Softly softly
Aaron Blake at the Washington Post last September:
As we wrote a while back, the Republican Party’s increasing embrace of replacement theory — the idea popular in white supremacist circles that immigrants are being brought in to replace native-born (read: White) Americans — has been a slow build. For years, it was an idea relegated to infrequent mentions by fringe Republicans who operated outside the political mainstream and weren’t generally welcomed in politer circles of the GOP. When it was mentioned, it was dressed up as something besides replacement theory, per se.
Well, sure. There are a lot of ways you can dress up such things. In fact “replacement theory” itself is a dressing up – it sounds thoughtful and academic-ish, when really it’s just Y U let all those darkies in?
[Tucker] Carlson last week doubled down and used the actual label favored by racist groups — “great replacement” — and more recently got some backup from a member of Congress, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
Carlson had been disavowing “replacement theory” while also promoting it, then he dropped the disavowing part.
In a segment last week recapped by The Washington Post’s Philip Bump, though, Carlson explained that what Biden was doing was, in fact, not just replacement, but a great replacement.
“In political terms, this policy is called the great replacement, the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries,” Carlson said Wednesday.
And Matt Gaetz tweeted a Right on bro! Dressed up a little – the cleanest T shirt he could find.
So that’s two prominent figures on the right describing this as, in fact, “the great replacement” and “replacement theory.” And the former did so after his boss said he had “decried and rejected replacement theory.” This comes on top of certain congressional Republicans, including one who spoke to a group of white nationalists, floating the idea forming a caucus for which a draft document said immigrants were undercutting the “unique identity” of the country. (The idea was later shelved after an outcry.)
Let’s go full racism! Oops, wait, it’s not going over well – back off a little. [looks at watch] Ok try again!
Replacement theory is ethnic cleansing in reverse. No wonder they’re scared. The thing is, neither one justifies the other. Bigotry is bigotry no matter what you call it.
What Tucker Carlson does is profit from promoting fear and hate, it doesn’t even resemble journalism.
Well, it’s more that replacement theory is a call for ethnic cleansing, or at least filtering. “Don’t let those wrong-ethnic people in here, don’t let them Replace Us.”
And it’s not like there’s an organized movement to extinguish the white population, but that’s what the bigots want us to believe. There was indeed an organized movement in the case of Nazism. They blame migratory patterns and the success of propagating humans who aren’t white, who’s populations are increasing, on some kind of ‘master plan’ or something. It’s an absurd conspiracy theory.
And fecking “legacy Americans”… How quickly they forget the Native population, of which they are not members.
Wellllll the hidden premise of course is that only Northern Europeans count as “legacy” Murkans.
Yes, the actual ‘legacy’ population has already been replaced. Now it’s not even relevant except as racial propaganda. Territorial and societal evolution is much different than 500 years ago.
As exemplified by Trump screeching about immigrants “invading” (meaning, brown-skinned people crossing the southern border), and then turning around and saying that the USA “needs more immigrants from Norway”.
I suspect your average Norwegian wouldn’t have that much interest in moving to the USA. Then again, maybe I’m projecting.
As a Norwegian I would definitely prefer to have my country counted among the shithole countries in Trump’s book.
My cousin (another Norwegian) has been living in the U.S. for a long time now and is married to a black woman. Trump must be so pleased.
Me, I went there 22 years ago, and back then I enjoyed it a lot. Now I never want to go there again for any reason ever.
I visited the USA in the early 90’s for work and about 7 years ago for a holiday. Both times I met people I liked very much and people I didn’t. A country as huge as the US is always going to engender complexities. I mean, we have the US participants on this blog who are thoughtful and interesting people, probably even nice people to just spend time with. Then there are the Carlson’s Alito’s, MTGs and general MAGAts of the world (not to mention the Strangio’s). More than anything I find off putting is the utter toxicity of the overarching society that has developed. Not just the shouty polarisation, but the obsession with law and order, safety, the 1A, the 2A, the ridiculous belief that because America excels at some things, it must excel at everything. My last experience just passing through the country has made me very wary of ever wanting to go there again, even for transit. Assuming we ever get to travel again between pandemics and global warming…
Maybe Norway. I’ve heard it’s nice when it’s not trying to freeze you death.
The irony is that these immigrants they’re so afraid of think a lot more like Tucker than do many/most “legacy” Americans.
Pro-rural, anti-abortion, pro-theocracy, etc.
No wonder they’re so afraid of immigration then: “These people are so monstrously evil that they would treat us exactly the way we would treat them!”
I too think of Norway as The Better Place.
Norway, or any first world country for that matter, unless say, you happen to be from Slovenia or somewhere like that, and say, won a couple of meat judging contests, and say, had a shot at becoming a trophy wife to some wealthy idiot. Then it’s fine. :P
Shut up, Bjarte! Nobody likes a party-pooper…
@Rob,
If I had my druthers, I’d move to New Zealand. Still, looks like I’m destined for retirement in Spain–not a bad fallback plan.
The funny thing is, the “Unique Place” known as America was created by immigration. First the Native Americans immigrated, and called the country their own. Then the rest of our ancestors immigrated. My ancestors come from England, Ireland, and Scotland – I guess not a lot of “shithole countries”, but Ireland was a pretty big shithole for women for a long time. My family, though, came from Protestant Ireland.
As for Norway, I keep agitating for that as a retirement destination, but my husband has heard that Norweigian is a very hard language to learn, and he’s not good with languages. Guess that’s out, but maybe I’ll get to visit some day.
Bjarte – lol. I know, I know, nothing’s perfect.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming NZ to be perfect – very far from it. Sure there are worse places to be, but at this point in history that feels a bit like damning with faint praise. There are also many other good/reasonable places to be.
iknklast, worth remembering that during the colonial period, Scotland and Ireland were very much regarded as shithole countries and their populations (Ireland especially) regarded as vermin.
I have ancestors from England and the Shetlands for sure, so likely more distant ancestors from France and Scandinavia as well. We’re all ultimately from somewhere else. There are so many potential reasons to judge another person negatively, I’ve never considered place of birth, skin colour, favourite food, or language to be amongst them, but obviously for some that matters.
Rob, to be fair, for thousands of years, nobody liked each other. To the Scots, the English were sassenachs. It was only through the civilizing efforts of the Catholic Church that we all learned to get along as One in the Lord.
Yes, I typed that without bursting out in laughter.
Thanks Mike, you may have typed that without laughing, but I didn’t manange to read it without a good guffaw. Well played my friend. Well played.