Fox News on Monday hosted Jeffrey Tucker, a man it described as a “recent Monticello visitor” (video) to share his experience after attending the former home and slave plantation once owned by America’s founding father, statesman, and third President, Thomas Jefferson.
Tucker is not just a “recent Monticello visitor.”
Like many of America’s founding fathers, Jefferson was a slave owner and visitors to Monticello, now a museum and educational institution near Charlottesville, Virginia, are informed of that basic fact.
Tucker accused them of “debunking” Jefferson’s accomplishments.
Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves, and even Smithsonian magazine as far back as 2002 published a damning piece stating: “Jefferson owned slaves. He did not believe that all were created equal. He was a racist, incapable of rising above the thought of his time and place, and willing to profit from slave labor.”
Over the weekend Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy, a far-right Christian conservative, lamented about her experience visiting Monticello.
“Campos-Duffy said that she was made to feel ‘ashamed’ and ‘guilty’ by the ‘diabolical’ information she received when she visited the historic mansion and museum,” Alternet reported.
“There are slaves across human history,” she said. “I get that. It’s a terrible history we should talk about but we should not feel guilty or ashamed of our leaders when we go and visit the people who brought us the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. You leave feeling that way.”
Right-wing media is all over this “wokeism.” But really, who is this “recent Monticello visitor” Jeffrey Tucker?
“The conservative freakout seemingly started with a July 4 tweet from Jeffrey A. Tucker, who complained of ‘aggressive political messaging’ at Monticello,” Media Matters reports. “Tucker, who is the president of the Brownstone Institute — formed in May 2021 to oppose COVID-19 precautions — also wrote a column the same day for the conspiracy theory website The Epoch Times complaining about his visit there. The New York Post picked up the story and interviewed Tucker for its July 9 article titled ‘Monticello is going woke — and trashing Thomas Jefferson’s legacy in the process.’ The Post made clear that its ire is primarily focused on the estate teaching that Jefferson enslaved people.”
In September 2000, the Southern Poverty Law Center published “The Neo-Confederates,” reporting that Tucker is “listed on the racist League of the South’s Web page” as a founding member. The League of the South is “a white supremacist group that advocates for southern secession and an independent, white-dominated South,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. The SPLC says Tucker denies his membership, but notes that “Tucker has written for League publications.”
Jeffrey Tucker also allegedly wrote or helped write at least some of Ron Paul’s racist and anti-LGBTQ newsletters. The Economist in 2008 reported: “according to numerous veterans of the libertarian movement, it was an open secret during the late-80s and early-90s who was ghostwriting the portions of Mr Paul’s newsletters not penned by the congressman himself: Lew Rockwell, founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and members of his staff, among them Jeffrey Tucker, now editorial vice president of the Institute.”
The Ludwig von Mises Institute is also listed in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s article, “The Neo-Confederates.”