Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson argued that protests that have sprung up around the country on Columbus Day about Christopher Columbus were not just about Columbus.

According to Carlson, it was much broader, which was a rejection of western civilization.

Transcript as follows:

So, the left has finally found the only immigrant in history who had no right to come to America, the only one who didn’t improve the place by his presence. His name? Christopher Columbus. His crime? Violating the sovereignty of the people who lived here already. Plus he was the wrong ethnicity.

But try making that argument about any other immigrant to America and see how long you keep your job. But whatever — happy Columbus Day anyway. Enjoy it while you can. Your grandchildren won’t even know it existed. Progressives have declared war on Christopher Columbus as they have on most things older than last week.

This is year zero on the revolutionary calendar. History starts now. Ignorance of the past isn’t simply tolerated, it’s required. Does your average protester know anything about Christopher Columbus? That he is celebrated as a hero throughout much of Latin America for example? Of course not.

The left speaks only speaks of Columbus’ genocide, mostly because his ships brought old world diseases to the new world. Of course, those ships returned to Europe with syphilis and tobacco, which proves only that real history is more complicated than the childish theology your kids are learning in school.

Now, you could make those arguments to liberals if you wanted to, but save your breath. They don’t care because none of this is really about Christopher Columbus.

What we are watching is a full-scale assault from within on the West itself — its history and its political and intellectual legacy. It’s not a debate where one side tries to convince the other. It’s a war, with one side trying to erase all remnants of its opponent, in this case, western civilization.

Consider what happened recently at a sleepy academic journal called Third World Quarterly. Professor Bruce Gilley of Portland State University published a paper there entitled “The Case for Colonialism.”

Professor Gilley argued that western colonization of the world, while flawed obviously, was quote, “objectively beneficial.”

He noted that countries that have embraced western institutions left behind the colonial powers have succeeded while countries dominated by anti-colonial ideologies have not succeeded, to put it mildly.

Now, you might agree with his thesis, or you might disagree. But in this current moment of revolutionary fervor, you are not even allowed to have thoughts like that. Gilley’s paper has since been pulled after half the publications board resigned in protest of it. Keep in mind nobody alleged plagiarism here or inaccuracy. They just didn’t like the conclusion. So they silenced the person who wrote it.

Reason, tolerance, free inquiry, those are western civilizations central gift to this world. It shouldn’t surprise us that in places where the West is under attack, those very principles are under attack too.

So, when they come for the Columbus statue in your town, it’s worth fighting back because it’s not about the statue, is about something much deeper.