Here’s more bad news for Tucker Carlson.
A new book has uncovered an article that Trump's chief FOX apologist must hope his followers don't read — a 1997 story by Carlson that rips into the Nazi-like theories and baby-killing sympathies of a board member and the president of America's leading anti-immigrant organization; the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Former Arizona State Senator Bob Worsley’s new book The Horseshoe Virus: How the Anti-Immigration Movement Spread from Left-Wing to Right-Wing America presents a fascinating history of anti-immigration movements in the U.S. In one chapter detailing Trump's efforts to weaponize hatred against immigrants, he unearths a 1997 Wall St. Journal article (paywall alert) by Carlson that attacks FAIR -- the source of so many disproven anti-immigrant assertions and an organization that bestowed an award to Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s hate-based strategies.
Back in '97, Carlson was shocked to read an interview with biologist Garrett Harden, a board member of FAIR, in which Harden clearly professed support for population control that echoed the eugenics-based ideas beloved by Nazis. And Carlson was equally aghast that FAIR Executive Director Dan Stein came to Hardin’s defense. Here’s what Carlson wrote:
The problem, according to Mr. Hardin, is not simply that there
are too many people in the world, but that there are too many
of the wrong kind of people. As he put it: “It would be better to
encourage the breeding of more intelligent people rather than the
less intelligent.” Asked to comment on Mr. Hardin’s statement, Mr.
Stein doesn’t even pause. “Yeah, so what?” he replies. “What is
your problem with that? Should we be subsidizing people with
low IQs to have as many children as possible, and not subsidizing
those with high ones?”
Hardin, whose essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" remains a favorite in alt-right literature for its advocacy of population control, also shocked Carlson with his thoughts about terminating pregnancies, he added: “A fetus is of so little value, there’s no point in worrying about it.”16
Worsley shares another excerpt from Carlson’s article: “In another exchange, Stein said, ‘Certainly we would encourage people in other countries to have small families. Otherwise they’ll all be coming here, because there’s no room at the Vatican.’”
Lines like that had Carlson taking the high road against FAIR.
“There are reasonable critics of immigration, but Dan Stein is not one
of them,” Carlson wrote, evidently disturbed that “a number of otherwise sober minded
conservatives seem to be making common cause with Mr. Stein
and FAIR.”
That verdict is potentially embarrassing to Carlson now, given he has gone all-in on Trump and his divisive immigration policies. Based on his 1997 article, he knew better or pretended he did, urging caution about embracing the group that Trump now adores. Twenty-three years later, Stein is still at FAIR, where he now serves as president of the organization. Carlson, meanwhile, has descended into a Trump boot-licker who has no trouble defending the racist policies he once deemed “unreasonable.”
The late Harden, Worsley reports, is still revered at conservative-loving FAIR — even though he once led an underground railroad to Mexico for pre-Roe v. Wade abortions. Worsley also uncovers links between the eugenics-supporting Pioneer Fund and FAIR, how the Trump administration is now filled with ex-FAIR employees, and how FAIR’s founder created an incubator fund for racist think tanks to launder the anti-imigrant ideas Trump loves to espouse.
For anyone who wants to understand how we got to where we are on immigration wars — something Tucker Carlson has conveniently forgotten — Worsley’s book is a gem.