Bill O’Reilly got the Internet fuming when he said that liberals are out to take down the “white establishment.”
The Fox News anchor made the comments during a segment of “The O’Reilly Factor” Tuesday that focused on calls by the left to abolish the electoral college after Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump.
“This is all about race,” O’Reilly said. “The left sees white privilege in America as an oppressive force that must be done away with. Therefore white working class voters must be marginalized.”
“Summing up, the left wants power taken away from the white establishment, and they want a profound change in the way America is run,” he concluded. “Taking voting power away from the white precincts is the quickest way to do that.”
The comments almost instantly drew strong reactions online. Some have argued that O’Reilly was speaking facetiously, using the term “white establishment” to criticize a liberal idea that is perpetrated by the media. Others feel that O’Reilly’s comments exposed the right’s preference to whites over people of color.
Read some of the reactions below.
In some places we call this “multi-racial democracy.” https://t.co/PIaaTRFhS5
— David Menschel (@davidminpdx) December 21, 2016
I think he was using a supposedly liberal construct and criticizing it. https://t.co/PwOmfUliCJ
— Avery Wendell (@awendell98) December 21, 2016
“White establishment”..said bluntly on tv. Reminds me of when the words sunni/shiites started sneaking into our daily media vocabulary. https://t.co/8z9IgjIL00
— زينة صوفان (@zeina_soufan) December 21, 2016
That time Bill O’Reilly got his internal and external monologues confused https://t.co/CBy8wl4II1
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) December 21, 2016
So basically Bill @oreillyfactor is making a case for white supremacy. He is saying minorities in big cities will dwarf small town whites. https://t.co/4JVyBEk3Br
— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) December 21, 2016
OTOH, coming out and saying there’s a white establishment is pretty woke for Bill O’Reilly. https://t.co/gFQOPKlrkN
— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) December 21, 2016
Watch the video above.