MSNBC’s Jason Johnson: Tucker Carlson Is a ‘Dumb Person’s Idea of What a Smart Bigot Sounded Like’

MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson said Monday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson “was always a dumb person’s idea of what a smart bigot sounded like.”

Johnson said, “That’s the most positive outgrowth of Tucker Carlson being fired. There are a lot of journalists I disagree with, there’s lots of people whose programming I might not find interesting, but he was a direct menace and directly responsible for stoking racism, and all sorts of vitriolic believes throughout his show.”

He continued, “The worst thing about it is that Tucker, to me, was always a dumb person’s idea of what a smart bigot sounded like. Because he would wear the bow tie, because he put on this sort of ‘aw shucks’ schtick when he would say things that, if you heard it from David Duke or – he even put on – Viktor Orbán, you would say, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s terrible.’ But he would put on this image as if it was just common sense. It was just dinnertime conversation, and that was dangerous.”

Johnson added, “When you consistently suggest that people who look different than white folks are trying to take over and they don’t have a legitimate right to vote, that eats away at the fabric of our country. I need people to understand this. This isn’t about ideology here. This isn’t about left or right or taxes. The man was consistently saying black people don’t deserve to be here.”

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