Gendron,who is white,allegedly indicated that he chose a neighbourhood with a large number of black residents for his alleged attack. In the document that Gendron is suspected to have written,he indicated that he was radicalised online. There’s no indication that he watched Carlson’s program.
The theory was once confined to far-right white extremists,who cast immigration as part of a plot by “elites” to take political and economic power away from white people. It has gained broader circulation in recent years as a talking point among prominent conservative media figures.
Carlson,whose weeknight program is typically the most popular on Fox,has been an especially avid promoter of the thesis. He has mentioned variations on the idea in more than 400 episodes since 2016,according to aNew York Times analysis of his program. In April of last year,he said on Fox that people from the “Third World” are immigrating to the United States “to replace the current electorate” and “dilute the political power of the people who live there” – language that essentially distils the replacement thesis.
He was more explicit in a video posted on Fox News’s YouTube account in September. Carlson said President Joe Biden was encouraging immigration “to change the racial mix of the country ... to reduce the political power of people whose ancestors lived here,and dramatically increase the proportion of Americans newly arrived from the Third World.”
White nationalists and racists have celebrated Carlson’s endorsement of an idea they have championed for years. At the same time,Carlson’s rhetoric prompted the Anti-Defamation League to call for his firing.
The organisation noted that racists have spouted the theory in perpetrating violent attacks,such as the killing of 51 people in mosques in New Zealand in 2019,and the killing of 23 mostly Hispanic shoppers in a Walmart in El Paso the same year.