Dear fellow MoveOn member,
Call me old-fashioned, but I think people in public life need to be held accountable for the damage they're doing to our country.
So today, I'm calling out the most dangerous demagogue since Donald Trump. His name: Tucker Carlson.
On his Fox News show, Carlson has been peddling an outrageous white supremacist conspiracy called "white replacement theory." It's a decades-old piece of neo-Nazi trash that claims there is a liberal plot to reduce the white population and replace them with what Tucker has called "obedient people from faraway countries."1
This filth is dangerous—very dangerous. Every single weeknight, more than 3 million people tune in to watch Tucker Carlson on Fox News.2 It's the largest audience of any show on cable news. And on Facebook, newly released internal documents show that to increase their profits the company is intentionally pushing out this violent neo-Nazi propaganda to millions of people.3
To fight back, I've partnered with MoveOn to use our massive combined audiences to beat back racist lies and conspiracy theories. Together, we will create hard-hitting, viral videos to dispel Tucker Carlson's hysteria and get the truth out to people around the country.
But we need your help. Unlike Fox News, MoveOn relies on small donations from members like you to power it and get its message out to the widest audience possible. Will you chip in $5 a month so that, together, we can fight back against the right-wing media machine?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
This latest conspiracy coming out of Tucker's mouth isn't just vile, racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, and xenophobic. It's deadly.
In 2019, a gunman inspired by "white replacement theory" drove 600 miles to a Walmart in El Paso, TX, a city along the U.S.-Mexico border, where he murdered 23 people, mostly of Latino descent.4
According to a manifesto the gunman posted online just before committing the mass shooting, the attack was a "response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."5
And in 2018, another gunman inspired by "white replacement theory" killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pennsylvania. An investigation revealed that the gunman believed Jewish humanitarian aid groups were bringing Central American migrants to the United States in order to "kill" the "white race."6
It's not just Tucker Carlson who is spreading this deadly conspiracy theory. Current and former elected Republicans, including Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump, have also endorsed the theory—and thousands more right-wing social media accounts are spreading it far and wide online.
With the lives of immigrants, people of color, and religious minorities on the line, we need to invest massive resources in combating this disgusting lie and getting the truth out to people across the country.
MoveOn's in-house Creative Lab creates powerful videos and other content that directly pushes back against the onslaught of right-wing talking points, racism, and lies. Since its launch, Creative Lab has produced thousands of hard-hitting, fact-based videos that have been viewed hundreds of millions of times. And with your help, I'll partner with MoveOn to create even more viral content that pushes back against this white supremacist bile.
But right now, MoveOn has a big problem. Donations to MoveOn have fallen sharply since last year, and unless MoveOn members step up, MoveOn won't have the resources to take on the right-wing's racist lies.
If you are able to, will you please start a monthly donation of $5 to MoveOn and help push back against these neo-Nazi conspiracy theories?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Robert Reich
Sources:
1. "Tucker Pushes Racist 'Great Replacement' Theory Yet Again, ADL Renews Call for Fox to Fire Him," The Daily Beast, September 23, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159250?t=6&akid=307923%2E40999114%2EMH74rw
2. "Fox News Nearly Sweeps Top 100 Highest-Rated Cable Telecasts In August," Forbes, August 31, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159251?t=8&akid=307923%2E40999114%2EMH74rw
3. "Neo-Nazis are still on Facebook. And they're making money," ABC News, September 25, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159252?t=10&akid=307923%2E40999114%2EMH74rw
4. "A racist conspiracy theory goes mainstream," Axios, September 29, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159253?t=12&akid=307923%2E40999114%2EMH74rw
5. "Walmart shooter allegedly penned white supremacist rant in 'bible of evil,'" El Paso Times, August 4, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/159254?t=14&akid=307923%2E40999114%2EMH74rw
6. "Jewish Groups Blast Carlson for Openly Endorsing White Supremacist Theory: 'Tucker Must Go,'" The Daily Beast, April 9, 2021
https://act.moveon.org/go/159255?t=16&akid=307923%2E40999114%2EMH74rw
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