In the era of
Donald Trump, a major plank of the modern Republican Party platform is outright racism. Whether it’s the leader of the free world telling four congresswomen of color to “
go back” to the “totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came,” a U.S. senator
saying he wasn’t afraid of the January 6 rioters but would have been worried if they were Black Lives Matter protesters, a U.S. congresswoman
speaking at event put on by a white nationalist, the complete and total
hysteria over the idea of children being taught about systemic racism, or a prime-time conservative host’s
regular white-power hour, this hateful little ecosystem just loves to appeal to the lowest common denominator by demonizing anyone who isn’t white. But when their actions actually have consequences? And it turns out their hate speech matters? And people have the audacity to suggest they’re part of the problem? Well, they really get their noses out of joint.
Take, for instance, New York representative
Elise Stefanik. Following the horrifying mass shooting in a Buffalo grocery store that left 10 dead after a gunman allegedly targeted Black people,
The Washington Post and other outlets thought it was important to
note that Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, among other conservatives, had previously echoed the “great replacement” rhetoric (the conspiracy theory that liberal politicians are trying to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants). In a series of
Facebook ads highlighted in a
tweet Saturday by Representative
Adam Kinzinger, Stefanik’s campaign claimed in September 2021 that Democrats were letting undocumented immigrants into the country in an attempt to ultimately silence Republican (read: white) voters. “Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” reads one of the ads, with an accompanying image of migrants reflected in
Joe Biden’s sunglasses. “Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” At the time they ran, Albany’s
Times Union, the congresswoman’s hometown paper,
called the ads ”despicable,” and blasted her in an editorial, writing that she “isn’t so brazen as to use [Nazi-inspired] slogans themselves; rather, she couches the hate in alarmist anti-immigrant rhetoric that’s become standard fare for the party of Donald Trump.” As
The New York Times reported over the weekend,
Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old white suspect in the Buffalo shooting, “had posted a hate-filled manifesto online,” in which he wrote of his plan to shoot Black shoppers and went on “racist, anti-immigrant” rants “arguing that white Americans are at risk of being replaced by people of color.” Kind of like the ads run by one Elise Stefanik!
The congresswoman, though, did not appreciate any insinuation whatsoever that someone might have actually taken her words to heart, and in a
statement released on Sunday, a senior adviser,
Alex deGrasse, insisted that the “implication or attempt to blame the heinous shooting in Buffalo on the congresswoman is a new disgusting low for the Left, their Never Trump allies, and the sycophant stenographers in the media. The shooting was an act of evil and the criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” He added, “Despite sickening and false reporting, [the] congresswoman has never advocated for any racist position or made a racist statement,” a claim that is obviously not true at all. On Monday, Team Stefanik followed that up with a press release accusing the media of “disgraceful, dishonest, and dangerous” smears.
Stefanik, of course, is far from the only member of her party to push racist rhetoric intended to rile up the base. As the
Post notes, Pennsylvania Republican representative
Scott Perry, current chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus,
said during a subcommittee hearing concerning migration from Central America last year that many Americans believe “we’re replacing national-born American—native-born Americans—to permanently transform the political landscape of this very nation.” Senator
Ron Johnson has
suggested that Democrats “want to remake the demographics of America to ensure their—that they stay in power forever.” Texas lieutenant governor
Dan Patrick has
declared that the “revolution has begun” and Democrats are “trying to take over our country without firing a shot” by allowing immigrants to enter the country who will vote for Democrats to “thank the Democrats and Biden for bringing them here.” Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance has
claimed Democrats want to let in 15 million immigrants into the U.S. to “shift…the democratic makeup of this country” so “Republicans [will] never win a national election in this country ever again.”
And, of course, we can’t forget the fear-mongering, hateful commentary that appears on Fox News on a daily basis, which has included
Laura Ingraham’s
claim that Democrats “want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever-increasing number of chain migrants”;
Jeanine Pirro’s that Democrats’ immigration policies are “a plot to remake America, to replace American citizens with illegals who will vote for the Democrats”; and basically
everything that comes out of
Tucker Carlson’s mouth…
...which got a shoutout from Senate majority leader
Chuck Schumer on Monday:
While we don’t have an inside line to Carlson’s production meetings, it’s probably a pretty good guess that his monologue tonight will be something about how he (and his viewers) are now being silenced for “just asking questions”—the kind that lead to nearly a dozen people being killed.
Senator Dick Durbin suggests there’s an outside possibility Tucker Carlson has a soul
You’ll never believe it but Republicans don’t think the latest mass shooting should lead to stricter gun control
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/buffalo-shooting-great-replacement-theory-republicans