The Buffalo shooting and "The Great Replacement"
It's come out that the man who murdered ten people at a supermarket in Buffalo over the weekend was a fervent believer in "The Great Replacement." This is a theory that claims Jews, liberals, "globalists," or some combination of these and other shadowy groups are engaged in a plot to bring non-white people into the United States and dilute the voting power of white people, essentially making white Americans a minority in their own country (we'll ignore, for the moment, that the U.S. was never "their" country).
At one time a fringe view among Ku Klux Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists, "The Great Replacement" has since become mainstream conservative ideology, promoted by the likes of Tucker Carlson and other right-wing media personalities, as well as many politicians. While the Buffalo shooter took this view to its extreme, these views are held, to one degree or another, by a significant number of Americans. A General Social Survey poll found that 23 percent of white people believe that the average intelligence of whites is higher than that of Black people. 29 percent believe that Black people lack the motivation to lift themselves out of poverty, while around 25% believe that we spend too much on social services for Black people. A majority, 54%, believe that a less-qualified Black person will automatically be hired over a more-qualified white person. A survey of January 6 rioters and attendees at the "Stop the Steal" rally the same day found that the primary motivation was not poverty, job loss, or other economic issues, but whether the attendee lived in a county that had experienced a higher-than-average surge in the number of non-white residents.
I'm not sure how to combat this toxic ideology, especially since its acceptance as mainstream. Just calling people "racist" isn't going to help. Calling on Republican leaders to denounce it won't help either, as this has now become a major selling point with their base. Tucker Carlson has stopped talking about it, probably because the Fox News lawyers expect a lawsuit from families of the Buffalo shooting victims and want to minimize damages. Maybe all we can hope for is that, like the Dominion lawsuits forced conservative media outlets to stop repeating the "Big Lie" that the election was stolen from Trump, these lawsuits will force them to dial back their rhetoric, which is clearly getting people killed.
I don't have much hope for change in the near future; in fact, it will probably get worse. The Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case, which will result in abortion being outlawed in at least half of the country, is giving Democratic candidates a ready-made campaign issue, so if the Democrats do better in the midterms than expected, we will hear more claims that this was due to "illegal aliens voting" and other conspiracies. We may have to just endure this until it burns itself out as similar philosophies have in the past.
At one time a fringe view among Ku Klux Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists, "The Great Replacement" has since become mainstream conservative ideology, promoted by the likes of Tucker Carlson and other right-wing media personalities, as well as many politicians. While the Buffalo shooter took this view to its extreme, these views are held, to one degree or another, by a significant number of Americans. A General Social Survey poll found that 23 percent of white people believe that the average intelligence of whites is higher than that of Black people. 29 percent believe that Black people lack the motivation to lift themselves out of poverty, while around 25% believe that we spend too much on social services for Black people. A majority, 54%, believe that a less-qualified Black person will automatically be hired over a more-qualified white person. A survey of January 6 rioters and attendees at the "Stop the Steal" rally the same day found that the primary motivation was not poverty, job loss, or other economic issues, but whether the attendee lived in a county that had experienced a higher-than-average surge in the number of non-white residents.
I'm not sure how to combat this toxic ideology, especially since its acceptance as mainstream. Just calling people "racist" isn't going to help. Calling on Republican leaders to denounce it won't help either, as this has now become a major selling point with their base. Tucker Carlson has stopped talking about it, probably because the Fox News lawyers expect a lawsuit from families of the Buffalo shooting victims and want to minimize damages. Maybe all we can hope for is that, like the Dominion lawsuits forced conservative media outlets to stop repeating the "Big Lie" that the election was stolen from Trump, these lawsuits will force them to dial back their rhetoric, which is clearly getting people killed.
I don't have much hope for change in the near future; in fact, it will probably get worse. The Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case, which will result in abortion being outlawed in at least half of the country, is giving Democratic candidates a ready-made campaign issue, so if the Democrats do better in the midterms than expected, we will hear more claims that this was due to "illegal aliens voting" and other conspiracies. We may have to just endure this until it burns itself out as similar philosophies have in the past.
