“Speaker McCarthy must speak up.”
Washington, DC – Yesterday, House Republicans held another anti-immigrant hearing at the border, featuring border union leader Brandon Judd, who has espoused the Great Replacement Theory. Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA) amplified the white nationalist “invasion” conspiracy during when he spoke at the hearing. Also yesterday, the white supremacist whose manifesto cited “replacement,” and “invasion,” pleaded guilty to killing ten at a Buffalo supermarket and was sentenced.
In addition to Judd and Rep. Allen recent weeks have seen a host of Republicans mainstreaming the same dangerous conspiracies, as well as the sentencing of the El Paso shooter, similarly motivated by hateful white nationalism. As USA Today extremism reporter Will Carless noted in a tweet thread on Wednesday:
“Judd has a history of promoting the racist & antisemitic conspiracy theory the Great Replacement. […] [Buffalo shooter Payton] Gendron, by his own admission, was a deep believer in the Great Replacement. A month before his attack, so were 7/10 Republicans.[…] As I explained in this piece last year, Judd & others try to explain away their statements by arguing that the US population is changing. It is. But that’s not what he & others have been promoting for years. That’s not what the Great Replacement is. That CBP are ok with the top union official espousing a white supremacist talking point is remarkable itself. That the same man is appearing before Congress is a whole new level of questionable. That it’s happening the same day as Gendron’s sentencing is wild.
The intersection between the GOP mainstreaming dangerous conspiracies and real world violence linked to those same conspiracies hasn’t stopped or slowed GOP leaders. Today, Speaker Kevin McCarthy will continue the GOP focus on anti-immigrant lies and continue to refuse to denounce replacement or invasion rhetoric. He has refused to hold accountable GOP members openly promoting these white nationalist lies – in contrast to his treatment of Steve King, who lost his committee assignments for promoting white nationalism.
According to Douglas Rivlin, Director of Communications for America’s Voice:
“Pittsburgh, El Paso, Poway, Buffalo, Charlottesville – the list of American cities where the racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory led to deadly violence is too long. When will Republicans denounce the Great Replacement Theory and invasion rhetoric and take real action against those in their party who promote these dangerous conspiracies? Speaker McCarthy must speak up. It is not just backbenchers and fringy House Republicans, but key GOP leaders like Elise Stefanik and Jim Jordan peddling these lies to fire up their supporters. We have repeatedly seen how the words of GOP leaders have become the actions of those committing hate crimes. It is now the job of Republicans to actually do something beneficial and stop this hate filled rhetoric in its tracks in order for this country to move forward.”
Elise Stefanik, who ranks #3 in the f GOP leadership, helped mainstream dangerous conspiracies, before and after the Buffalo murders:
- Washington Post 5/16/22: “Stefanik echoed racist theory allegedly espoused by Buffalo suspect”
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- “Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers came under scrutiny Sunday for previously echoing the racist “great replacement” theory that apparently inspired an 18-year-old who allegedly killed 10 people while targeting Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo…While Stefanik has not pushed the theory by name, she and other conservatives have echoed the tenets of the far-right ideology as part of anti-immigrant rhetoric that has fired up the Republican base ahead of the midterm elections.”
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- “Republicans have the option to openly repudiate these concepts and the kind of political violence and social corrosion they incentivize. But Stefanik, who continued to triple down on her replacement theory-adjacent remarks with even more tweets later in the day, has instead decided to lean into them.”
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- New York Times 5/16/22: “Racist Attack Spotlights Stefanik’s Echo of Replacement Theory”
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- “And after the deadly mass shooting in Buffalo, where a heavily armed white man is accused of killing 10 Black people at a supermarket in a racist rampage, Ms. Stefanik is under scrutiny for campaign advertisements she has circulated that play on themes of the white supremacist “great replacement” theory. That belief, espoused by the Buffalo gunman, holds that the elite class, sometimes manipulated by Jews, wants to “replace” and disempower white Americans.
- Last year, in an ad on Facebook, Ms. Stefanik accused “radical Democrats” of planning what she described as a “PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION.”
- “Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington,” the ad said.”
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