In his opening monologue Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson warned that if an effort to depose of statues of historical figures deemed “morally worthless and unworthy of respect,” the movement could next set its sights on the country’s  founding documents.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: All this week we have noted that recent attacks on Confederate statues are not entirely about statues or even about the Confederacy. Instead, there is an effort to abolish the past into the morally worthless and unworthy of respect. The left we predicted wouldn’t stop with Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson but would move on to George Washington. Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and more.

Twitter called us ridiculous. Well, it took more than less than 48 hours for reality to catch up to the worst-case scenario. In case you were not watching CNN today, here’s what you missed. Keep in mind that Angela Rye the woman speaking is not just a CNN contributor, she was the executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus which hardly a fringed figure in the Democratic Party. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: George Washington was a slave owner. And we need to call slave owners out for what they are. Whether we think they were protecting American freedom or not. He was not protecting my freedom. I was not someone whose my ancestors weren’t deemed human beings to him. And so to me, I do not care if it is a George Washington statue or a Thomas Jefferson statue, or a Robert E. Lee statue, they all need to calm down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, Al Sharpton agreed that the man who wrote the declaration of independence should lose his memorial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL SHARPTON, NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK: When you look at the fact that public monuments are supported by public funds, you are asking me to subsidize the insults of my family.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thomas Jefferson had slaves.

SHARPTON: And I would repeat that the public should not be paying to uphold somebody who has had that kind of background.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh. But don’t, and it will end with the Jefferson Memorial or the Washington Monument. Revolutions are not like that. Once they gather steam, they tend to go further than anyone expected, as Robespierre found out the hard way. Yesterday, in Chicago’s Southside, for example, a vandal set fire to another Civil War-era monument. This one to Abraham Lincoln. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln, the one who freed the slaves.

By the standards of the modern left, Lincoln is a racist too. He was willing to pardon Confederates for one thing after killing hundreds of thousands of them. There is no way that Abraham Lincoln could work at Google. He would be howled into HR and canned in day one. You can see why liberals felt it was important to burn his likeness. You know where this is going. After sending all the statues to the landfill, it will be time to rip up our founding documents.

If Jefferson is so wicked, he does not deserve a monument on the mall, why should we honor the declaration he wrote? If Madison is evil, why do we adhere to the Constitution? Lincoln spoke in favor of malice towards none, and charity towards all, but if he has just some dead white racist, why would we even bother remembering that speech? The truth is there is not a single person we have given a national holiday to who can withstand this level of moral scrutiny, not one.

But we knew that when we decided to honor them. Countries, like people, are works in progress. They do not just exist in the present, but it comes from shared traditions and ideals. For respect from what came before. Nihilists do not care about any of that. They want to hit the reset button. They want to declare everything before themselves null and void so that they can restart society from the ground up. That has been tried before repeatedly, and it has never once worked.

There are many millions have died trying it. It will not work this time either. That is worth remembering however you feel about the Robert E. Lee statues. And speaking of feelings, the new poll by the economist and YouGov finds the most Americans are not concerned about the confederate statues or a confederate flag. Fifty-four percent of Americans say the statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson represents Southern pride. Twenty-six percent say they represent racism.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor