Welcome to the (hopefully, depending on your reception) inaugural contribution of Snark Attack, a new weekly series where I tear someone a new one. Up to this point, I engaged in this exercise for my own amusement; maybe it’s time to take this sucker Prime Time!
You see, being a masochist, sometimes I feel compelled to listen to the lunatic rantings of someone and then transcribe them, adding my own responses interspersed throughout. Sometimes those comments are informative and sometimes I just snark up a storm. Either way, maybe you’ll enjoy it…
So today’s ritual victim contestant is Tucker Carlson, whose nativist rantings are familiar to most of you. I’ve put Tucker’s statements in blockquote, and then mine will follow. That should make it easier for you to read. And feel free to watch the video included in the link, or just read my transcription.
Carlson: Twitter can ban all the thought criminals it wants; but in the end, Twitter is not in charge of the future. Nature is in charge of the future. If you want your country to continue, you have to answer Nature’s imperatives, which are the basics: Do you have enough water? Do you have a reliable food supply? Can you defend yourself from invaders? What are you using for energy? How are you producing things and keeping warm?
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
My thoughts: Maybe we should ask Texas how they manage to keep their population warm, since Abbott is such a darling of the right…
Also, you already know who he means by “invaders,” right? He’s not talking about the Red Dawn Chinese.
Carlson: Those are the essential questions that any civilization must ask. Those and one other: How many people do you want living in your country? The size of your population matters very much. The size determines the nation’s character. It often determines its fate. Yet we don’t talk much about the size of our population; we probably should. The United States is growing faster than most Americans understand. If you were born in 1969, as some of us were, you arrived in a country with a little over 200 million people in it. There are now more than 334 million people in it. That’s an awful lot of new people in an awfully short time. How many people is that, exactly? Well, it’s nearly twice the population of the entire Western United States — that’s thirteen states including California.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
My thoughts: Tucker doesn’t bother to mention the other 12 states here, but states like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Alaska, and Hawaii don’t contribute much to that total. So it sounds like a huge thing to say “That’s more than the population of 13 states!” but when most of those 13 are sparsely populated, it really isn’t that impressive. He’s saying, “Gee, growth in the last 50 years is more than the entire population of the most sparsely populated region in the entire US.” So… this statement isn’t as impressive and concerning as he makes it out to be.
Furthermore, 1970-2020 is 50 years. If we compare the previous 50 years (from 1920–1970), our population nearly doubled — from 106 million in 1920 to 203 million in 1970. From 1870–1920, population growth in the US was even more dramatic; in 1870, our population was about 39 million and grew to 106 million in 1920.
If you look at the percentage rate of growth, the 50 years from 1970–2020 is the slowest sustained growth in our nation’s history. So Carlson is fearmongering over a problem which doesn’t exist. We aren’t experiencing food shortages due to lack of production.
Carlson: That is massive and incredibly rapid demographic growth.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: Again, not really. It’s the slowest rate of growth in our nation’s history.
Carlson: And it’s accelerating.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: No, it’s not. Depending on the source, 2020’s census either saw the lowest rate of growth ever, or the second lowest, only to the 1940‘s census (and we all can easily figure out why growth in the decade of the 1930s would result in a low increase in population…)
Carlson: Immigration is now at the highest level ever recorded in American history.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: I looked this up — over 75% of foreign born people living in America are here legally, whether they’re naturalized (45%), or here legally either permanently or temporarily (about 33%). Less than a quarter are here illegally.
This isn’t an unsustainable number; as a matter of fact, if birth rates have decreased in the US to the point we’re unable to maintain our current population levels, then immigration becomes vital. Yet here is Carlson, once again, telling his audience those scary brown people shouldn’t be allowed to come here and change our country…
Carlson: So is the number of foreign-born already living here.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: I’m old enough to remember when most Americans were proud of the fact that people came here from all over the globe to seek out a better life for themselves and their children than they could have elsewhere. But maybe that was when the immigrants were mostly white…
Carlson: Over just the last year, roughly two million people from the third world came across our borders illegally.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: That’s less than one percent of our population. And they take the shit jobs Americans don’t want to do, or won’t do for the amount of money some employers are willing to pay. If we want to keep meatpacking plants open, or have some of our food harvested, these people are the ones who contribute to getting that food to the markets.
But, hey… that won’t make anyone afraid to welcome foreigners, will it?
Oh, btw… is Tucker also adamantly opposed to women from Eastern Europe who maybe did some soft-core lesbian porn photo shoots and then come here on an Einstein visa so they can marry rich, obnoxious failed real estate developers? Don’t ask me why that example popped into my head. Absolutely no idea…
Carlson: All of them arrived with the blessing of the White House.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: I must’ve missed President Biden’s proclamation telling them to drop everything and come to America!
Carlson: It makes you wonder what sort of economy Joe Biden imagines we’re going to have, going forward. Domestic manufacturing is in steep decline; automation is replacing many of the low-skilled jobs that still remain. So what are these millions of new people gonna be doing for work twenty years from now? They can’t all be Nancy Pelosi’s housekeepers.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: Gee, Tucker, maybe they can go to college and get a degree in something like IT, business administration, or healthcare.
It’s insulting to assume that illegals and their children are always going to be some kind of drain on the economy, as if they’re society’s bottom feeders.
And it’s also funny that Carlson focuses on domestic manufacturing, which are jobs Americans will do, while not mentioning meatpacking, harvesting, or even retail sales and fast food work — all of which have plenty of positions available for low-skilled workers.
Finally, if Tucker was a regular reader of Tiff’s most excellent Biden Bits series, he might know that the current administration is proposing to create all manner of good paying jobs to replace some of the manufacturing ones we’ve lost.
Carlson: They can’t all bus tables at the French Laundry in Napa.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: But at least some of them can clean rooms, work in the restaurants, and keep the grounds of Trump’s many properties. You know, doing those shitty jobs Americans just won’t do…
Carlson: And not all of them will, thank God. In spite of the Democratic Party’s best efforts to import a permanent serf class to serve its donors, some of these immigrants will rise higher than Nancy Pelosi expects they will.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: Wait a second, Tucker. Weren’t you just asking your audience what jobs these immigrants will be doing 20 years from now? You weren’t suggesting then that you and republicans were doing whatever it would take to see these people get a proper education so they can be something other than serfs who serve their party’s rich donors. And, again, if you want to talk about plutocrats who hire illegals rather than give those jobs to “real” Americans, you were strangely silent about Trump doing just that…
Carlson: Some will fight their way to the top of our society, with the usual combination of in-born talent and grit. And honestly, bless them for that. No one wanted them to come, but we’ll be sincerely glad when they succeed.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: Really, Tucker? I’d mention Americans who have funny names and dusky skin tones whose politics don’t agree with yours being told “Go back to the shithole country you came from,” but I’m sure neither Tucker nor his audience have ever said anything like that…
What policies have republicans advanced to help these people “no one wanted” to come here improve their lot in life? Are they suggesting we help them pay for college? Cover their healthcare costs? Ensure a safe work environment? Help them acquire the capital necessary to create and build a business? Give them a path to citizenship?
No?
Then what is the GOP planning to do for them? Nothing? Yet you have the gall to suggest democrats want them to be a permanent serf class?
This would be my shocked face, but it wore out a few years ago…
Carlson: And yet, a country is more than the success of a handful of people, inspiring as that always is to watch. Sheer numbers matter, too. Even if every single person who snuck across our southern border this year goes on to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry, it would still be worth worrying about the effects that mass immigration have on our total population numbers.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: Only the most virulent of racists would suggest the addition of a couple of million Nobel Prize winning illegals would be undesirable…
Tucker’s use of the phrase “snuck across our southern border” tells us where he’s really going with this. The whole, “democrats want these illegals to be a permanent serf class” was just a feint; we know which party wants to keep them in dead-end jobs while claiming not to. And he’s preying on the fears of his ignorant audience.
Carlson: So the question is how many people is too many? In Washington, you will never hear that question. More bodies in a country mean more power for the people who run it. Big nations need big governments. Politicians always want more people to rule. So the incentive for unrestrained population growth is baked right into the system. That’s bad news for the rest of us. First and most obviously, big governments don’t treat their citizens very well. Yes, that’s a Reagan-era talking point; it’s also true. The larger a bureaucracy becomes, the more impersonal it gets. Past a certain size, organizations of any kind lose their regard for people. As they get bigger, they get blunter, more soulless and cruel. The people in charge no longer care what you think. They don’t have to worry about how their policies will affect you or your family. And that’s the inevitable product of population growth.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: You know who doesn’t have to care what voters think? Politicians whose party rigged the system so that their party can’t lose — whether through gerrymandering, or giving their state’s legislature the ability to overturn any election which didn’t come out the way they wanted it to. So spare us all this BS argument here, Tucker.
Also, it’s true enough that Reagan didn’t think we should turn to government for it to provide a solution to every little stumble in our lives, nor should we want it to. However, he was very much pro-immigration.
Carlson: If you had five children, you would bathe them all in love and attention. If you had five thousand children, you wouldn’t know their names.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: Didn’t he just argue that “Big nations need big government”? As well as that a big government would lead to big bureaucracy? So in his idiotic example, two people wouldn’t be the parents of those five thousand children; they’d have a big bureaucracy to help them raise those kids.
Heck, if you had five thousand kids, you could probably have enough talent to field several locally- or state-title-winning sports teams, and then the sweet, sweet endorsement money would be flowing in, allowing Mr. and Mrs. Hypothetical to be able to hire more help.
I’m sorry, but if he’s going to wander into silly territory, I’m not too proud to join him there, if only to prove how ludicrous his example is.
Carlson: So in case you’re wondering why our leaders no longer seem especially interested in your health, or happiness, or prosperity, that’s the reason!
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: Um… remind me once again which party has been leading the fight against wearing masks during a pandemic?
Carlson: They don’t have to be interested! Our population’s too big. Why should your opinion matter? You’re one of many.
Previous generations of Americans didn’t live in a country like this, and they would be stunned by the attitudes that are so common now. Attitudes we take for granted. Arresting people for walking through the US Capitol building? How is that a crime? 19th Century Americans would wonder.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: Um… they weren’t simply arrested for walking through the Capitol building. The mob came to terrorize Congress into changing their certification of an election.
But, sure, Tucker, of course you’re going to lie about why they were there and what they were doing…
Also, hasn’t Tucker and his fellow RW talkers and pundits opined about the damage antifa has done to businesses and police stations across the country, but when it’s trumpers overrunning and damaging the seat of our nation’s government, suddenly they don’t have a problem with property damage and trespassing. There’s a word for that; wish I could recall it. Starts with an “h” and ends in “-ypocrite.” I think…
Carlson: For most of our history Americans believed they owned the Capitol. They thought it was theirs because they assumed this was their country. Political leaders told them that it was. After the 1904 presidential election, Teddy Roosevelt greeted voters in person on the lawn of the White House. It was his home, he lived there; but it belonged to them. Attitudes like that are long gone; they’re the victim of population growth.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: The problem is that the Trump supporters who showed up on Jan 6th believed they owned the Capitol. They literally chanted, “Whose house? Our house!” as they spread their feces all over the walls and floors.
We might, as free citizens of this country, own the building; that doesn’t give any of us the right to deface or destroy it. Yet that’s exactly what the entitled assholes who showed up there on Jan 6th did.
The attitude that we own these buildings hasn’t been lost, Tucker; but officialdom has had to limit our access, given that there are crazy people out there who’ve taken advantage of past openness to attempt assassination against our leaders. And, sadly, occassionally they’ve succeeded.
This wasn’t the outcome of population growth, dumbass.
Carlson: The Athenians invented democratic government, but at its peak, Athens only had about 8,000 voters.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: The whole world had a lot less people back then, Tucker. And Athens had a helluva lot of slaves, who did all the dirty jobs Athenians wouldn’t do. Just sayin’…
Carlson: So past a certain scale, democracy can’t function very well. The concept of the citizen becomes too abstract.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: They also didn’t have satellite communications or jet travel back in ancient Athens. In other words, democracy does, in fact, scale up with the help of technology.
Carlson: You see it in the way our leaders talk. Politicians barely mention individuals anymore. Instead, they yammer on about voting blocks, which are now called “communities.” The immigrant community, the trans community, the Latino community, the black community. You hear these terms constantly but they are nonsensical, they don’t mean anything. For example, there are about forty-seven million black people in the United States. That’s a community? No, it’s not. By definition, forty-seven million people cannot be a community.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: From Merriam-Webster‘s site:
community: a group of people who have the same interests, religion, race, etc.
So, in fact, by definition, 47 million black people in America can be part of a black community, Tucker Dumbfuck.
Carlson: No matter what color the people within it are. How could it be a community; they don’t even know each other?
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: There’s nothing in the Merriam-Webster definition which requires everyone in a community to know each other. I once lived in a small town which, with its suburb, numbered less than a thousand souls, and I didn’t know everyone who lived there; yet I was part of that community.
His argument is at turns both mindbogglingly stupid as well as frustrating.
Carlson: What you’re looking at is not a community, but 47 million individuals, each created by God as unique. Each with opinions and interests and preferences and goals that aren’t quite the same as anybody else’s. In other words, they’re human beings. People who run big countries tend to forget that. When you’re in charge of hundreds of millions of people, you cannot help but to dehumanize them. Not that our leaders have ever had a problem dehumaninzing people, they’re strongly for it.
Tucker Carlson Opinion Piece via Fox News. 01/05/2022.
Me: No one’s arguing that members of a community aren’t also individuals, Tucker. Well, no one except you. Most people understand that a community isn’t a monolith; not all of them will agree on everything all the time.
No one’s dehumanizing blacks (or any other community of which you don’t approve, Tucker) by referring to them as a community.
Oh, and Tucker, those leaders you claim can’t help themselves but to dehumanize us, did that include members of the Trump admin and the republican party? You know, who call any republican who doesn’t bow to Trump a RINO. Or who call the MSM “fake news.” Or who thought forcibly separating immigrant children from their parents was a good idea?
I could go on, but you get the idea.
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