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Sadly, Director Wray’s words proved prescient. As the nation mourns another mass murder in El Paso, Texas, by a shooter allegedly motivated by his hatred of Hispanics and their so-called “invasion” of the United States, Fox News host Tucker Carlson looked into the camera and with a straight face told his audience that white supremacy “isn’t a real problem in America.”
He called it nothing more than “a hoax, just like the Russia hoax. It’s a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power.” What? Americans are dead. How dare he.
I was aghast at Carlson’s latest rant. Just when I thought the deliberate gaslighting by Trump apologists couldn’t get any worse, it reached a new low on Fox News.
His statements aren’t just grossly irresponsible and patently false. They are also an insult to all the victims, their families and the communities who have suffered at the hands of white nationalist extremists, many of whom have seemingly been emboldened by President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and that of his sycophants, like Carlson, who continue to give him cover.
In the face of a growing list of incidents of white extremist violence, from Charlottesville to Gilroy to El Paso, Trump and his chorus of enablers have unapologetically continued to push the invasion narrative.
Words matter.
Facts matter.
This gaslighting is nothing more than a cowardly tactic to downplay white nationalist extremism in order to shield both Trump and his cadre of acolytes from any culpability for their repeated use of the dangerous rhetoric that has helped to mainstream extremist ideology.
I remember when my fellow Republicans criticized President Obama for not calling out radical Islamic extremism strongly enough by name during his tenure. Where are those voices now concerning attempts to dismiss the threat of white nationalist extremism under President Trump? Their silence is deafening.
Upon hearing the news that both her parents, Jordan and Andre Anchondo, were murdered by the El Paso shooter as they shielded her infant brother from the hail of bullets, 5-year-old Skylin asked her family, “Is he going to come and shoot me next?”
I dare Tucker Carlson to look that now-orphaned young Hispanic girl and the scores other families ripped apart by the murderous actions of a white supremacist in the eyes and say that it’s a hoax. Carlson owes every one of them an apology.
Shame on him and anyone else downplaying the threat of white nationalist extremism. Their dishonesty disrespects the memory of everyone whose life was lost at the hands of it.
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