Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson opened his Wednesday program by questioning how the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May has led to protesters and others making Italian explorer Christopher Columbus a target.
Carlson also questioned why two Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C., Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and James Lankford (R-OK), are pushing to eliminate Columbus Day, a national holiday celebrated in Columbus’ honor.
The Fox News host likened what he deemed to be a “hysteria” and its spread to the coronavirus pandemic.
“[O]n Memorial Day weekend, a man called George Floyd died in police custody in Minnesota,” Carlson said. “That’s where this outbreak first began. Minneapolis was our Wuhan. The first cases appeared a little over a month ago.”
Carlson pointed to protesters tearing down Columbus statues around the country, then questioned the link being made between Floyd and Columbus.
“What does Christopher Columbus have to do with George Floyd?” Carlson asked. “Christopher Columbus was not a Minneapolis police officer, Christopher Columbus was an Italian navigator who died more than 500 years ago. Columbus probably never even heard of George Floyd. He almost certainly didn’t mistreat him personally. So why are people attacking Columbus’ statues?”
Carlson said the apparent conclusion to draw from the “hysteria” outbreak and the silence from Republicans on Capitol Hill was that not disturbing those impacted by the outbreak was the best remedy. He went on to question Johnson and Lankford’s proposed bill.
Partial transcript continues as follows:
Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and James Lankford of Oklahoma are both Republican senators. Today they introduced legislation to abolish Columbus day. They wanted to delete it from the national calendar and replace it with Juneteenth. This is a big change. Americans and celebrated Columbus Day as long as we’ve had a country, since 1792. Columbus Day is a celebration of the nation itself. That’s why it’s a national holiday.
Juneteenth is newer. Three weeks ago, many people have never heard of it. Even the media seemed oblivious to its existence. From 2012 through 2017, CNN did not mention the word ‘Juneteenth’ a single time on the air.
Barack Obama was the president, never tweeted about Juneteenth once during the entire span of his presidency, not one time. Juneteenth commemorates the freeing of the American slaves. Emancipation is one of the great moments in American history. That’s why we consider Abraham Lincoln a hero. But paradoxically, and this is odd, the people who are pushing Juneteenth on the country do not consider Abraham Lincoln a hero They are pulling down his statues, along with Columbus’ [statues].
Confused? Well, that is the nature of a hysteria outbreak. Nothing makes sense. Senators Johnson and Langford may be confused as well. They describe themselves as conservatives, improbable as that may seem. On some level, they may suspect that all the yelling about Columbus Day and Juneteenth doesn’t really have much to do with emancipation or civil-rights or likely is just another way to humiliate and demoralize Americans. On some level, they know that, but they are ignoring it. It’s easier to do with the hysteria patients command, unless, of course, their voters noticed them doing it.
A couple of weeks ago, Senator Mike Braun of Indiana sponsored a bill designed to punish the police. At the very moment that the country was undergoing widespread looting, arson and violence, rioting. Then Mike Braun endorsed the radical racial separatist BLM movement.
At first, Mike Braun’s constituents didn’t seem to realize their senator had done any of this. But when they found out, they were enraged, and they let him know about it loudly. Mike Braun is now running away from his own bill. If Mike Braun were up for election this year, he would lose.
Senators Lankford and johnson are praying nothing like that will happen to them. They are hoping to quietly eliminate Columbus Day and then move on to the next item on the rioters’ lists of demands. Will they be able to do that? It all depends on whether or not you let them know that you noticed they are trying to cancel Columbus Day.
If you don’t say anything about it, there is no telling what Johnson and Lankford might do next. Just the other day, for example, The New York Times ran a piece suggesting that we knock down George Washington statues and purge our country’s founder from our collective memory. Today the paper announced that we should consider closing Mount Rushmore because of course, racism.
Senators Johnson and Lankford haven’t endorsed those ideas. At this rate, it may not be long before they do. The question is what other acts of revolution and cultural desecration can we expect from our suddenly woke republican senator friends? That’s a good question.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor