supremacist organization in this country would be able to fit inside a college football stadium.” This is supposed to comfort his audience by suggesting that groups with small memberships can’t be a problem.
Small But Deadly
I counter by noting the membership of the group behind the 9-11 bombings was never large, numbering in the thousands according to this report. According to a Center for Strategic Studies report, the core membership in al-Qaeda is currently fewer than 1,000. However, the report suggests that al-Qaeda is in a resurgence and continues to be a threat around the world. The movement is decentralized and numerically small but nonetheless remains a threat to our security.
Small groups can coordinate efforts and create terroristic threats as the Unite the Right rally showed in Charlottesville. This lawsuit filed against various white supremacists outlines actions taken by small groups of white supremacists to plan violence. One of the defendants in this suit is accused of using the web to plan violence at Charlottesville. The suit alleged that:
Daily Stormer established “meet ups” and chat rooms that coconspirators and attendees used throughout the August 11 and 12 weekend to coordinate their violence. The Daily Stormer released its own poster promoting the “rally” that read, “UNITE THE RIGHT/ Join Azzmador and the Daily Stormer to end Jewish influence in America,” accompanied by a Nazi-like figure wielding a hammer, ready to smash a Jewish star. For months before the Unite the Right events on August 11 and 12, Anglin organized his followers to attend and prepared them to commit racially motivated violent acts in Charlottesville. Although Anglin did not attend the rally himself because he is currently in hiding in order to evade service in connection with a separate lawsuit relating to events in Whitefish, Montana, Anglin orchestrated the movements of Daily Stormer followers and incited them to violence on a live feed contemporaneously with the events as they occurred on August 11 and 12 in Charlottesville.
The point is large numbers are not necessary for great harm to occur. Surely Tucker Carlson knows this.
In fact, the parallel to global terror groups should stimulate greater efforts to monitor and intervene in these domestic terror networks. Far from a hoax, white nationalist groups are emboldened in recent years. I have been following these groups for about a decade and I think they are as potent as I have seen them.
Daniel Dale and FBI Director Wray brings the facts on why white supremacy is a problem.
Tucker Carlson said last night that white supremacy isn't a "real problem" in the United States. This is almost too ridiculous to fact check, but here are a few numbers from me on the extent of the problem: pic.twitter.com/XFPY3BguD9
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 7, 2019
I just discovered a new term, which makes up one of the “big three” dark personality disorders listed by the psychological industry. I have learned about the other two (psychopaths and sociopaths) and how to tell them apart but I have not heard of Machs before. This is a term that Warren should be familiar with. It has made me wonder how many of these Machs I have actually come across in this life, including in celebrity political pundits on both sides of the aisle?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/machiavellians-gulling-the-rubes/201509/meet-the-machiavellians
It’s no accident that Carlson’s show has long been popular with white nationalist personalities like the Crying Nazi, Christopher Cantwell. Here is Cantwell, a self-professed racist, on Tucker Carlson from last year:
From The Daily Beast yesterday: State Department Official Oversaw D.C. Chapter of White-Nationalist Group: Report
Columbia Journalism Review has a great article complete with leaked links to the planning meetings and chat logs conducted by the various groups and individuals involved in Charlottesville. The event was planned to be violent, had nothing to do with saving the statue of General Lee and did not involve ‘very fine people.’ The guy from the State Dept. in the link above also attended Charlottesville.
Tucker has no idea of what he’s talking about and is as dangerous as a white nationalist.
And now this…
“Tucker Carlson goes on vacation as criticism mounts over false claim about white supremacy ‘hoax’ ”
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/08/08/media/tucker-carlson-vacation-reliable-sources/index.html
Per the article:
There is, of course, a long history of Fox hosts heading out on vacation as they become engulfed in controversy for inflammatory comments.
— Laura Ingraham announced she was going on vacation in March 2018 after mocking Parkland survivor and gun control activist David Hogg…
— Sean Hannity went on vacation in May 2017 after losing advertisers for promoting the Seth Rich conspiracy theory…
— Jesse Watters headed out on vacation in April 2017 after making a comment widely criticized as lewd about Ivanka Trump…
— Bill O’Reilly went — and never returned from — a vacation in April 2017 after NYT reported he had settled five sexual harassment allegations for millions of dollars…
It made me laugh.
Well said Tucker!
I know I avoid White Nationalist neighborhoods.
Because there aren’t any? White nationalists congregate online, not in neighborhoods.
You don’t have to read too deeply into his comment to see the racist component.
Thank you for this excellent, fact-based account. A notable contrast to the responses at Patheos Evangelical, from Bethany Blankley to the Cranach blog comment section. There is a clear demographic within U.S. White Evangelicals who are attempting to obfuscate the well-documented rise of Domestic White-Nationalist Supremacy and Terrorism.
So we must wonder: why is not accounting for and not facing White-Nationalist Terrorism so important to them? What do they have to lose? Certainly not Jesus, the radical dark-complected Middle Eastern refugee crossing borders with no English and no Christianity. White Evangelicals left him behind years ago.
I would suggest they don’t want to lose their status as uber-victim… I bet if you surveyed every one of them, they would be in that group that claims in surveys to be the most persecuted, under-privileged peoples in the US… By focusing on white supremacy and it’s very real victims. It really unmasks them; shows how some of them are really the perpetrators and are really fake victims too.
You raise a good point. Over on Patheos Evangelical, the Cranach blog comment section is filled with White Grievance as their identity politics. They really believe postmodern professors and communists and videogamers and single-parent families are actively oppressing U.S. White Evangelicals, and they fill entire comment sections with such self-serving and very false Victim Narratives.
Yes, we are actively oppressing them — by merely existing.
They need to get out of their bubble and try to find reality.
Tucker is right!
Someone’s had too much… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c23ad2f24c63cab2d1f58f22afc03ada9fac3fa33bf650fa33389dc5ba8131bc.jpg
Rarely watch it. Watch CNN more.
If that were true you’d be able to post more reasonable responses.
My responses are perfectly reasonable.
I have reasonable doubt on your statement.
Who cares.
The danger is not just from “card-carrying members” of groups, it is also from other people who may be inspired or influenced by the ideologies and rhetoric being disseminated by the groups, and who act on that influence.
Also, these groups are seeking members, but they are even more interested in having their views and messages seep into culture and into the national conversation. And they celebrate when political leaders and media outlets advance viewpoints that are to some degree sympathetic to or consistent with their own, because this provides them with a level of amplification that extends to audiences far beyond what their small groups could reach themselves.
I think what’s even more dangerous is people just being silent about it or trying to ignore it or like Carlson, say it doesn’t exist.. for some no doubt, a well-intentioned attempt to somehow, “rise above it all”… You can do that to some extent and if you truly want to bring some compromise or middle ground to a set of extremes. But there are always points within such a situation, where moral clarity/courage and just plain ol truth telling is necessary.
Fox News “pundit” Tucker Carlson is a blithering idiot who can do nothing but recite the Fox News line. He wouldn’t recognize truth if if tried to tear his arm off. Of course, he gets paid not to recognize truth, and to bury it in rhetoric at every opportunity. He is not alone: there are too many media outlets similar to Fox, spreading the same lies. It would seem that sowing distrust and spreading hatred pays pretty well.
And he wouldn’t recognize white supremacy even if he looked in the mirror.
It’s a bit of an aside, but I wish people would more carefully distinguish between “white nationalism” and “white supremacy”. Even the title of this blog post uses “nationalism” when Carlson said “supremacy”.
Admittedly there is much overlap between the concepts, and both are evil (although I would say that “supremacy” is more evil). But, even if both are rooted in a similar racism, there is a tangible difference between these two ideologies:
1) White people are superior and other races are inferior, therefore white people should rule.
2) The US is a nation built by and for white people, so others should stay in their place or get out of the way.
A fair number of people espouse #2 while disavowing #1, saying that other races are not inferior but should not mix in and disrupt the alleged harmony of an imagined monoracial America. For these people, Africans in Africa or Hispanics in Latin America are not inferior, they just don’t belong in “our” country.
It seems to me that Trump’s rhetoric (and that of Fox News) has a lot of #2 (white nationalism) in the background, but not as much #1 (white supremacy). I worry that confusing the labels could cause criticism to miss its mark — there are many people with white nationalist ideology who could plausibly argue that they are not “white supremacists”.
Maybe, but how do #2 people justify a belief that mixing races is bad if they, at the core don’t think white people are superior?
Well, there are people (I know some) who say that it is better for the smooth functioning of any society if ethnic diversity is minimized. Sometimes they point to Scandinavian countries where almost everybody is white, or to Japan. So for them, people of color in US communities (at least those that are historically mostly white) are not inferior, they just upset the harmony one gets when there is a more uniform culture.
Now, I suspect that if one dug down deep enough into most of the people who say that, you would find racism as a significant motivation (subconsciously in many cases). But it is pretty distinct from true white supremacy. Still wrong (especially from a Christian perspective), but not the same.
This is antithetical to every American ideal, and simply repulsive. Does this not remind you of any other ideology? People rationalize things in many ways, that doesn’t make it any less destructive or wrong.
I’m not defending the viewpoint at all, just describing it. So that criticism of the spectrum of racist supremacy/nationalism can be more accurate, and to the extent possible more persuasive.
I understand that it wasn’t your comment. What I am saying is that the two viewpoints are far more intertwined that you seem to realize, even in that somewhat rationalized version. That some may not realize that their viewpoints are racist and supremacist is not something to be worked out in headlines. To be honest, if their friends have not let them in on it yet, I doubt they will ever realize it. This might be where you come in.
Critics don’t care about the truth!
White (supremacists) nationalists aren’t familiar with the truth.
Good thing there is only a few of them.
Nationally? Probably the same number or more as Islamic extremists. Is Islamic extremism also a hoax in your world?
A better question is how well are they armed? Answer: Very well armed.
Feeding a blatant troll there you are 😉
You do know that white nationalism is really just an attempted rebranding of white supremacy to make it more mainstream, right? What you are espousing is essentially exactly what white supremacists are hoping. Virtually 100% of white supremacists who attempt to go mainstream will claim to be for point 2 and against point 1. “We don’t hate black people.” they will say. “We think separating the races will help both white people and black people.” But, it’s all just a euphemism. In fact, the only reason they are for point 2 is because of point 1.
Similar in a way to Young Earth Creationism went to the name Creation Science to try to get in schools, and when that failed, they went to Intelligent Design. But, pretty much, everyone who is an Intelligent Design proponent is a YEC also.
A lot of people feel that we should reject their cover story and just refer to them with the most accurate label, which is 1.
MyPetSlug,
I think we have similar concerns but are coming at it from slightly different angles. We both find white supremacism, and its close cousin white nationalism, to be deplorable. I contend that if we are sloppy in conflating the two (which have roots in similar racism but are not identical) we allow those white nationalists who are not in line with the KKK or Daily Stormer to claim that our critiques of “white supremacy” don’t apply to them, and that therefore they are OK. What is needed is a separate (albeit related) critique of white nationalism that does not allow those people to get off the hook for their evil. But sloppy rhetoric that equates the two terms lessens the sharpness of the critiques and reduces their effectiveness.
As you mention, it is similar to varieties of creationism, which is actually an area where I have a LOT of experience communicating (mainly within Christian circles). Young-Earth Creationism and ID share some theological and scientific flaws, but they are distinct things (more distinct IMO than white nationalism and supremacy). Lumping them together is highly counterproductive; it allows the ID people to (with some legitimacy) claim they are being misrepresented. They are quite skilled at casting themselves as misunderstood victims; that is one area where the fact that they are mostly lawyers and philosophers (instead of scientists or theologians) helps them. To effectively argue against ID, it needs to be critiqued on its own merits (or lack thereof).
P.S. Your statement about pretty much every ID proponent being a YEC is wrong. It is more like 50-50, and probably less than 50% among leaders of the movement. Although for the most part they are careful not to express opinions about the age of the Earth, lest they lose the substantial support they get from YECs.
From wikipedia:
To be referred to as “white nationalists” is exactly what they want. It makes them appear to be advocates of something they can defend without calls to outright vile bigotry. Are there *theoretically* some people who support white nationalism but not white supremacy? Yes, but the vast vast majority of white nationalists are supremacists, despite all the mainstream spokespeople’s claims otherwise. At best, pedantically insisting on this distinction is splitting hairs. At worst, you’re providing cover for people to hide their racists motives.
To borrow an old joke, it’s the 99% of white supremacists that makes the other 1% of white nationalists look bad.
As for YEC vs. ID, perhaps I went too far. Let me amend by restating that No ID proponent I’ve ever met or argued with online has thought the I in ID was ever other than the Christian god. No one who’s ever proposed it for a school curriculum has ever done so without an explicitly stated religious motivation. Basically, everyone understand it’s a Euphemism, which is the same here.
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o98qMWjXnkY
Good video!
I have followed such groups for over twenty years from a law enforcement perspective. Carlson has no idea what he’s talking about. Though that’s probably giving him too much credit: He understands perfectly, but masks it with propaganda. This is how he makes his living. He has progressed from preppy conservative to full-on hate-enabler. He knows where the money is, what his job requires, and forfeited whatever intellectual integrity he might once have had. (Which is giving him way more credit than he deserves, suggesting he once had integrity. In fact, like Trump, he learned years ago where the money train stops, namely at his bank.)
It is important, indeed vital, to understand that these people call themselves all manner of things, but at bottom they share the same beliefs and goals and bloodthirsty desires. Tax protestors, “sovereign citizens”, Nazis, “Constitutionalists”; no matter what they call themselves, no matter how much they try to distinguish their own odious beliefs from others’, it always comes down to the same thing: racism and antisemitism. Mainly, antisemitism, because if you read the writings of the different groups, if you push past the diversion tactics and the phony history and legal ignorance, if you can stomach the infantile rationalizations and padded cell philosophies, the foundation for all of it turns out, consistently, to be hatred of Jews.
They hate a lot of people, including you, Professor, and certainly me, but the roots of all of it is the ancient hatred of the Jews. There’s a lot of blood on Trump’s hands, on Carlson’s hands, on Coulter’s hands, on all of them. Everything they touch rots.
Thanks Jeff for that insight. Matches well with my experience.
Just wanted to mention this… Hitler was inspired by US white supremacy.
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-nazis-studied-american-race-laws-for-inspiration-2017-2
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-jim-crow
It’s all purity politics and the rabid belief that they are special for reasons. This is not a philosophy that believes in personal responsibility no matter how much it pushes that on others. This is not a philosophy that values truth or even basic human rights. This is not a philosophy that even values free speech because only white supremacist speech is “free speech”.
Oh… and when people talk about white culture, that is white supremacist culture. Last I checked, the Brits do not believe they are French. The Italians do not think they are Swedish. The Danes do not believe they are Portuguese. They would all be considered Whites in white supremacist culture. The whole concept of white culture is based off of white supremacy which has it’s foundation in religion with manifest destiny and other agreements that divided up the world so that white Europeans could loot from other countries other than other white Europeans. Nobody is just “white”. You may be a mutt with a diverse ancestry that numbers every single European country but you are not just “white”.
In all cases, it’s a bunch of losers who prefer to punch down on the minority groups rather than punch up at the real structures that are making them miserable. It’s just like the guy who has to deal with a bad boss and then, comes home to beat his wife up because.. well, she didn’t get him his beer and he needs a way to de-stress.