Luke Darby has a good analysis of how white supremacy has gone mainstream in the US and led to the rise of mass murders by believers.
All of these shooters were obsessed with the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, sometimes referred to as “white genocide”. It’s the idea that shadowy elites – usually Jewish, almost always liberal – are orchestrating the destruction of white culture through demographic change. The theory goes that white culture will be eroded mainly through migration and birthrates: more people of color are arriving in majority white counties, the ones already there are having more and more babies, and birthrates are declining for the soon-to-be-oppressed white people.
…The rise of white supremacy is being driven in part by demographic change – although racism has flourished in the US long before whites were in sight of losing their position as the majority. The US census predicts that by 2050 white people will no longer be the majority in the country. A Census Bureau report from 2015 predicted that by the time the 2020 census is conducted, more than half of American school children will be non-white, meaning that “majority minority” future will be baked in unless something drastic changes it.
…What has changed is the demographic projections. And if Republicans can’t compete in the new electoral landscape, then it is in their best interest to freeze the official electorate in place. One way to achieve this is partisan gerrymandering, redrawing voting districts so that they’re easier for Republicans to win.
…After 2012, when Mitt Romney failed to even come close to unseating then president Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee commissioned a so-called “autopsy report” that predicted doom if the party couldn’t right itself: “America is changing demographically, and unless Republicans are able to grow our appeal the way GOP governors have done, the changes tilt the playing field even more in the Democratic direction. If we want ethnic minority voters to support Republicans, we have to engage them and show our sincerity.”
That hasn’t happened. Instead of trying to peel off voters who typical side with Democrats – women, minorities, moderates – Republicans have aggressively focused on making sure people who aren’t likely to vote for them don’t vote at all. In the US voter suppression – the act of denying the vote to minority and poor communities who are likely to be Democratic supporters – is thriving. In the last decade, 33 million people have been purged from voter rolls across the country – predominantly in districts with large percentages of non-white voters.
…In many ways, the Republican party has been preparing for minority rule for years now. The anxiety that drove the shooter in El Paso, as well as every other white supremacist mass shooter in recent years, has motivated Republican politicians to steadily demonize and disenfranchise populations that don’t vote for them. The problem long predates Donald Trump, but he’s given taken both the mask and the leash off of it.
So the Republican party strategy is clear: try to bring out as many racist and xenophobic white voters as possible by ramping up the hate rhetoric while doing their best to suppress the votes of every other demographic group.
“Couldn’t ‘right’ itself”? Now there’s a poor choice of words. They’re capsizing starboard side and think going further that way will help.
And show sincerity, but don’t change racist and exclusionist policies. Cripes, even ambulance chasers like the catholic cult will begrudgingly change policies when it knows it can’t fight the tide anymore. The anti-science brigade will never cave in to the facts.
I really cannot grasp US White Nationalism.
The Canadian and US mindsets just seem wildly divergent.
I am an old white guy who lives in Canada. I even have a white beard. We have all sorts of nationalities,races or whatever moving in. What do I care?
Most immigrants seem rather nice, fit in well, and their kids are totally Canadian possibly due to our education system.
The increase in ethnic groups may even mean more food choices. For some reason, my small city seems to have seen a recent influx of Japanese and Korean restaurateurs. Delicious.
And as a totally hetro sexist male, immigration means we have more pretty girls walking down the street. I am going to complain?
@2, as with almost every vile thing in American society, the difference from Canada, and most other nations, arises from this country being founded as a slave state. The lasting legacy of legalized, government-sanctioned slavery reverberates through everything.
The Republicans have to resort to provoking racism and xenophobia, as well as to illegal things like voter suppression, because they can’t win any other way. Their policies are so bankrupt, and appeal to so few (the ultrich), that they have to resort to undemocratic methods. They can’t win anymore in a real democracy.
jrkrideau @2: The US mindset certainly exists in Canada. It’s just that Canadian conservatives are usually smarter about what they say in public, maybe because the “deplorable” base might be a bit smaller proportionally than in the US, but they’re there alright. Luckily, assault weapons are harder to come by here.
@ 3 garnetstar
@2, as with almost every vile thing in American society, the difference from Canada, and most other nations, arises from this country being founded as a slave state.
I keep forgetting that. My US relations live in Michigan or one or two in New Jersey.
We had some relatively minor but nasty slavery in Canada but it was not economically important. I have read that by the the time of the 1833 Slave Emancipation Act there were no slaves to emancipate in Canada. I am not sure if that is true but it seems likely.
Of course we had Sir Guy Carleton as Governor General for a number of years. He hated slavery. He evacuated ex-slaves who had served with the Loyalist forces (well they were loyal British subjects) to Canada (there is a story suggesting that one refugee was George Washington’s cook but I cannot confirm it).
This is not to say that Blacks in Canada were not discriminated against. They were. But the racial animosity seems relatively mild compared to the USA.
white supremacy has gone mainstream
Given that the country was a slave-state, then an apartheid state, and genocided the indigenous inhabitants in the meantime, I don’t think white supremacy has gone mainstream. It has always been mainstream and white supremacists are fighting to keep it that way. That’s the problem.
jrkrideau@#2:
I really cannot grasp US White Nationalism.
The country was founded on white nationalism, and built on white nationalism. The national economy used to depend on white nationalism. There is no “resurgence” of white nationalism going on -- it’s that they are fighting an extended rearguard action to keep their hands on the wheel. If you really want to horrify yourself, read the history of ‘reconstruction’ which was, basically, how the south won the war in spite of losing it. What we’re dealing with now is how white supremacists won the civil rights war in spite of losing a few of the battles. They just will not give up control until it’s pried from their cold, dead, hands.
@ 4 Rob Grigjanis
I realise we have similar idiots in Canada. I just do not see them having the same effect or influence.
To a certain extent the general Canadian attitude (which I share) seems to be ” I don’t give a f**k” as opposed to the US White Nationalist view.
I live in a relatively small but racially and culturally diverse city so I may be misreading things but my reading is that there is nothing like the Canadian educational system to reduce racial or cultural tensions.
As a minor note, I was cooking something a few months ago when my landlord arrived to do something. I asked him if he would like to eat. Sure.
So I handed him bowl and a set of chop sticks. He tucked in immediately.
He and I are both Irish Canadians by descent.
The Netherlands like to take over all bad sides of the USA and none of the good ones, so replace
“usually Jewish, almost always liberal”
with “cultural marxist”, the Republicans with Geert Wilders and Thierry Baudet and this analysis fully applies to my native country. Fortunately The Netherlands have very strict laws on weapons, so Dutch racists have to look for other ways to practice violence.
@ 3 garnetstar
Let’s not forget genocide. Pretty much every square mile of land in the USA was obtained by violence — by Europeans and their descendents exterminating and/or driving off the people who were there before them. (In most of the USA, the Native American peoples; in the Southwest, the spanish-speaking colonists as well.) And this genocide is a big part of the founding myths of the USA (e.g., “cowboys and indians” and “the only good indian is a dead indian.”) The modern white supremacists who want to exterminate “illegal” immigrants and other non-“white” people are simply continuing the grand tradition of expelling and exterminating people who aren’t part of their tribe.
I don’t know much about the history of European-First Nations relations in Canada to know if it was any less bloodthirsty.
@ 7 Marus
The country was founded on white nationalism, and built on white nationalism
Yes, I guess as a Canadian the idea is so strange that I struggle to get my head around it.
This is not to say that Canada was not built on some white nationalism but we had two white nations. We and the US just do not have the same viewpoints.
China Town in Toronto, or I believe, now mainly in Richmond Hill, is not a foreign nation for us old white guys, it is just a great place to go for dim sum or to pick up some food items and perhaps see a few old friends.
I am still looking for that wok, damn it.
There is a small contingent of White deplorables,who would love to see the return of slavery on a much wider scale than our prison system.
There is a much larger contingent, however, who are well used to the idea that Black people exist only to serve the emotional and physical needs of White people, and that we should be grateful for the opportunity to do so. Those particular individuals would love to turn the clock back to 1957, an era where Black people were free, but didn’t have any choice but to obey the passing whims of any White person, on pain of being lynched.
@ 10 Allison
I don’t know much about the history of European-First Nations relations in Canada to know if it was any less bloodthirsty.
It was a lot less bloodthirsty. Other than the Riel rebellions, I am not sure that we ever had a conflict with First Nations people, well, since Confederation.
But the Canadian Govt’s treatment of First Nations people was horrible at times, some times deliberately and sometimes with the best of intentions. In either case, they mucked up.
jrkrideau @13: The Riel rebellions were resistance/uprisings by the Métis. They, and the Inuit, are recognized as Aboriginal Canadians, but they’re not First Nations.
@13 jrkrideau
I’m sorry to say I think you’ve gotten a very naïve view of this.
Canada’s history of bloodthirstiness and genocide towards the First Nations is deep and monstrous and is ongoing. People alive now were in the “residential schools”, for example, which is a magnificent name for a concept that falls firmly under the UN definition of genocide (forcibly and violently assimilating members of one culture into another) -- not terribly long ago the phrase “Kill the Indian, save the man” was government policy. Meanwhile, right now, not only does the Canadian government not honor any of their actual treaties (and they ARE treaties between nations, which the Canadian governments regularly ignore their duties under), but we’re slamming bitumen pipelines and other environmental destructors right through land that isn’t even supposed to be under the control of the settler governments.
I’m with you on being a huge fan of multiculturalism (and also being a Canadian of Irish descent), but I’m afraid your view of this is way rosier than the truth. I don’t even call that your fault -- Canada’s one HUGE talent on the global stage is generating amazingly good PR, which has historically been made easy for us by being seen as ‘the good guys’ compared to the UK and USA. We’ve had enormous success sweeping our historical malfeasance under the rug of time.
It’s actually why I believe Trudeau is the perfect iconic representation of Canada (as Trump is of the terrible truth of the USA) -- he’s handsome, pleasant, widely liked, not politically THAT much different from the other imperialists, and enjoys a thoroughly undeserved reputation for progressive policies while actually championing the status quo. Same as the rest of us.
white culture will be eroded mainly through migration and birthrates
Yep. I’ve written off us whites as the neanderthals of the time. Come back in a few thousand years and if humanity still abides, few descendants will contain any of the genes that today’s whites laud. Like neanderthals, our genes won’t be entirely lost from human stock, but the majority of humanity will have moved on. My advice is the same I’d give neanderthals -- marry other races for your children’s sake.
Abbeycadabra beat me too it. I used to have my head in the sand as well when it came to the pernicious racism in Canada but it’s there and it’s ugly and it’s not just our treatment of native Canadians. Black Lives Matter exists in our country for a reason, and is especially present in Ontario. Quebec just passed a law banning public employees from where religious symbols, something very much targeted at women who wear the hijab but also forces Sikh men and observant Jewish men from those jobs too.
As for the influence of our most noxious racists, we’ve “gifted” the world the likes of Rebel Media, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux, and Gavin McInnes (who helped found the Proud Boys).