'Hillbilly Elegy' Author Defends Tucker Carlson After His 'Replacement Theory' Rant Draws Outrage

Tucker Carlson, a far-right Fox News host and the most prominent racist to lose Dancing with the Stars, has yet again demonstrated his long-held support for white supremacist agendas.

In a Thursday night broadcast, Carlson promoted the "replacement" theory—the white supremacist fear that European whites are gradually being "replaced" by people of color due to immigration and integration.

Versions of the theory have existed among far-right circles for over a century, and its prominence among these circles remains. The haunting 2017 chants of white nationalists with torches in Charlottesville shouting, "Jews will not replace us" was an allusion to the replacement theory.

And on Thursday night, Carlson further immortalized it to millions.

Watch below.

Carlson said:

"I'm laughing because this is one of about 10 stories that I know you have covered where the government shows preference to people who have shown absolute contempt for our customs, our laws, our system itself and they are being treated better than American citizens.

Now, I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term "replacement," if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. But they become hysterical because that's what's happening actually. Let's just say it: That's true."

He continued:

"If you change the population, you dilute the political power of the people who live there. So every time they import a new voter, I become disenfranchised as a current voter. ...I have less political power because they are importing a brand new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that? The power that I have as an American guaranteed at birth is one man, one vote, and they are diluting it. No, they are not allowed to do it. Why are we putting up with this?"

People were disgusted at Carlson's blatant promotion of white supremacist conspiracy theories and his aversion to non-white people voting.

But at least one person expressed support for Carlson and his diatribe: author J.D. Vance.

Vance is the bestselling writer of Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir of his childhood in a low-income Appalachian family, which was recently adapted into a film for Netflix.

While the book has been a financial success, many of the people its characters reflect have sounded off against it.

In a piece for The Atlantic, writer Cassie Chambers Armstrong surmised the primary misgiving:

"The film and book need Appalachia to be poor, broken, and dirty, because they depend on us believing that the mountains are somewhere we want Vance to escape. They need to frame poverty as a moral failing of individuals—as opposed to systems—because they have to imply that something about Vance's character allowed him to get away from his hillbilly roots. Hillbilly Elegy has to simplify the people and problems of Appalachia, because it has decided to tell the same old pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps narrative that so many of us reject."

Vance further demonstrated these right-wing views with his embrace of Carlson's white supremacist screed.

And social media users weren't surprised.

To top it off, Vance might be running for office in the near future.