This is What They Do, Now.

 

Roughly the same time I was hitting "submit" on yesterday morning's blog post, Rep. Stefanik was hitting "submit" on the Tweet depicted above: "democrats desperately want wide open borders and mass amnesty for illegals allowing them to vote.  Like the vast majority of Americans, Republicans want to secure our border and protect election security."

Sure, that's just a re-statement of the great replacement theory, but she also wants you to also know who the real victim in all this is: Elise Stefanik, for being smeared by people calling her out for exactly what she's saying. I expected no less, because there is hardly less a person could expect. The Washington Post's Philip Bump has it right--no one will apologize. They won't even stop and consider what the fallout of their rhetoric will be. Not even after it has lead to mass shootings. 

So, maybe Rep. Matt Gaetz will try to say his promotion of GRT is "race neutral". Oh, ok. We'll just ignore which immigrants are singled out. Others can claim (various RW pundits) that if you blame Democrats instead of George Soros it isn't real great replacement theory (it's just sparkling xenophobia!). And they are out there conflating two separate ideas: that America is demographically "browning" in the sense of eventually becoming minority-majority (a neutral, observable trend) and the idea that the demographic change is deliberate (not so neutral, the boogey-man under the bed). 

I guess the dumbest thing is, just as I've pointed out that the border is, in fact, being protected by the Administration despite fear-mongering and hyperbole to the contrary, why is anyone on the right thinking that new citizens are necessarily going to be Democratic voters? I wouldn't count on it, myself. Voting patterns in naturalized US citizens usually lags that of native citizens (and turnout among them isn't so hot, either) and there's no reason, not one, to expect a group to vote for us in return for citizenship. People vote for candidates who promise to do a good job. This is because people are thinking individuals with agency. They might even vote Republican, Elise--we know! 

That fantasy would be so easy (if you don't like the voters you have, just import ones you will!) if it...had any chance of working. And in the meanwhile, would it make sense electorally to create any kind of "crisis at the border" when Republicans seem to use it so deftly (and fallaciously)  as a cudgel for Democratic administrations?

This is what Republicans do now, they are shameless. No one wants to "silence" them--only ask them to be a bit introspective about the damage they are doing. But all they can think to do is escalate.