EOIN HIGGINS, eoinhiggins@gmail.com, @EoinHiggins
Higgins is a journalist who wrote the new piece “Why Is Glenn Greenwald Defending Tucker Carlson and the ‘Great Replacement’?” for Salon. Reporting for the article was funded by a grant from the ExposeFacts program of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
“There’s no plausible way to dispute that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is spreading racist conspiracy theories, but Glenn Greenwald has been trying anyway,” Higgins wrote.
The article noted that Greenwald has become “a stalwart defender of Fox, and Carlson in particular. As Carlson has gained in viewership and impact — he’s the most widely watched cable news host in the U.S. — his commentary and political positions have come under increased scrutiny. With that attention has come intense criticism. But he has Greenwald in his corner, who has let forth a flood of pro-Carlson arguments, primarily delivered on Twitter, his medium of choice.”
Higgins wrote: “Shortly before the May 14 massacre in Buffalo that left 10 dead, the alleged shooter, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, published a 180-page manifesto online. The post explained that he targeted the Tops Market grocery store because the neighborhood was majority Black, in an act of political violence aimed at striking fear into nonwhite U.S. residents. Gendron’s ideological outlook was highly influenced by the racist conspiracy theory known as the ‘Great Replacement’ which holds that whites in the U.S. are being systematically replaced by people of color in a demographic change that’s being masterminded by a cabal of elites.
“That demographic-threat conspiracy theory has been laundered in prime time by none other than Carlson. Using his perch atop cable news rankings, the Fox News host has worked to spread the message of demographic threat far and wide amongst conservatives. Gendron’s manifesto doesn’t mention Carlson specifically, a point seized on by Greenwald to explain away the connections between the messaging from his favorite cable news host and the shooter. But the ideological throughline is hard to miss. …
“Greenwald has been a Fox News partisan for some time, in near-perfect correlation to how often he’s invited on the network. Carlson has hosted Greenwald frequently, while gaining his unswerving loyalty. What this loyalty has meant in real terms is relentless pro-Carlson arguments from Greenwald. …
“It’s no longer enough to run interference for the Fox host — now, while expressing solidarity with Carlson, Greenwald repeats the same talking points on crime statistics and replacement theory that have been perfected in right-wing messaging. …
“While Greenwald formerly defended Carlson while distancing himself from the more extreme interpretations of the Fox host’s views, today he is increasingly deploying his Twitter platform in service of spreading the white nationalist message. These vehement defenses of the most influential media purveyor of the racist ‘replacement’ theory are destructive efforts to launder hate by a once-admirable journalist.”
