Tucker Carlson Hosted a Discussion of Slavery and Reparations on Fox News. How Do You Think It Went?

From Esquire

You might remember that on Wednesday-two days ago-we learned a Coast Guard officer was arrested and discovered to be, according to a federal indictment, "a domestic terrorist" who "intended to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country." This was tied, in part, to his quest to establish a "white homeland." That is, a white-nationalist member of the United States armed forces was arrested before he could carry out an assassination campaign targeting various prominent Democrats and media critics of President Trump. He had 15 guns and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition and idolized Anders Breivik, the Norwegian far-right terrorist who killed 77 people.

If you are a viewer of the Fox News Channel or a talk radio listener, you may have seen relatively little coverage of this. During an hour of Fox & Friends the morning following the news, the occupants of the Genius Couch reportedly spent more time on the "world's largest heavy equipment auction." Often, the accused domestic terrorist has taken a back seat to Jussie Smollett. And this was what listeners of Laura Ingraham's radio show were treated to yesterday. She hosted a guy named Joe DiGenova:

This is part of a rising tide of "civil war" rhetoric on the right, with some commentators openly fantasizing about it. Remember the wannabe white-nationalist terrorist from two days ago? As Chris Hayes pointed out on Twitter, here is a Google search he performed:

Hayes, of course, was one of the media figures on the guy's hit list.

Elsewhere on Fox News, Tucker Carlson hosted talk-radio host Mark Steyn for a discussion of slavery and the possibility of reparations for African-American ancestors of slaves.

Just get over it! Slavery was a long time ago! Then they yucked it up and Carlson threw to his next segment

You can't expect a guy who fills in for Rush Limbaugh on his show to appreciate that, after 250 years of slavery, there were 90 years of Jim Crow, 60 years of separate-but-equal, and 35 years of racist housing policy that continued into the period leading up to the Great Recession. So maybe Mr. Steyn can focus on this: In 2017, the median wealth of white households was $171,000. For black households, it was $17,100. Reparations are part of the discussion about how to remedy this state of affairs. But why does the average white family have ten times the wealth? Surely, Steyn's answer would be even more revealing about him.

For instance, here's Steyn-a frequent guest of Carlson's-on the show last month.

It was nice of this talk-radio psycho (a Canadian who we're all very glad came south of the other border) to lay it all out there. After a silly claim that Democrats "favor" undocumented immigrants over American citizens, Mark Steyn made no bones about it: All that matters is whether you have citizenship papers.

What a charming view of citizenship. You have no obligations to the commonwealth, no expectations that you will treat others with dignity and respect and do your part to ensure the country lives up to its founding principles. You just need the right birth certificate. Never mind that undocumented immigrants really do not commit crime at higher rates than native-born citizens. And never mind that a white nationalist threatened mass political murder two days ago. He's still better than a someone who came here fleeing gang violence, or who just wants a job.

Oh, you think there's a difference between a white nationalist and a white supremacist? So these folks want to set up a white ethno-state-will non-whites have equal rights under this plan, or will whites enjoy supremacy over everyone else? "Nationalist" is simply a rebrand. And Fox News, the number-one cable news network and the favorite teevee channel of the president and many of his followers, is a place where you can find all this and a civil war fantasy. Happy Friday.

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