NY Times: GOP Won’t ‘Break With Politics of Nativism and Fear’ Inspired by Trump

The mass murders by a shooter at a supermarket in Buffalo inspired the New York TimesLiberal politics to be promoted. Not gun control, which would be ridiculous enough, but in an even more malign direction, accusing mainstream Republicans of aiding deadly racism like the killer and his manifesto on “replacement theory.” Times reporters Shane Goldmacher and Luke Broadwater’s smear appeared in Tuesday’s paper: “Republicans Deplore Killings, but Few Eschew Nativist Politics Behind Tragedy.”

Buffalo’s mass shooting was the result of one gunman. It wasn’t the result of an isolated ideology.

In a manifesto, the suspect detailed how he viewed Black people as “replacers” of white Americans. The massacre at the grocery store on Saturday trained a harsh light on the “great replacement theory,” which the authorities say he used to justify an act of racist violence — and on how that theory has migrated from the far-right fringes of American discourse toward the center of Republican politics.

Republicans of all stripes were quick and vocal to denounce the crimes. However, party leaders were less willing to speak out. To retain right-wing voter loyalty, Donald J. Trump’s inspired politics of nativism or fear, the party must break away from these policies.

The murders were over. TimesThe GOP moved in an unseemly hurry to retrofit seemingly unrelated matters into its sinister racist agenda.

….Republicans have used rhetoric that suggests a tacit willingness to try to appeal to elements of the far right. Ahead of November’s midterm elections, Republican candidates have ramped up warnings about the threats being posed to what is cast as real or traditional America. Of course, it is not often said what the past era looked like. It was white, male-dominated and Judeo-Christian.

Each issue of the magazine has been changed to be a threat to Republican voters’ culture and values. Removal of statues could lead to the extermination of Confederate history and other important white historical figures. Critic race theory can be described as the rewriting of American history and a revision of how it is taught to highlight instances that are racist.

….

More than a dozen candidates and outside groups have run ads warning of an immigrant “invasion” in the country or otherwise diluting the power of native-born citizens. Several candidates have falsely said that Democrats are opening the border specifically to let undocumented people in to vote.

But letting illegals (“undocumented people” is the Times’ euphemism) vote is not some phony fantasy cooked up by Republicans: It’s happening starting next January in New York State.

The reporters allowed Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson a little media criticism: “Pushing the lie that criticizing this admin’s policies in any way supports ‘replacement theory’ is another example of the corporate media working overtime to cover up the Biden admin’s failures.”)

The paper’s own definition of “replacement theory” was instructive.

…There is a conspiracy to be racist that non-white immigrants to predominantly white countries are encouraged by a unnamed group in order to shift their demographic makeup. 

If “replacement theory” requires an unnamed cabal, it’s interesting that Republicans specifically blame not some “cabal” but Democrats. Also, Republican concern is less about culture per se than voting power: The fear is that Democrats are indeed trying to change the demographics of the country by importing new Democrat voters from Latin America, thus possibly changing the electorate in their favor (though with the recent trend in Hispanic voting patterns toward Republicans, who knows?) A majority of Americans also support voting rights for illegal immigrants. No “replacement theory” necessary.