After it emerged that the suspect in the Buffalo shooting rampage was an adherent of “replacement theory” that there is a conspiracy to replace native-born Americans with non-white immigrants, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced Rupert Murdock and Fox News for “reckless amplification” of the theory. (Deadline, May 17, 2022, by Ted Johnson)
Columnist Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post, May 17, 2022, writes that the rampage “was fueled by a burgeoning ideology of the radical right. The shooting suspect may have picked up his noxious worldview from some fever-plagued backwater of the Internet rather than cable television. But that hideous ‘replacement theory’ has been echoed nearly beat-for-beat during Fox News’s prime-time hours, where the network’s chief rainmaker, Tucker Carlson, does his best to encourage it. To be sure, Carlson stops short of calling for violence — in fact, he’ll smugly and self-protectively lecture against it — but he nevertheless leads the charge.”