The Anti-Defamation League wants Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson.

WaPo reports in "ADL demands Fox News fire Tucker Carlson over anti-Semitic trope: ‘This has deadly significance.'"

Here's the exact quote from Carlson (which includes his awareness that what he is saying is fuel to his would-be cancelers):

“Now, I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the third world,” Carlson said. “But they become hysterical because that’s what’s happening actually. Let’s just say it: That’s true.” 

Carlson then referenced the racist claim by name, dismissing it as the motivation for his remarks. 

“Everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it. Oh, you know, the white replacement theory? No, no, no,” he said. “I have less political power because they are importing a brand new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that?” 

The “great replacement theory” was popularized in 2012 by French writer Renaud Camus, who warned that Western countries face an impending White genocide. The phrase has evolved into a bogus notion that a cabal of elite Jews are plotting to replace White populations with immigrants, Muslims and people of color, according to the ADL.

Of course, Carlson was denying that he meant to espouse the "replacement theory." He said he wanted to use the word "replacement" without the extra baggage and to criticize his antagonists for getting emotional over that word. He knew what he was doing, and presumably he loves the media attention he engineered. He's in a creepy love embrace with liberal media. Maybe I should just look away. I would look away, but I just want to nail this down to keep track of it.

FROM THE EMAIL: Several readers are attacking the Anti-Defamation League, saying that it's not what it used to be. For example, one reader says:

The ADL is a D operation and a long standing embarrassment to Jews.... It is a D organization wearing the clothes of a former Jewish group. It is a defamation to Jews, and it is a terrible embarrassment. I don't think for a second ADL actually thinks, Carlson, talking about how black voter dilution is a product of mass immigration, was inviting harm to Jews or anyone else. It is insulting. Insulting that they are posing as if Jews, for a second, think that speaking out against diluting the black vote through mass immigration is hurting Jews, It's a farce they are playing at the expense of diaspora Jews.

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There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

Robert Moses is trending on Twitter.

I'll just give you one tweet to explain why:

Guys: pick up a book about Robert Moses and get back to us. https://t.co/IZHLXC7Igj

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) April 11, 2021

Pick up "a" book means pick up the book — "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" by Robert A. Caro. 

There's also this: "Robert Moses and His Racist Parkway, Explained/The story: Robert Moses ordered engineers to build the Southern State Parkway’s bridges extra-low, to prevent poor people in buses from using the highway. The truth? It’s a little more complex" (Bloomberg, 2017). 

(To comment, email me here.)

"There may be a new genre: liberals expressing 'buyers remorse' over the culture they have created."

"Here's a talk between Bill Kristol and James Carville on the 2020 election and what came after. You'd think the two would be ecstatic, exultant. Trump is gone. The Dems are spraying money on citizens like cheap perfume on a whore. White men make up 14% of the class at the many Ivy League colleges. Good times. But these two are somber.. Bill Kristol keeps begging Carville to tell him where the Democrats are going and Carville seems to think the Democrats have a flimsy, rickety coalition that will fall apart if the Dems keep saying 'people of color' and 'Latinix' and keep canceling people of whom the Amherst College English department disapproves. Carville seems to regard Biden as the man standing between the Dems and the deluge. Perhaps 'buyers remorse' isn't quite the term I'm looking for - maybe 'Belshazzar's Feast.'"

Writes Wild Swan in the email. I tried watching the video.... 

 

... but the video and audio on Carville's side is horrible. Unwatchable. Is he filming from a laptop on his lap? What a ridiculous place for a laptop! I don't know why the audio is also herky-jerky, and bad audio with his idiosyncratic manner of speaking is unintelligible. And that's quite aside from whether he's making good points (and good sense).

But — lo and behold — there's a transcript! I can skim, and I can cut and paste:

KRISTOL: You mentioned defund the police, you mentioned identity politics, cancel culture, whatever you want to call these things, but how worried are you about that complex of issues? Some the attacks may be unfair, some may be fair, but the Democrats, parts of the Democratic party coalition, giving enough oxygen to that stuff that allows Republicans to just scream and yell about it for two years or four years and really have an effect. You think it did have an effect 2020, certainly down ballot, right? The police stuff? 

CARVILLE: It did. It did. It is the thing that I’m most worried about. And because, first of all, who they are. I don’t know of anybody, and I talked to, I live in New Orleans, okay? It’s no secret. I don’t know of a single person that thinks of themselves as a “person of color.” I really don’t. I had Ruben Gallego, who’s a Democratic congressman from Arizona, and we did much better in Arizona than we did in Texas or Florida, and he said, “I’ve never heard anybody use the word LatinX.” And that’s just not the way people talk. It’s not what they — It’s just not the way. When people hear that — And it’s a little different because when you’re in the middle of it, you hear it so much it doesn’t stand out. When you’re out in the rest of the country — It was like the janitor at Smith College. That story. I give Tom [?] the credit for running the story, but there is a feeling — And I got to tell you, I’m a supportive, ardent Democrat, passion and everything, but the English faculty at Amherst has too much power in this party. They really do. And they come up with all of these different things and when people see that, they don’t like it because it’s not what their life is. I think Biden does a — Congratulations, he stays out of that.

"Belshazzar's Feast" is a fantastic Rembrandt painting, showing the Old Testament story about "the handwriting on the wall":

Wikipedia explains:

The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar looted the Temple in Jerusalem and has stolen the sacred artefacts such as golden cups. His son Belshazzar used these cups for a great feast where the hand of God appeared and wrote the inscription on the wall prophesying the downfall of Belshazzar's reign. The text on the wall says "mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." Biblical scholars interpret this to mean "God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; your kingdom is given to the Medes and Persians."

FROM THE EMAIL: mezzrow writes: 

The memes gush from this like a fountain. 

1. The consiglieres of two warring dynasties unite and plot together after years of conflict to hold on to their waning power as they age and die. 

2. Have any members of the English faculty at Amherst failed to be informed of this exchange? If any are persons of color does this exchange become racist in fact, regardless of intent? Will this result in the cancellation of Kristol, Carville, or any persons adjacent to them? (stay tuned, this is what I’m watching.) 

3. The sheer boomerness of the technical incompetence of Carville is a delight to those youngsters who would dismiss him. They forget that he would happily watch their bones bleach in the sun before he would give them one ounce of his consideration. Treat it like Chin Gigante’s bathrobe and beware, youngsters. 

4. The biblical reference is timely on this Sabbath morning – I have long suspected that the winners of the last election are staring at the mess of pottage they currently hold in a suspension of disbelief. If they get to write the history of this, we’ll have one future. If they fail, we’ll have a different future. I say WE as if I’ll be here to see it, but life is filled with possibilities. We’re just passengers now, more than ever.

Great comment. I added the link.

"I’m not surprised that without any of that background information or context that voters would not support these changes."

Said Eileen Harrington, "former chairperson of the now-dissolved Task Force on Government Structure," quoted in "Madison voters widely support City Council term limits; reject full-time body, longer term lengths" (Wisconsin State Journal). 

[Harrington's] work prompted the advisory questions.... In a report to the council in early 2020, the task force concluded the current system is “fundamentally unfair,” particularly for people of color and low-income residents, and one that favors people with the time, resources and knowledge to participate.

Harrington said she felt there wasn’t a “meaningful effort” from the council to educate the public on the task force’s work before the vote. Among its various recommendations, the task force suggested moving to a full-time, 10-member council with members paid $67,950 annually and elected to four-year terms.

The one thing that passed — by a lot (71% to 29%) — was the proposal for term limits. The article doesn't make it clear, but I don't think term limits was one of the committee's ideas. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like everything the committee wanted was soundly defeated. [CORRECTION: The committee did recommend term limits.]

And I think what Harrington is implying is that the Madison voters hadn't gotten the message that we needed to vote for the proposals to be anti-racist. We weren't meaningfully educated, so we just ambled into the polls, read the referendum questions as written, and decided city council members shouldn't have higher pay and 4-year terms. And then we went for term limits!

Was that racist? The article quotes former mayor Dave Cieslewicz: “I hope Madisonians don’t just see this as something they rejected but also as something they support. I hope there’s a renewed appreciation for their neighbors who step up to work on the council for little money or recognition, but just to serve the community.” 

As a CRT-steeped Madisonian, I've got to ask: Is that white supremacy? Is the low-pay, part-time service ideal part of whiteness? And would we have voted the other way if only we'd been sufficiently educated on that score? Or did we know we were voting for systemic racism and that's why we did it?

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There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here.

FROM THE EMAIL: Noting the language from the article that I quoted above — "the task force concluded the current system is “fundamentally unfair,” particularly for people of color and low-income residents, and one that favors people with the time, resources and knowledge to participate" — Greg writes:

Originally I thought perhaps the highlighted sentiment was simply the author of the article’s inarticulate summary, but no – that phrase is taken from the text of the task force’s report.

Indeed, the report uses that exact phrase ["people with the time, resources and knowledge to participate"] three separate times. Seems to me that it is racism of the highest order to assume that people of color don’t have the time, resources or KNOWLEDGE(!!!!) to participate in municipal government.

Unrelated, but while I believe we could all be classified as racist to some degree (it’s unfortunately a part of the human condition in my view), I have long held the belief that most people – certainly not all, but a substantial majority (>70%) – are not racist in any meaningful way. Perhaps I am simply wrong or naïve, but that has been my experience.

Conversely, I find those who hyperventilate about racism (and seem to be able to find evidence of it anywhere and everywhere these days) often meet the textbook definition of a racist. Very Orwellian.