Looking for monsters under a kid’s bed

Tucker Carlson of Fox News has started talking about White Replacement Theory. So Lulu Garcia-Navarro of NPR talked to Kathleen Belew. Belew is a professor of history at the University of Chicago and the co-editor of A Field Guide to White Supremacy. Though Carlson recently started talking about it, the idea is more than 100 years old. Somehow non white people or foreigners will immigrate, reproduce, and seize political power. Stronger versions of the theory also talk of white people becoming extinct. The Anti Defamation League has known about this theory all along because “non white people” is code for Jews, specifically a supposed cabal of Jewish elites. Belew explained more that the feared action would be anti-democratic and result in a permanent liberal majority. That fear is based on the idea that the US is supposed to be a white nation. The fear rears up every time there is a big increase in immigration from a place like Haiti. It also gets attached to the census results showing the US is more multiracial, which supremacists see as apocalyptic and a foreshadow of racial annihilation. The theory also gets attached to voting and gerrymandering. Replacement theory used to be a fringe idea. It is no longer. Also, Republicans are no longer talking about solutions to immigration issues The idea that the white race will be annihilated if non whites take over is projection. Supremacists have shown they are quite interested in and willing to annihilating those who are not white. Ms Entropy, who describes herself as a Cassandra of Geoploitics, tweeted a thread about replacement theory. Here are some excerpts.

Racists fought to preserve segregation by claiming Civil Rights activists were extremists creating instability to undermine the American way of life. FBI J. Edgar Hoover was one such figure. Many pointed to “outside agitators” — which merged well with Red Scare ideology. Segregationists were so racist they didn’t see Black activists as smart enough to be in control of the Civil Rights struggle. Instead, it had to be Communists, aka “THE JEWS!” Why? “Jews promote miscegenation while only marrying in-group to undermine white racial superiority.” ... When you see hysterical references to ‘by 2050 [etc] whites will be the minority’ or ‘Replacement Theory,’ you’re witnessing white supremacists’ fears and assumptions. And here’s what it means: “The West rightfully belongs only to White Christians.”

As “proof” that non white takeover means white genocide they look at South Africa. The rhetoric at the end of the Apartheid era implied that if Nelson Mandela took over it would be at the expense of whites. Yeah, at the expense of white stranglehold on political power and the end of their state sanctioned oppression of blacks. But not at the expense of white lives. This morning on NPR Odette Yousef talked to Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The topic was the Proud Boys, which the SPLC designates as a hate group. There are 40 chapters across the country and they claim a membership of 40,000, though is likely well below that. The group is doing quite well in spite of its leader Enrique Tarrio being revealed as a federal informant and 15 members under charges of conspiracy. One way they have survived is they have been building alliances with – providing muscle for – other conservative causes, such as anti mask protests and protests over Confederate monuments. Miller said one goal of the Proud Boys is to “normalize the idea of violence in politics.” One result of that is “a wave of bills that are aimed at suppressing protest, and even allowing people run over protesters and have immunity for doing so.” This is a profound shift pushing conservatives even further right. Many times NPR stories have transcripts of the audio. At other times the story’s webpage has a news article that follows the audio. This time I see the text news softens the audio. In the text the first phrase I quoted in the previous paragraph is “normalize their brand of politics.” While the quote (which doesn’t appear in the audio) explains a bit more what that brand of politics is it doesn’t use the word “violence.” To me that word is key. Last Friday Daily Kos posted an article of a leaked preview of the results of the Arizona fraudit. I waited for a story about the actual release of the results, supposedly last Friday afternoon, but I haven’t seen it and didn’t find such a story in a search of Kos. So I’ll go with a story about the leaked version. So, yeah, Laura Clawson of Kos, working from a report by KJZZ, reported that Cyber Ninjas, the company doing the audit, released a draft report of what they found. Short answer: Biden won. Just like he did in November. Even better, he got 99 more votes and the nasty guy got 261 fewer. Which is not the result anyone expected from a fraudulent audit. Even so, Cyber Ninjas and Republicans are still spinning hard. The report still has many of what others are calling “faulty conclusions” that claim the election system is problematic and blaming Maricopa County election officials for not cooperating. Even though the report confirms the election was quite accurate and Biden really did win, Republicans are now calling for fraudits in Ohio and Texas. Clawson concluded:

The votes don’t matter to them. The evidence doesn’t matter to them. Undermining people’s faith in elections to set the stage for 2022 and 2024 is the goal here. And no pesky finding that whoops, there wasn’t fraud in the county they most wanted to find fraud in is going to derail that plan.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that, indeed, Texas has announced a “full forensic” audit. Wrote Eleveld:

Honestly, it's hard to imagine how the Texas fraudit could look any more cheap, tainted, and dumb. Donald Trump won Texas in 2020 by more than five points, so whatever the audit might find, there's basically no pot to stir in terms of national results. The state has found no serious evidence of irregularities despite offering $1 million rewards to anyone who helped uncover 2020 fraud. Texas officials also announced their sham audit no more than eight and a half hours after Trump demanded it of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Philip Bump of the Washington Post:

The point was always to try to bolster reasons to be skeptical of the results. This was framed by state Senate President Karen Fann (R) as being an effort to rule out various conspiracy theories about the election but looking for monsters under a kid’s bed only reinforces that monsters are worth looking for. The Republican base — and a state party that had encouraged people to be willing to “give their life” for the fight against purported voter fraud — was clamoring to be taken seriously. So the Senate Republicans took them seriously. To an extent. The group selected to conduct the review was called Cyber Ninjas. Run by Doug Logan, who’d publicly embraced debunked conspiracy theories about the election, the firm had no experience in actually reviewing election results. It was quickly obvious that no wild goose would go unchased, as most obviously evidenced by volunteers involved in the effort being tasked to try to identify bamboo fibers in cast ballots under the cringey theory that illegal votes had been flown in from Asia.

Dworkin also quoted a tweet from Adam Grant:

It isn't true that facts never change minds. They just don't change minds that are already made up. If you see your ideas as identities to defend, you twist and resist data to rationalize your views. If you treat ideas as hunches to test, you embrace data to update your views.

Leah McElrath tweeted:

Data point one on the fact these “audits”—like the one in Arizona—are about sowing mistrust in the electoral process and paving the way for violent power grabs. Data point two on how these “audits” like the one in Arizona are about paving the way for power grabs by force based on manufactured distrust of the electoral process. Data point three on how these “audits” are about creating division and stoking violence: Here a Trumpist Arizona state senator alleges that a fire at an EGG FARM was supposedly actually destruction of evidence related to the 2020 presidential election.

The first data point includes a video of the Arizona Capitol with people waiting for the results to be officially released. There are also a dozen militia members with semi-auto rifles. The second data point includes images of threats of killing Maricopa County officials because of the audit. The third data point quoted a tweet from that state senator. Also in Texas (though more than a week old): Aysha Qamar of Kos reported that Dr. Alan Braid performed an abortion in Texas in violation of the state’s new ban. He wrote about it in WaPo, saying he had a duty to care for the patient. He also declared he was making sure the constitutionality of the law got tested. He said, “I believe abortion is an essential part of health care.” Several organizations praised his bravery. WaPo separately reported that a lawsuit against Braid has been filed. It was filed by Oscar Stilley, who both wants to make sure the law goes before the courts and wants to collect the $10,000 bounty. Stilley also shows how bizarre this law is – he is currently in home confinement in Arkansas as part of his 15 year sentence from a conviction of tax fraud. More news from Texas: The Kos elections team reported that Texas has released a draft of their district maps for the next ten years. While it didn’t target strong Democratic districts it did highly gerrymander the whole state more in Republican’s favor. Districts that narrowly went for Biden are now much more firmly Republican. One district went from 59% white to 74% white. The Republican hold on the state will be maintained. Tina W, who lives in district 35, tweeted a map of her district. It includes parts of Austin, snakes along I-35, and includes parts of San Antonio. Tina then linked to a tweet by Marcel McClinton, who showed an image of the districts around Dallas and Fort Worth. It shows a few thin and meandering districts, sure signs of gerrymandering. One of them, the 6th, appears to include a chunk of suburban sprawl with a narrow band to connect it to Ellis County to the south – one chunk of Democratic leaning suburbs tied to a bigger chunk of rural Texas, neutralizing the Democratic vote. McClinton wrote:

If you believe its possible to out-organize racist voter suppression and gerrymandering, I would like for you to come to Texas and share your miracles for all to see.

The Kos election team also reviewed the gerrymandering in Ohio. Yup, the new maps preserve the GOP dominance in the state legislature – likely 62-37 in the House and 23-10 in the Senate. But it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Back in 2018, when voters in Michigan were campaigning for an independent citizens redistricting commission, the GOP in Ohio got scared and passed reforms. They didn’t enact an independent commission, but did put into the constitution that maps cannot unfairly benefit one party. Even then various analysts, including the Kos election team, saw the reforms as a sham to head off attempts at more effective reforms, such as a citizens commission. Lawsuits will be filed. The state Supreme Court currently has a 4-3 Republican majority, though GOP Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has been a frequent swing vote. Gov. Mike DeWine lamented, “What I am sure in my heart is that this committee could have come up with a bill that was much more clearly constitutional. I'm sorry that we did not do that.” That “we” confirms that he is on the redistricting commission. And he voted for the maps. So if he is sorry they aren’t more fair why did he vote for them? Meredith Shiner, a recovering national political reporter, tweeted:

Based on messages I receive, a huge story on Capitol Hill reporters either are ignoring or downplaying is the tremendous fear, exhaustion, anger and burnout among Democratic staff. We could be on the brink of a mass staff exodus, which would be bad for the institution and country.

Misha Linneham, who has campaigned for several Democrats, added:

Similarly, a lot of folks I know from the campaign world are extremely frustrated by the fact that they put everything on hold over the last three years to elect Dems to save the country, and the people we worked for are mostly incapable of actually doing the saving.

Linneham wrote he had been in Arizona knocking on thousands of doors for Kyrsten Sinema and is now angry she is being a key obstructor of needed reforms to keep democracy alive. With Haitian refugees in the news Michael Harriot tweeted a condensed history of the country, including that it was the first country in the West, way back in the 1700s, to eliminate slavery by overthrowing its slaveowners and how white supremacists in the US and France have been making sure Haiti remains the poorest country in the West. Harriot also tweeted:

I bet the people who are angry about oppressive vaccine passports at restaurants and school mask mandates are gonna flip out when they hear what Black people have to do to vote, right? What? Why is everyone laughing?