FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2022
Carlson tackles replacement: Last Tuesday night, Tucker Carlson offered his take on the so-called "great replacement theory." At one point, he said this:
CARLSON (5/17/22): You've heard a lot about the great replacement theory recently. It's everywhere in the last two days and we're still not sure exactly what it is.
Here's what we do know for a fact. There is a strong political component to the Democratic Party's immigration policy. We're not guessing this. We know this, and we know it because they have said so.
They've said it again and again and again. They've 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."
That's not something that is said once. It's something they've gloated about again and again and again and we think that's wrong and in case you doubt us, here they are.
To read the transcript or watch the tape, you can just click here.
Are the highlighted statements true? Is there, or has there ever been, some sort of "strong political component to the Democratic Party's immigration policy?"
If so, what is that political component? And when have "they"—presumably, Democratic officials and office holders—actually said so out loud? Who has written the books and the articles bragging about this (alleged) component of policy?
We don't doubt that there may have been some such political component to Democratic policy thinking, but it's Carlson who's making the claim. He said that Democrats "have gloated about it again and again and again."
After that, he played videotape of four alleged examples.
He played tape of Stacey Abrams, of Julian Castro, of Dick Durbin and even Joe Biden (on C-Span in 2015). At this point in the monologue, Biden was offered to viewers as Carlson's fourth and final example. Here's the way it went down:
BIDEN (videotape): An unrelenting stream of immigration, nonstop, nonstop. Folks like me, who are Caucasian, of European descent, for the first time in 2017 will be in an absolute minority in the United States of America, absolute minority.
Fewer than 50% of the people in America from then on will be white European stock. That's not a bad thing. That's a source of our strength.
CARLSON (laughing): So you play clips of them saying it, and you're the deranged conspiracy nut!
You aren't required to agree with or to like what Biden said. But where did he say, let alone "brag," that Democratic immigration policy was somehow being affected by some demographics-based political assessment?
Answer: Biden didn't say any such thing in that videotaped statement! Did Carlson believe that he did?
We don't know how to answer that question, but you can feel fairly sure that some of Carlson's viewers believed that they had just seen Biden making some such statement. At times like these, we're all inclined to hear the things we came in wanting to hear, or to hear the things our tribal leaders tell us that we just heard.
In fact, none of those four Democratic officials actually said, in the tape Carlson played, that their party's immigration policy was being affected by the desire to change the political balance of the electorate.
That doesn't mean that Carlson's original claim might not be true in some respect. It means that, when Carlson gave four (4) examples of Democrats allegedly saying that and bragging about it, none of the Democrats actually said any such thing.
Later in his monologue, Carlson cited several magazine articles from 2013 in which journalists seemed to say that the immigration reform package of the day was going to make Democrats unbeatable in future elections.
One of these essays came from Politico. The other came from the Center for American Progress, a Democratic-aligned think tank.
Those writers did seem to say that the proposed immigration reform of that day would be a massive political boon for future Democrats. But those writers weren't Democratic officials, and even they weren't directly saying that Democratic policy had been shaped by the desire to affect future elections.
Is there now, or has there ever been, a political component to Democratic Party immigration policy? We'd be surprised if the answer was no, just as we'd be surprised to learn that there has never been a "low wages for business owners" component to Republican immigration policy.
Having said that, we'll also say this:
We've reached the point where any purported bit of evidence will be "close enough for Storyline work" for tribal true believers. We wish that practice only obtained among the reds, but we increasingly see that sort of behavior all over blue cable too.
Nothing that's said won't be good enough. If it's said by our tribunes, it's true!
"It means that, when Carlson gave four (4) examples of Democrats allegedly saying that and bragging about it, none of the Democrats actually said any such thing."
ReplyDeleteOh puh-leeze, dear Bob. Openly bragging about 'demographics' helping their 'party' is not bragging and saying "any such thing"?
May we suggest that perhaps you need to have your head examined?
"Biden didn't say any such thing in that videotaped statement!"
ReplyDeleteTrue dat, the Veg didn't get to it. Probably he lost his train of thought, as usual. What the Veg said was plain racist of course, but he didn't say his 'party' would benefit.
Abrams did a usual dembot word-salad.
But the other two did say it, directly, no question about that.
LOL.
DeleteYou call Biden "the Veg" because he believes black people should have equality.
You are quite the cut-up, Cecelia.
ReplyDelete“The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?”
― Bertolt Brecht
Yes, Brecht was a German Marxist. So what?
DeleteAmerica abuses immigrants to the exact degree that immigrants are powerless.
ReplyDeleteRepublicans know that they'll never be in the camps, they'll never be refused. So they can pile on the hate, it doesn't hurt them.
You can find people with similar courage attacking Arabs and women, fill in the blank. When you are assigned the role of non human then it's possible to release an orgy of violence.
As Biden said about Haiti (not even wearing an appropriate Fox News bowtie) they can sink into the ocean for all we care.
Asylum laws? But I want to feel angry. How can I feel safe unless I'm angry at a powerless group?
"A three-decade-old clip of US president Joe Biden saying “it would not matter” if Haiti sunk has resurfaced as his administration faces a backlash for its handling of the influx of Haitian migrants.
DeleteThe remarks were made by Mr Biden in 1994 during an interview with PBS when he was the senator for Delaware.
Mr Biden was asked if then president Bill Clinton would invade Haiti following the 1991 military coup against democratically-elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
During the conversation, he said: “If Haiti, a god awful thing to say, if Haiti just quietly sunk into the Caribbean or rose up 300 feet, it wouldn't matter a whole lot in terms of our interest.”
This video has been around for years but it was widely shared this week after thousands of Haitian migrants encamped in the town of Del Rio near the US-Mexico border were forcefully sent back to their homeland."
Note that Biden sent the Haitians back. He didn't do that because he doesn't care about Haiti. He did it because they don't meet the criteria for asylum. In other words, he is following US law.
Politico our tribune? Check your meds.
ReplyDeleteEnforcing federal law is the President's job. S/he's supposed to prevent illegal acts, including illegal immigration. Biden is doing less than he might to enforce immigration law, to say the least. Why is he ignoring his sworn duty in this respect. The only answer I can think of is that he expects these illegal immigrants to eventually become Democratic voters.
ReplyDeleteCan anyone think of another reason for the President's behavior?
As I understand it, the same problems have existed on the border for 100 years.
DeleteWhat changed is that the far right saw greater political value in racism than in allowing people in to the country to do the backbreaking work of feeding us.
Imagine choosing racism over nourishment.
Enforcing federal law is the President's job.
DeleteExcept when your hero wants a mob to attack the United States Capitol and hang the VP in order to stay in power thru brute force. Still have your head up his ass, David?
Donald J Chickenshit sat on his fat ass and let the horror go on, didn't lift a finger. Go fuck yourself, David, you racist prick.
WASHINGTON —
The congressional investigation into the riot at the U.S. Capitol last January is zeroing in on why then-President Donald Trump did nothing for more than three hours to stop his supporters from ransacking the building and clashing with police as lawmakers sought to certify that he had lost the 2020 election, the panel’s chairman said Sunday.
David is saying factually incorrect things. Biden has been deporting more people than Trump did, continuing Obama's policies that resulted in more deportations during his two terms than occurred during Bush's two terms. Biden is treating asylum seekers more humanely than Trump did, but he has continued to address illegal immigration. Meanwhile, conservatives are against all immigration, level as well as illegal, and it does not distinguish between asylum seekers (who are legal) and those who are trying to cross the border for economic opportunity. About half of illegal immigrants to the USA come off of planes or enter legally and overstay a visa, not over fences along the Southern border. This has been true for decades, and is a main reason why Trump's idea of building a wall was symbolic, having nothing to do with stopping people from entering. Immigration ebbs and flows based on conditions in other countries, not based on US immigration enforcement efforts. Trump's policies stopped legal immigration and selectively targeted legal visitors from specific countries. Conservatives lump all of this together in their minds and simply want all foreigners to stop coming here. There is no way to prevent overstaying visas without limited tourism, which happens to be a major industry in the USA and would have a negative impact on state economies all over the country.
DeleteBob continues to make false equivalences between FOX and the Dems. It isn't remotely true.
ReplyDeleteIf somebody was being "replaced" that would mean they would have to leave. And no one is. I have heard leftists brag that the future is ours, that the old white people are dying off
ReplyDeleteand soon the US will be ours. I think I've been hearing something like that from the far left since about 1980. But
it never seems to happen.
Indeed, the replacers in question would have to
be from Mexico and Central America. The Dems show
no real skill in dominating those voters so far.
It's nice that Bob is catching up with what goes
on nightly over at FOX. Too bad he's been ignoring
it for at least twenty years..
"We've reached the point where any purported bit of evidence will be "close enough for Storyline work" for tribal true believers. We wish that practice only obtained among the reds, but we increasingly see that sort of behavior all over blue cable too."
ReplyDeleteSomerby spends the bulk of his essay showing that Carlson claimed one thing but his clips didn't support his assertions. Somerby said that viewers will believe him anyway, because of true believe storyline (no evidence provided for Somerby's claim about that, however)
Then at the end of Somerby's essay, he says that because Carlson's true believers accept his statements without proof, that happens on the left too. Again, no evidence of that was provided by Somerby. Just the bothsiderist conclusion quoted above.
Where have we seen a blue cable person made a claim, then shown clips that do not support the claim at all, while saying that they do? Who has done that, on what date, about what topic?
And once again we have Somerby's claim, without evidence, that there is a blue cable news, equivalent to the red Fox News. I don't think that is true. I think Rachel Maddow skews a bit left but she is balanced by others on MSNBC who are more centrist. I don't consider MSNBC conservative but neither is it a house organ of the left, the way Fox is for the right, to the point of coordinating its actions with politicians, as Trump did throughout his campaigns and presidency. The other cable news stations (excluding Fox) are independent journalistic enterprises, not propaganda arms of the right or left.
So Somerby's main premise is wrong and this essay is yet another repetition of fake news that the right wants to drill into its voters -- that the media is leftwing and doesn't report the news fairly.
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ReplyDeleteThe first white people I'm descended from who came here did so in 1607. I do not care if the U.S. becomes a majority Brown nation. I don't know why anyone would care. I doubt Carlson cares.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, I enjoyed reading your blog.US tourist visa
ReplyDelete