#matt is an actor and he was in heathers remake

[matthew-adams]

Location: Cliff’s Edge, Heathers Premiere After Party

When: May 7th

Who: Everyone

“Cheers to that.” Matt clinked his glass against other’s drink, almost startled by the sound of clinking glasses. “Did you watch the entire thing?” He snorted a laugh. “I hope not.” 

[toshootforthestars]

The belief that immigrants arrive in the United States with the intent to "steal" has been ubiquitous in right-wing politics for decades: Immigrants have been accused of stealing jobs, stealing tax dollars, and stealing benefits.

But lately, some of the GOP's most stalwart voices have drummed up a more explicit accusation that immigrants are here to steal the very essence of America and replace it with something foreign — an idea plucked directly from far-right-wing media.

The white nationalist "great replacement" conspiracy theory was popularized by French writer Renaud Camus in his 2012 book "Le Grand Remplacement".

Often intermingled with a "white genocide" conspiracy theory, it proposes that a variety of factors, such as an influx of nonwhite immigrants, multiculturalism, and falling birthrates among white Europeans, will result in white populations losing their position as the dominant demographic. The conspiracy theory creates a dangerous dynamic in which believers view immigrants and non-white citizens as an existential threat to their communities. And the theory is not a purely academic endeavor; it seeks to mobilize believers into action against their supposed "replacement." This mobilization manifests itself in various ways, including political activism against immigration, efforts to encourage white women to have more children to bolster demographic growth, and, in an extreme form, deadly violence against immigrants and communities of color.

The theory has reared its head in violent outbursts such as the murder of 51 people at the Al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Center in Christchurch, New Zealand, the killing of more than 20 mostly Hispanic shoppers in El Paso, Texas, and the screams of angry young men who shouted "Jews will not replace us; you will not replace us" at the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where anti-racist demonstrator Heather Heyer was murdered by neo-Nazi James Fields Jr. Field's online behavior before Unite the Right indicates support for Nazi ideology and white racial purity.

Elements of the "great replacement" conspiracy theory have also recently appeared in the statements of prominent conservative politicians. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) recently appeared on Fox News' Justice with Judge Jeanine and said that Black Lives Matter protests were part of "an attempted cultural genocide going on in America right now." Gaetz claimed that "the left wants us to be ashamed of America so that they can replace America," a message he later repeated on Twitter.

It's no coincidence that Gaetz echoed the "great replacement" talking points on Fox, as the network has played a role in promoting the conspiracy theory to American conservative audiences for years.

Fox News is home to a near-constant stream of claims that America is being subjected to an immigrant "invasion."

Hosts and contributors including Brian Kilmeade, Stuart Varney, Pete Hegseth, Tomi Lahren, and Mike Huckabee have repeatedly fear mongered about a supposed "invasion" of the United States' southern border by migrants seeking asylum.

The vitriolic talking point has become ubiquitous in Fox's lineup; a Media Matters study last year found that Fox made over 70 on-air references to an "invasion" by migrants over the seven months leading up to the El Paso mass shooting, in which the perpetrator said he was responding to a "Hispanic invasion of Texas."

In addition to the open racism of its "invasion" talking point, Fox News regularly pushes the claim that Americans are being replaced by immigrants in order to benefit Democrats at the ballot box.

On The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham warned in 2018 that Democrats "want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever-increasing number of chain migrants." This May, Ingraham boosted an article from the white nationalist website VDare that attempted to link immigration to coronavirus hotspots.  Fox host Tucker Carlson, who frequently promotes white supremacist talking points, tried to alarm audiences in July 2018 by saying that "Latin American countries are changing election outcomes here by forcing demographic change on this country." In January of this year, he declared that the "long-term agenda of refugee resettlement is to bring in future Democratic voters, obviously."  Fox host Jeanine Pirro got to the crux of the "great replacement" theory last August when she claimed: "It is a plot to remake America, to replace American citizens with illegals who will vote for the Democrats."

And this sort of racist conspiracy theorizing extends beyond Fox.

Podcast host and former Fox anchor Bill O'Reilly warned that undocumented immigration would cause "traditional America to vanish."  Conservative writer David Horowitz accused the left of waging a "war on America's sovereignty" through immigration.  Longtime conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh stated in 2018 that immigration from Latin America was intended to "dilute and eventually eliminate or erase what is known as the distinct or unique American culture ... This is why people call this an invasion."  Far-right author Ann Coulter titled her 2015 anti-immigration book “Adios America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole”.  Radio host Michael Savage said America was "being invaded by a far more virile people" and called for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a US citizen, to be deported "for what she's done in this country."  The Daily Wire's Michael Knowles accused the left of attempting to "radically change American culture" through immigration in order to "flood this country with people who will — are more likely to support them politically."

As the language of "great replacement" has become commonplace throughout right-wing media, the rhetoric has also made the leap from commentators to policymakers.

President Donald Trump himself retweeted proponents of the theory even before the 2016 election, and in 2018 he directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate the baseless conspiracy theory that genocide is being committed against white farmers in South Africa — a policy that originated in a segment on Carlson's prime-time Fox News show.

[emphasis mine]

Last November, a trove of emails leaked to the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed the extent of White House adviser Stephen Miller's sympathies for white nationalism.

Miller repeatedly spoke of immigration in a way that would be recognizable to proponents of the great replacement theory, often referring to demographic changes in the context of immigration.  In one email to former Breitbart Editor Katie McHugh, Miller lamented the effects of the Hart-Celler Act, which eliminated race-based immigration quotas, writing that in modern politics "immigration is something that we can only vote to have more of — immigration 'reform' is a moral imperative — but it's impossible, evil, racist to reverse immigration."

From Matt Gaetz's national stage to the local politics of Florida's state Senate, conservative figures are now cheering on policies using language evoking the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, and their promotion of these talking points as an electoral issue means the hawkish anti-immigrant rhetoric that used to live primarily in fringe conservative media spaces is now a staple of conservative politics.

Allowing immigration policy, and our national discourse surrounding race relations, to be shaped by nativist conspiracy theories that have already proved deadly both in the United States and abroad endangers the well-being of everyone in the United States.

Right wing media and the conservative establishments' failure to stamp out racist, conspiratorial rhetoric from their midst has emboldened bad actors and legitimized a hateful ideology couched in white supremacy.

Nikki McCann Ramírez: A racist conspiracy theory called the 'great replacement' has made its way from far-right media to the GOP

Business Insider Opinion   /   7 Sept 2020