The Great Replacement Theory is great for Republicans so they'll keep using it until the unthinkable happens.
https://thebanter.substack.com/p/nothing-will-shock-republicans-enough
With each politically motivated mass shooting, there is the increasingly desperate hope that this will be the one. This will be the red line crossed that will snap Republicans out of it. This time will be different and Republicans will rally back to decency and sanity. Tuesday’s horrific Texas slaughter does not appear to be political in nature but do not expect the Republican response to be any less vile. Ben, Bob, and I have discussed this before on the
Banter Roundtable Podcast and I am more convinced than ever that there is no amount of bloodshed, no body count large enough, to “shock the conscience” of Republicans. We are well beyond any such possibility.
The bodies weren’t even cold
Within hours of the Buffalo shooting, the right was in full PR mode, trying to deflect attention from their direct culpability in the tragedy. Even as white nationalists across the country cackled with glee, their loudest public voices were shocked, shocked, that anyone would think these killings had anything to do with them. Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers, a particularly odious rising star in the party, wants you to know that Buffalo was
a false flag operation. False flag operation claims are a favorite of the right. They get to celebrate the murder of the people they hate and are required to take none of the responsibility.
A few days later, the genetic experiment gone wrong known as Ben Shapiro
penned a screed demanding to know why the press was claiming the right believes replacement theory. Maybe it’s because Republicans, Fox, AM Hate Radio, and right-wing hate sites have been pushing it for some time now? Tucker Carlson has been explicitly selling
this exact message to millions of eager consumers of white nationalist hate. The right, in general, didn’t use to believe in replacement theory. They were aware of the ongoing demographic shift in the country which is why they embraced racialized voter suppression as a way of life. But once they succumbed to fascist and white nationalist forces, they began to justify the most extreme behavior imaginable.
The Great Replacement Theory is great for Republicans
The press made a lot of noise about “Replacement Theory” in the wake of the Buffalo murders. The idea itself is very simple: racist white people believe that there is a plot to replace them with immigrants. This plot is sometimes controlled by shadowy “elites” or Democrats but usually, it’s Jews (we Jews are the preferred supervillains of white nationalist myths). At first blush, this doesn’t seem like a very useful platform to run on as a Republican. It’s explicitly racist and, as the press assured us for decades, the Republican base is totally not racist. Not racist, of course, as long as one ignores the Southern Strategy, Ronald Reagan’s entire presidency, Willie Horton, the reaction to Barrack Obama’s entire presidency, Trump, Charlottesville, etc.
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