Tucker Carlson Has No Idea How Diversity Strengthens America
Fox News host Tucker Carlson sees absolutely no benefit to diversity.
The opinionated host on Friday questioned how diversity strengthens the U.S. while also suggesting that diversity weakens the workplace, marriages and the military.
“How precisely is diversity our strength?” Carlson asked.
“Since you’ve made this our new national motto, please be specific as you explain it,” he said. “Can you think, for example, of other institutions, such as, I don’t know, marriage or military units, in which the less people have in common the more cohesive they are?”
Carlson asked, “Do you get along better with your neighbors or your co-workers if you can’t understand each other or share no common values?”
Tucker Carlson really really really really does not like living in a diverse country pic.twitter.com/iLpMr6QrNV
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) September 8, 2018
Carlson is apparently ignoring the many benefits of diversity: Studies show that diverse groups are more innovative and creative, diverse groups encourage people to think on a global level, and diversity makes America’s workforce and militaries more competitive.
In the military, diversity is especially valuable.
A 2017 analysis on diversity in the armed services noted that racial and gender diversity is “associated with better creative problem solving, innovation and improved decisionmaking.”
“Those who argue for diversity initiatives in the military argue that a more diverse force has the potential to be more efficient and flexible, able to meet a broader set of challenges,” the analysis says.
How is diversity our strength? Obviously @TuckerCarlson has never served in a U.S. military unit. https://t.co/ur5Uxy7mdP
— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) September 8, 2018
Carl Forsling, a retired Marine and senior columnist for Task and Purpose, saw the benefits of a diverse military firsthand.
“In the military, we sometimes add tactical necessity to the mix — the Marine Lioness program is an example,” Forsling wrote in 2015, referencing a program that used female Marines to collect intel from local Iraqi women.
“Additionally,” Forsling continued, “in a military operating in far-flung reaches of the world, having diverse backgrounds often leads to units having individuals conversant in the culture or language of an area of operations.”
While Carlson is no stranger to attacks on liberal values ― this definitely is not his first rant against diversity ― many people are still confused about why he doesn’t see its benefits, especially in the military.
On Twitter, British politician Oliver Cooper pointed out that diversity was essentially one of America’s national mottos: “E pluribus unum,” “Out of many, one.”
Here @TuckerCarlson I’ll tell you why:
There are a lot of poor white people the current system supports; way more than people who left horrible situations in order to move to the US. And if you weren’t on the verge of a Mueller subpoena you’d admit hustle is why the US is great. https://t.co/HTYqeQzcAx— David Binkowski (@dbinkowski) September 8, 2018
Tucker Carlson decries "Diversity is our strength" being made the U.S.'s "new national motto". Umm... new? "E Pluribus Unum" - "Out of many, one" - was made the national motto in 1782: celebrating exactly that diversity is America's strength. https://t.co/xUFXSrcKcg
— Oliver Cooper (@OliverCooper) September 8, 2018
Damn @TuckerCarlson , every time you open your mouth you make it more obvious and clear how threatened you feel by the kind of true competition that diversity brings.
— french (@iamfrench) September 8, 2018
Since Tucker Carlson asks, diversity is a strength in a little something called 'capitalism'. The very first chapter of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations states that the foundation of wealth creation is diverse people specializing, dividing their labor, and collaborating. pic.twitter.com/bv67H8Apns
— Oliver Cooper (@OliverCooper) September 8, 2018
Tucker Carlson and I are the same ethnicity and speak the same language and I promise you I’d hate living next door to him, working with him, I don’t even like seeing his dopey face on Twitter. https://t.co/Fg7O6YoaSE
— Heather Whaley (@HeatherWhaley) September 8, 2018
Also, Tucker Carlson just argued against what has made America so exceptional for 250 years. We have nothing in common, people of different lands, faiths, and skin color, other than our desire for a better life. And yet we became one people.
Tucker is an idiot. https://t.co/lqo9Ras1zs— John Aravosis 🇺🇸 (@aravosis) September 8, 2018
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.