A few days ago, Fox News presenter Laura Ingraham delivered a lengthy monologue in which she argued that demographic shifts from immigration, both legal and illegal, had effectively driven the America she once knew and loved toward extinction. Amid a torrent of backlash alleging racism, Ingraham took to the airwaves once again, not to light the match, but to try and extinguish the flames.

This time, she was trying dig herself out of the mud, proclaiming that she “wasn’t talking about race”. Now I know it’s the calling card of hyper-partisan pundits to routinely divorce themselves from reality, but Ingraham’s feeble defense of her espoused views really takes that strange phenomenon to a new level. And for the record, she stated,

In some parts of the country, it does seem like the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people. And they’re changes none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like. From Virginia to California, we see examples of how radically, in some ways, the country has changed. Now, much of this is related to both illegal, and in some cases legal, immigration that of course, progressives love.

Unfortunately for one of the hard-right’s most prominent shock-jocks, you can’t spend 11-minutes dutifully trotting-out every conceivable anti-immigration boogieman (imagery and all), and then try to sweep the motivating sentiment under the rug when its inherent ugliness is criticized.

You can’t rant to your viewers about how socialists want to “remake and reshape America”, and that through immigration their goal is “overwhelming and diluting your vote”, and then innocently claim that your comments weren’t about race.

So no, you can’t willfully stoke the boilers of animus with inflammatory speech and conveniently sidestep the resultant blowback.