Nothing Will Shock Republicans Enough To Abandon White Nationalism

The Great Replacement Theory is great for Republicans so they'll keep using it until the unthinkable happens.

by Justin Rosario

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. 

But should one ignore the common wisdom of the Beltway media and accept the reality that the average Republican voter is a white nationalist fascist, replacement theory is an absolute winner. It depicts white people as victims, identifies a specific bad guy, and creates an existential crisis that can only be solved through extreme, extralegal action.

The baseline for “protecting” the white race from being replaced is to end democracy. This goes beyond voter suppression and gerrymandering which has proven it can fail under the right circumstances. Republicans are now all in on directly, and openly, rigging elections.

The Republican candidate for governor in Pennslyvania, Doug Mastriano, is a full-fledged insurrectionist. He ran on a platform to keep Democrats from winning regardless of the outcome:

Mastriano may be delusional or given to conspiracy theorizing, but this is largely beside the point. What’s important is that Mastriano is making a statement about his forward-looking intentions as governor.

Mastriano is running on what is functionally an open vow to use the power of the governor’s office to nullify future election losses, even if they are procedurally legitimate, and even if he knows this to be the case.

If they cannot rig the election, there is always violence, and the right has been very clear about how willing they are to use it. The very next morning after the Buffalo murders, Pastor Greg Locke went out in front of his congregation and told them that Democrats are “baby-butcherin” literal demons and devils who hate America and “ain't seen an insurrection yet.” Also, “his” bible says they’ll take “it”, meaning either America or the gates of heaven (ok?), by “force”.

Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen

How is Greg Locke's church still tax-exempt?

Tucker Carlson is now pretending he doesn’t know what The Great Replacement Theory is, but he’ll be back to railing against the insidious plot to replace white Americans soon enough. Republicans, as a party, have done little to nothing to distance themselves from the hate. It’s working for them. Give it time and replacement theory will become the official party platform. 

This is not new

It is really tempting, especially for the press, to pretend this is all new, that the Republican base didn’t use to be this evil. Way back in the distant past of 2013, Tea Party extremists were, surprise, whining that you couldn’t allow immigrants in because breeding with “inferior” races like Black people was bad for whites. Republicans were just fine with it then and the Tea Party became the mainstream GOP. 

Eugenics, which is what replacement theory is really about, has been a part of the right’s ideology for longer than I’ve been alive. The only thing that’s “new” is that it’s now out in the open and being actively used to inspire violence with the tacit blessing of the GOP establishment. 

If we allow Republicans to be rewarded with power for inciting violence with hate speech, we will be well on our way from stage 3 to stage 4 of the 10 stages of genocide. Once we get to stage 5, there will be no way back. Certainly, nothing will shock Republicans enough to abandon white nationalism and no nation or coalition of nations has the power to intervene

Republicans are locked into a course that either ends in their destruction or mass graves. They don't know how to break free and, worse, many of them do not want to. They see the violence ahead and too many are welcoming it. In November, vote like your life depends on it, because it does.

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Bill Maher And The Great Trans Debate

The comedian ripped excessive trans activism and made some valid points, but missed the big picture and is helped fuel right wing disinformation.

by Ben Cohen

Wading into the gender identity wars raging in America is bound to attract criticism whichever side I come down on. We lost subscribers to The Banter when I penned a piece chiding liberals for taking their version of identity politics too far, so I do this with a certain amount of trepidation.

That being said, it is important that we restore some sense of nuance to debate in America if civil society is to survive, and I think it is worth attempting to inject it whenever possible.

The trans rights issue is a complicated minefield of hyperbole, misinformation, disinformation and extreme emotion. It is almost impossible to find an equilibrium that satisfies everyone, but I do want to make it clear that I have no interest in fueling the right’s grotesque anti-trans bigotry that serves no other purpose than to humiliate vulnerable children and smear liberals. Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham for example, have ruthlessly exploited the issue to convince millions of Americans that liberals are, as Ingraham stated on a “warpath to gender bend our kids into submission”. These right wing extremists are of course inferring that liberals are pedophiles. "You should be arrested for that, in fact,” Tucker Carlson said of teachers who talk to kids about gender identity. “You talk to a normal person's kids about sex in kindergarten, you get beaten up. You should be beaten up, please."

This isn’t debate. This is inciting violence against your enemies.

More towards the middle ground of the issue is Bill Maher, who has spoken out against the excesses of the LGBTQ movement while professing general support for their cause. In his show this past weekend for example, Maher referenced a Gallup poll that showed an increase in the number of Americans identifying as LGBT over multiple generations. To Maher, this was a sign that self identifying as non-binary/trans etc is somewhat of a fad…

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