You folks remember Tucker Carlson, right? He’s the guy at Fox News who took over for sexual harasser Bill O’Reilly when Bill O. was fired.  Ever since he took over he’s become very popular among white nationalists who appreciate Tucker pushing their agenda for them. As a writer over at American Renaissance declared: “Suddenly people on national television are talking about the end of white America, the rising tide of color, and what demographic change really means.” Long time readers will recognize the “rising tide of color” shout out.  The 1920s never really went away for American Renaissance writers.

Are you a believer that whites are victims of a planned genocide who also argues that Hillary Clinton is operating a pedophile ring out of a pizza restaurant? Tucker has your back! Are you a European white nationalist worried about all the foreigners entering your country? Tucker feels your pain! (The good racists over at American Renaissance thought Tucker did a great job of  consolidating “Years of awareness and fact, boiled down into one compound sentence— and not from an AmRen-ner or alt-Righter, either.”).  So, yeah, Tucker is the confused face of white supremacy.

Just recently Tucker explained that  white people are precious little snowflakes who must be protected from the big bad world because they are so fragile and delicate. “Reporting” on a National Geographic article on an influx of Latinx immigrants into Hazleton PA, Tucker explained if too many brown people with Spanish accents move in then it is perfectly understandable if white people just cannot even:

It doesn’t matter how nice these immigrants are. They probably are nice; most immigrants are nice. That’s not the point. This is more change than human beings are designed to digest. This pace of change makes societies volatile, really volatile, just as ours has become volatile.

We can learn a couple lessons about racism from Tucker’s latest confused rant.

Lesson One: Racists Don’t Need Biology

I don’t mean that racists don’t understand the modern biology of human variation (although they don’t). Rather it is to point out that racism does not depend on believing in some sort of biological differences between groups of people. Cultural differences can work just as well as biological differences for supporting racism. Anthropologist Peter Wade explains that “cultural racism is:

when references to biology tend to he more hidden and when even overt reference to aspects of physical appearance, such as colour, may be evaded because people fear it smacks of racism….  We cannot limit our definition of race to biological criteria. (p. 5)

Tucker is arguing:

1. In the nature of things, there are real differences between these two groups of people.
2. Those differences cannot be overcome, human beings just aren’t “designed” that way.
3. We must slow down! Don’t move so fast!

#1 mean Tucker isn’t “really” a racist, since the differences he can point to are not necessarily biological differences but cultural differences (they speak Spanish! eek!). #1 & #2 mean that he is not taking responsibility for his politics (this isn’t a choice I’m making! It is in the nature of people!) and thus falsely “naturalizing” his social choices. #3 means that he can deny that he is trying to deny anyone anything (they can come here! just not so fast! Not so many!) We’ve seen this “Moderation” argument before.

Comparing Carlson’s argument to that of Merwin Hart is illustrative. Merwin Hart, you’ll remember was the “clever bigot” whose antisemitic propaganda was distributed by the Volker Fund in the nineteen-forties and ninteeen-fifties. Hart testified in front of Congress against allowing a few hundred thousand “Displaced Persons” into the country after World War II. Tucker said that “most immigrants are nice” which is a little better than Trumps infamous “Mexicans are rapists” remarks. Merwin Hart was right there with them when he opposed admitting European refugees in 1947:

Nobody disputes the fact that here and there among the refugees who have entered in recent years are some and no doubt many of outstanding ability and character who are able to make a genuine contribution toward the country’s welfare. But, generally speaking, much of the recent immigration appears not to have been of this type and hence has been against the interests of the American people. And a continuation of it, certainly any increase of it, will likewise be generally against our vital interests. (p. 245-6).

Hart was four-square for the 1924 National Origins Act, brainchild of Madison Grant. The 1924 Act was based on idea that the Master Race mixing its bloodlines with the racially inferior would destroy the biological basis of civilization. Grant was particularly worried about the “Polish Jew, whose dwarf stature, peculiar mentality, and ruthless concentration on self-interest are being engrafted upon the stock of the nation (p. 14)”

Hart agreed with Grant about the Jews:

We are opposed to this bill because it seems to be chiefly backed by an alien element as fanatical and as dangerous as the Communists themselves, and just as determined as the Communists to complete a stranglehold on this country.” (p. 160)

“It is our observation that the tremendous propaganda back of this bill to admit 240,000 aliens comes from the Zionists. This is shown by the high pressure propaganda of the Zionists themselves, of which Members of Congress are well aware. For some reason, the Zionists have strong reasons for favoring its passage. Obviously they expect that persons in sympathy with Zionism will be the chief beneficiaries if the bill is enacted.” (p. 161)

But when Hart defended the law, all that stuff about biology was gone. With the help of a friendly Congressman he explained it was about how easily their cultures could assimilate with ours:

I believe in the maintenance of the National Origins Act. I think that was founded on great study, most careful study, and it was based, just as the Immigration Bureau said at that time, on what was best for the country.
Mr. ROBSION. It was based on the proposition of admitting people who would more readily and quickly assimilate with the people already here.
Mr. HART. Yes. sir. (p. 254)

Just like that, Presto Chango!, good old-fashioned biological racism can be presented in purely cultural terms. The policy position is basically identical, however: we cannot let those people near us! Why not? that brings us to my second point:

Racists Think White People are Fragile Little Snowflakes

unsplash-logoNathan Wolfe

According to the National Geographic article on the town of Hazleton PA has experienced a significant influx of Latinx immigration:

In 2000 Hazleton’s 23,399 residents were 95 percent non-Hispanic white and less than 5 percent Latino. By 2016 Latinos became the majority, composing 52 percent of the population, while the white share plunged to 44 percent.

On point #1 feel free to consult what has long been the bible for cultural racism, Convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza’s book, The End of Racism. Those of you who do not wish to slog through that mess of a book are fortunate that it can be summarized easily in a Tweet with no loss of cognitive content. Turning Point USA is a group of conservative students who are super-concerned about our liberal colleges and universities. They are a shoestring operation barely scraping by with just a handful of billionaire backers. Here’s a recent Tweet from founder Charlie Kirk:

All men are created equal however all cultures are not equal

America and the west remain humanity’s last, best chance

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 1, 2018

And yet, the Best Culture Ever ™ cannot survive without being 95% of the population and a bunch of laws intended to guarantee it stay that way. “White” culture is supreme, but somehow so fragile and delicate it cannot out-compete, or even live with, “other” cultures.

A century ago, in Congressional hearings on immigration restriction, Louis Marshall, the director of the American Jewish Committee opposed such restrictions in front of Congress. Marshall also took aim at Madison Grant.  Despite the esteem with which the country held Grant, Marshall declared that Grant :

was not a real scientist, after all, because he [said] that noble creation of his mind, the Nordic race, was disappearing. Well, being a Darwinist in theory, I wondered how this scientific man could square the idea of the passing of that great race with the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. And when the other day, Professor Osborn, of the Museum of Natural History, also lamented that there was a steady disappearance in many parts of the world and in many parts of our country of the Nordic stock, I wondered why this fabled race was so frail and fragile. (p. 289).

I continue to wonder if Tucker realizes that his terror over brown people signals how terribly weak he thinks white people are.

Madison Grant and Merwin Hart were wrong about immigration. Nearly everything Tucker and the gang believe about diversity is wrong. Back a century ago, Louis Marshall regaled the Committee with the important work done by recent immigrants such as Nicola Tesla and Charles Steinmetz despite them being from stock that was supposedly racially inferior (p. 291, 298). We now have more immigrant inventors than any other country. Naturally Trump has threatened the program that makes that possible.

It is easy, looking back a century or half century and easily see that Madison Grant and Merwin Hart were racists. There is no reason not to judge Tucker the same way. Hazleton PA is a case study of white people panicking, of enacting racist measures in order keep out people who could be beneficial to their community because those people are different. Tucker took one look at the situation and decided to throw his lot in with the racists. They love him for it. The rest of us should condemn him for what he is doing: soft-selling white nationalism.

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