The Great Replacement theory used to be a fringe belief that non-white immigrants were polluting our precious bodily fluids by making America less white. As I noted back in 2022, it’s no longer fringe. Republicans hate the idea of white America being merely the largest of several racial blocks but not a majority. They don’t just hate illegal immigration, they hate immigration period.
JD Vance, for instance says we need less legal immigration and it’s totally fine to not want to live next to people with a totally different culture. Actually he means “fine for people who agree with me” — if an atheist doesn’t want to live next to a Christian or I don’t want to live next to people who love Hitler, I’m sure Vance will be out there whinging about how mean we are. Sorry, J.D., the proper response to Nazis and those who love them is to be outraged.
Now Republicans are proposing granting asylum to a maximum 7,500 people, and mostly white South Africans. This is based on a myth that white Afrikaaners are being targeted for race; while there is a lot of violence in the country, there’s no evidence of a systemic campaign against whites.
There’s solid evidence that Iraqis and Afghanis who helped us during our occupation are at risk if they stay in their countries, or get shipped back. But we’re doing it anyway. Part of it may be the deep-rooted belief that hierarchy is inevitable — if whites aren’t dominant, non-whites will inevitably treat white people the way white people have treated them. Equality ain’t possible. And even if they knew it was, a lot of them wouldn’t want it.
So the solution is to bring in not only whites but conservative whites who’ll side with them; they’ve also talked about letting Germany’s far-right extremists come here as refugees. Because right-wingers love their delusions of persecution and martyrdom (especially when they don’t have to suffer like martyrs).
To wrap up with two unrelated links: First, the Secretary of Energy declares the Necrotic Toddler has won the Nobel for Physics, a classic example of the fawning bullshit impulse I blogged about last week.
Second, Paul Krugman ponders why a massively unpopular president and party are inflicting worse suffering on their voters by letting Obamacare subsidies and SNAP benefits run out. His conclusions: 1)they hate voters getting help and 2)they can’t do anything until the house re-opens and that risks Dems calling for the release of the Epstein files. Like Krugman that last one is hard to swallow but it’s making more and more sense.
