Activist group Color of Change is encouraging MSNBC to fire Pat Buchanan, accusing the conservative pundit of being a racist.
The organization released a call to action Tuesday, urging supporters to sign a petition demanding the removal of Buchanan from his role as a paid contributor.
“For years, Pat Buchanan has passed off white supremacist ideology as legitimate mainstream political commentary,” said the group’s statement. “And MSNBC continues to pay him and give him a platform on national TV to do it.”
Color of Change alleges that Buchanan has defended Adolf Hitler, argued that both sides were right in the American Civil War and implied that white people are inherently more intelligent.
“He takes every opportunity to stoke the racial anxiety and fear that exists among some white people. In short, Buchanan wants to pit white people against people of color,” the organizers said. “He believes in it, he thinks it’s good political strategy, and in his new book he encourages the GOP to become ‘the white party.'”
Examples of alleged racism cited by Color of Change include Buchanan saying, “This has been a country built basically by white folks” and “Sonia Sotomayor does believe in race-based justice basically at the expense of white males and to advance people of color. The truth is that’s what Barack Obama believes as well.”
The campaign is not the first conducted by Color of Change against a prominent conservative given a mainstream media platform. Earlier this year, a campaign was launched to have media mogul Andrew Breitbart banned from The Huffington Post.
The Huffington Post conceded to the campaign’s demand, and established an inconsistently-applied ban on writers who utter ad hominem attacks, after Breitbart told The Daily Caller that he was displeased with the campaign by “left-wing freaks at Color of Change” to censor him, and described Van Jones, who co-founded the organization, as “a cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak. And a commie. And an eco-fraudster.”
MSNBC representatives did not respond to TheDC’s request for comment.