Even after the Buffalo massacre, which was motivated by the white supremacists’ “great replacement” theory, the Murdochs continue to allow, maybe even encourage, its pundits to push it.
The Buffalo mass shooting occurred on May 14. Although there’s no evidence (that I know of) that the shooter was motivated by Tucker Carlson, who has deliberately tried to stoke white supremacist violence, the shooter was his racist soulmate.
The Anti-Defamation League objected to Carlson’s rhetoric a year ago. But Lachlan Murdoch signaled he’s just fine with it. The result was that the white supremacist rhetoric, which alleges that Democrats and others are deliberately replacing whites with non-whites in order to bolster power, became a Fox staple.
Media Matters crunched the numbers and found that 17 Fox hosts, 7 paid contributors, 10 guests and 12 public officials have all pushed the conspiracy theory on Fox. Besides Carlson, the list includes Julie Banderas, Maria Bartiromo, Dan Bongino, Rachel Campos-Duffy, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, Jeanine Pirro, Carley Shimkus, Mark Levin, Jesse Watters, Newt Gingrich, Tomi Lahren, Leo Terrell, Lara Trump, Ann Coulter, Stephen Miller, Lara Logan, Matt Schlapp, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Rep. Jim Banks (Tucker Carlson’s son’s boss), Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Jim Jordan, and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
On May 17, three days after the Buffalo shooting, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote to the Fox top brass, including Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch, urging the network to "take into consideration the very real impacts of the dangerous rhetoric" and "to immediately cease" its "reckless amplification." I counted five on the Media Matters list who pushed the rhetoric after the Buffalo massacre. They are Julie Banderas, Mark Levin, Jesse Watters, Tomi Lahren, and Dan Patrick.
The rhetoric is not just abhorrent, it has spurred murder.
Media Matters explains:
The fabricated fear of “replacement” has led to horrific tragedies: the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh; the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand; the 2019 El Paso, Texas, shooting; and most recently, the May 14 shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
This is the poison Lachlan Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch profit from.
Reuters has a good explainer video on the great replacement theory below.
He then bought his way into the broadcast media in all three unlucky countries, replacing dispassionate news and analysis with the most deliberately divisive (and obscenely profitable) operation since the dark days of Goebbels.
