McConnell, when asked, fails to denounce racist ‘replacement theory’

ALLISON PECORIN

Tue, May 17, 2022, 7:28 p.m.·6 min read

As Democrats have ratcheted up condemnation of “replacement theory” in the wake of Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, some Republicans on Capitol Hill have shied away from rejecting the racist idea that some members of their own party have espoused.

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked repeatedly about his views of “replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory that holds that Democrats are trying to replace white Americans with undocumented immigrants and people of color in order to win elections.

He repeatedly avoided denouncing it outright.

MORE: How ‘replacement theory’ became prominent in mainstream US politics

McConnell was asked whether he, as the party leader, had a responsibility to speak out against the theory, which authorities say was adopted by the 18-year-old white man accused of killing 10 Black people at a local food market.

He responded by denouncing the actions of the suspect, calling him a “deranged young man,” but making no mention of “replacement theory.”

Pressed again by reporters on whether the Republican Party is obligated to denounce the theory, McConnell condemned racism generally.

“Look — racism of any sort is abhorrent in America and ought to be stood up to by everybody, both Republicans, Democrats, all Americans,” McConnell said.

MORE: Biden labels Buffalo shooting ‘domestic terrorism’ after visiting scene

He then was asked whether he believed that Democrats are seeking amnesty for undocumented immigrants for the purpose of influencing and changing the electorate. He responded by criticizing the Biden administration’s policy at the southern border.

McConnell’s comments Tuesday came as the Senate GOP conference hosted Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance, who has used language similar to the theory on multiple occasions​​.

Timothy P. Carney

05/17/2022

The A paranoid conspiracy theory has taken over parts of the Left. It has found its clearest expression in an extremely vile op-ed at the Washington Post by author and filmmaker Brian Broome. The heart of his argument is this little pile of slander and hate: that the Buffalo shooter’s mindset is the same as the mindset of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The same sort of thinking about race and birthrates now dominates the conservative Supreme Court,” Broome writes. “The leaked draft opinion isn’t about protecting babies. It is about protecting Whiteness. Specifically, White babies.”

These two sentences are an insane fever dream with no grounding in reality. Either Broome is a liar who hopes his readers don’t notice, or he is truly mad, living in a paranoid delusion in which powerful people are engaged in dark conspiracies disguised as normal politics.

To believe what Broome espouses, you first need to believe that Justices Clarence Thomas (formerly a black baby) and Amy Coney Barrett (mother of adopted black babies) don’t care about black babies.

But that’s not even the most absurd part of Broome’s argument.

If you reduced the number of abortions, the ultimate aim of all pro-lifers, you would increase the number of black babies and the black share of the U.S. population. Black babies are three times as likely as white babies to be aborted. Hispanic babies are twice as likely as white babies to be aborted.

Anyone trying to end or curb abortions is working to make the population less white, not more. That is just statistics. And this is why white supremacist Richard Spencer is pro-abortion.

“The people who are having abortions are generally very often black or Hispanic,” Spencer explains. Like Spencer, racist eugenicists have always favored abortion. Even the abortion lobby today agrees that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, peddled birth control and abortion because she wanted fewer nonwhite babies.

Nevertheless, Broome repeatedly asserts, using the fallacy or argument by assertion, that any concern about birthrates is part of “the great replacement theory.”

This is, frankly, idiotic. Birthrates are falling in every country, and the United States has been in a baby bust for 16 years. The result is small towns shuttering and schools closing. Eventually, it will mean an economy with not enough people to make things and perform services needed to keep the world running.

There are a million reasons to care about falling birthrates that have nothing to do with “replacement” conspiracy theories. That’s why the New York Times ran a front-page story in May 2021 warning of a “demographic time bomb.”

“All over the world,” the New York Times news story warned, “countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust.”

Broome points out that the Buffalo shooter worried about white birthrates. That’s true — the Buffalo shooter was a racist who believed in baseless conspiracy theories. Conservatives like myself who worry broadly about birthrates are not fixated on white birthrates. We are happy to see more black babies, more white babies, more Hispanic babies, more Asian babies, more Native American babies, and so on.

I’m not on the same side as the murderer. Maybe Broome is. The shooter, probably like Broome, believes in human population control for environmental purposes. “There is no Green future with never ending population growth,” the atheist shooter wrote in his manifesto.

Broome’s slanderous dishonesty comes in a piece about “want[ing] the hate to stop.” But Broome’s entire op-ed is nothing but hate.

Because the data and facts cut against his tendentious thesis, Broome rests his entire argument on what he somehow knows to be the secret motivations of a shadowy cabal running America. The real reason Clarence Thomas opposes abortion, he surmises, is that he wants more white babies, etc. Never mind all the data!

Those secret intentions, Broome tells us, are evil, and they will result in something like genocide. Never mind that abortion has dramatically limited the nonwhite population.

Broome’s argument, grounded as it is in paranoid conspiracy theories and bigotry against entire classes of people, sounds a lot more like the Buffalo shooter’s thinking than anything else you’re going to find in print these days.

Robert Reich

Sun 13 Jun 2021 01.00 EDT

House Republicans are blaming Democrats for the rise in Chipotle burrito prices.

You heard me right. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) issued a statement on Wednesday claiming that Chipotle’s recent decision to raise prices on their burritos and other menu products by about 4% was caused by Democrats.

“Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill,” said an NRCC spokesman, Mike Berg.

It seems Republicans have finally found an issue to run on in the 2022 midterm elections. Apparently Dr Seuss and Mr Potato Head weren’t gaining enough traction.

The GOP’s tortured logic is that the unemployment benefits in the American Rescue Plan have caused workers to stay home rather than seek employment, resulting in labor shortages that have forced employers like Chipotle to increase wages, which has required them to raise their prices.

Hence, Chipotle’s more expensive burrito.

This isn’t just loony economics. It’s dangerously loony economics because it might be believed, leading to all sorts of stupid public policies.

Start with the notion that $300 per week in federal unemployment benefits is keeping Americans from working.

Since fewer than 30% of jobless workers qualify for state unemployment benefits, the claim is that legions of workers have chosen to become couch potatoes and collect $15,000 a year rather than get a job.

Republicans have found an issue to run on. Apparently Dr Seuss and Mr Potato Head weren’t gaining enough traction

I challenge one Republican lawmaker to live on $15,000 a year.

In fact, evidence suggests that workers who are holding back from re-entering the job market don’t have childcare or are still concerned about their health during the pandemic.

Besides, if employers want additional workers, they can do what they necessarily do for anything they want more of but can’t obtain at its current price – pay more.

It’s  called capitalism. Republicans should bone up on it.

When Chipotle wanted to attract more workers, it raised its average wage to $15 an hour. That comes to around $30,000 a year per worker – still too little to live on but double the federal unemployment benefit.

Oh, and there’s no reason to suppose this wage hike forced Chipotle to raise the prices of its burrito. The company had other options.

Chipotle’s executives are among the best paid in America. Its chief executive, Brian Niccol, raked in $38m last year – which happens to be 2,898 times more than the typical Chipotle employee. All Chipotle’s top executives got whopping pay increases.

So, it would have been possible for Chipotle to avoid raising its burrito prices by – dare I say? – paying its executives less. But Chipotle decided otherwise.

I’m not going to second-guess Chipotle’s business decision – nor should the NRCC.

By the way, I keep hearing Republican lawmakers say the GOP is the “party of the working class”. If that’s so, it ought to celebrate when hourly workers get a raise instead of howling about it.

Everyone ought to celebrate when those at the bottom get higher wages.

The typical American worker hasn’t had a real raise in four decades. Income inequality is out of control. Wealth inequality is into the stratosphere (where Jeff Bezos is heading, apparently).

If wages at the bottom rise because employers need to pay more to get the workers they need, that’s not a problem. It’s a victory.

Instead of complaining about a so-called “labor shortage”, Republicans ought to be complaining about the shortage of jobs paying a living wage.

Don’t hold your breath, or your burrito.

• Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US