The left-wing meme du jour claims that "racist" Fox News host Tucker Carlson is the chief purveyor of "Great Replacement Theory," but the truth is, the concept was originally pushed 75 years ago by a Democratic senator from Mississippi.

The subject of "Great Replacement Theory" is once again in the news as the left-wing press moves to blame Fox News in general -- and host Tucker Carlson in particular -- for somehow influencing suspected Buffalo supermarket shooter Payton Gendron to go on his racist shooting spree.

A quick look through Twitter shows one blue-checked leftist after another outright claiming that Carlson is a racist who endorses the theory that maintains that minorities are purposefully being imported into the U.S. to dilute the white population.

There are numerous examples of leftist Tweeters linking Carlson and Fox to this alleged shooter, but here are a few:

The "Great Replacement Theory" is the language of death, wielded by opportunistic right-wing figures from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican. Not everyone hears it. My column encourages people to listen:https://t.co/mRFlUdSqTA

— Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) May 16, 2022

It "might as well have been a quote from Tucker Carlson during one of his many rants about white Americans being diluted, weakened, and replaced by people of color. Just pause for a second and reflect on that."@WajahatAli writes.https://t.co/Ux2uG9cbP4

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) May 16, 2022

There's a straight line from Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump and the GOP's embrace of the racist "Great Replacement Theory" to the Buffalo White supremacist TERRORIST attack. New issue of my newsletter: https://t.co/HG7iTyUXtF pic.twitter.com/HYSXwrHZE4

— (((DeanObeidallah))) (@DeanObeidallah) May 16, 2022

A self-described white supremecist traveled to a black neighborhood and murdered 10 people today, leaving behind a manifesto on the Great Replacement theory — a racist conspiracy theory endorsed repeatedly by Tucker Carlson, the nation’s most-watched political pundit

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) May 14, 2022

Just a reminder that Tucker won’t bow to shame or outrage over having helped incite a mass shooting by mainstreaming the Great Replacement Theory because the violence wasn’t an accident, it’s quite literally the point.

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) May 15, 2022

The gunman who killed at least 10 people in Buffalo is a self-described white supremacist who advocates for the Great Replacement Theory.
He left a manifesto. See if you can tell the difference between it and standard fare on the Tucker Carlson show. https://t.co/ScoxO1NG5E pic.twitter.com/T5mZw9iV9C

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) May 14, 2022

Indeed, one of the main videos the left is pushing to "prove" that Tucker Carlson is an abject racist is a clip from April 2021 where Carlson specifically mentions the term "Great Replacement."

But as you watch, you'll note that Carlson couches the discussion purely as one about political power, not "race." Tucker never once says, "white people are being replaced." He says that the Democrats are "importing" a new electorate who are "more obedient voters from the third world." And they are more obedient because they are getting free stuff from big government.

Still, even as today's leftists are attempting to make Tucker Carlson the progenitor of "Great Replacement Theory," the main contention going against it is that the theory is already 75 years old.

The basic idea of "replacement" came from the poison pen of Theodore G. Bilbo, a white Democrat who was a two-time governor and a thrice elected U.S. Senator from Mississippi, the Washington Post reported.

For his part, Bilbo proffered his replacement theory strictly on racial grounds claiming that "they" -- whomever "they" were -- intended to allow blacks to mingle with whites until the white race was blotted out.

[firefly_poll]

This raging racist Democrat went on to claim that whites will be extinct in "300 years," but so will blacks because everyone's race will be diluted. Bilbo proclaimed that "the present rate of interbreeding and miscegenation and intermarriage between the [black people] and the whites, that in nine generations, which is only 300 years, there’ll be no whites, there’ll be no blacks in this country."

When Bilbo went to run for re-election to a third term in the U.S. Senate, Republicans rose to blast him. Republicans including conservative leader Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio called Bilbo "a disgrace to the Senate," and a large number of religious groups, academics and military veterans joined the GOP to denounce Bilbo.

Fortunately for the vast number of opponents outside his voting district, Bilbo was not able to take his seat because, even though he won his election, he passed away from cancer in August of 1947 without ever serving a day of his third term.

Regardless, any dispassionate review of Tucker Carlson's discussions of "replacement" juxtaposed with the original, racist version of the theory, clearly shows a marked difference. Unlike the view of Sen. Bilbo and that of the Buffalo shooting suspect, Tucker's position is based solely on political power and voting rights. It has nothing to do with race.

Tucker has never once said that he does not want Hispanics to become Americans. He has also never signed on to efforts to block black people from voting. What he wants is legal immigration -- not floods of often illegals who will rise to support the Democratic Party because they are promised welfare, free schooling, food stamps and free housing, all at the expense of the American taxpayers.

Tucker Carlson's position is entirely reasonable.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.