Replacement theory is real, but…

So now we have a new theory to learn: Replacement Theory, to go along with Critical Race Theory, and Social & Emotional Learning Theory, as things that divide Americans.

What moves Replacement Theory to the head of the line was how it helped push 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron into a murderous, racist massacre.

The first time I became conscious of Replacement Theory was when it was chanted by racists and anti-Semites in the Charlottesville march that resulted in a riot and the death of a counter-protestor.  

“We will not be replaced by Jews,” was one of the chants from the assorted losers — white supremacists, boneskinheads, Proud Boys. 

As a Jew, I laughed it off. Maybe I laughed too soon.

An intrinsic idea in Replacement is that Jews are behind a movement to “replace” white people and white voters. (Spoiler Alert: We are not. Why would we replace ourselves?)

“A group of white Americans—many of them white rural—are seeing their status in society threatened as a result of demographics and the recent racial reckoning,” writes Ian Bremmer in Time. “That has manifested itself both in politics—see redistricting and voter suppression schemes—as well as the violence we witnessed at the Capitol.”

He and others place the blame with “the GOP,” when Replacement is an element more correctly located in the far-right wing of the party.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has been particularly noisy in saying that Democrats won’t enforce the border because they see illegal immigrants as voters who will give the party a permanent majority. (He also scolds the GOP for liking illegal immigrants as a source of cheap labor, and Big Business likes that.)

He forgets or chooses to overlook that the illegals would have to be citizens before they could vote, and that process could take years — if it were to happen. Unless you believe Donald J. Trump’s wild assertion that millions of them already vote. They do not.

Carlson also speaks for some when he says the illegal invasion could change the color of America.

He seems to say it as a bad thing.

The Left says it as a good thing, that “browning” will improve America.

My position is that only immigrants who share our values improve America. Not all do. Their color is irrelevant.

That’s the basic foundation before we get to Replacement Theory. Now I am going out on the thin ice and suggest whatever fears some whites may have, they are not without basis. The demographics are inexorable. The fear, justified or not, is measurable. I am not sympathizing with them. I am explaining their mindset.

Let’s start with a simple, objective fact. The Native Americans were here first, that’s a given. They were replaced.

But the country was settled and brought into the then-modern era by white, Christian Europeans. They became the overwhelming majority.

Small wonder when immigration laws were first drafted, they favored — duh! — people who looked like them.

(Sometimes even when they looked like us — the Irish — they got shat on, and Italians were kind of swarthy, and Jews were not Christians, so…. America has a sad and enduring tradition of making new arrivals run the gauntlet.)

Western and Northern Europe were given preferential status until 1965, when a massive immigrant reformation, in the words of historians, “changed the face of America.”

“”The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants,” lead supporter Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) told the Senate during debate. “It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”

It didn’t then, but it has now, at least to some degree.

I know some will disagree, but if you are looking for a root cause of the Great Replacement, the well-intended Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 is that cause.

Even those who favor it, like these authors, admit it has exploded illegal immigration, an unintended consequence.

It is not an exaggeration to say it is now easier for a nonwhite person to get a green card than a European. (There are more nonwhite people in the world.)

Not one of the top 5 nations sending us immigrants is white. The numbers of total immigrants: Mexico, an astonishing 11.2 million, China, 2.9 million, India, 2.6 million, Philippines, 2 million, and El Salvadore, 1.4 million. (Figures from Pew Research.)

The foreign-born population in 2015 was 45 million. It will explode to 78 million by 2065.

In 1950, white people were 89.3% of America — a huge majority.

The projection of white people in 2050 is 47%, according to the Census Bureau, and dropping.

Whites will not be the majority, but will remain the largest cohort, followed by Hispanics at 29%, Blacks at 13%, Asians will be 9%. 

In a little-noted change, Hispanics have passed African-Americans as the largest minority group.

These are just numbers, nothing to fear.

But some do, and the fear mostly is on the political Right.

In all honesty, however, what I have been hearing from the Left, from MSNBC and some progressives, is unalloyed joy that in some way, America will be better without a white majority. Most of the people saying that are white.

I particularly remember MSNBC’s Chris Matthews smacking his lips with the astonishing notion that fewer white people will make things better.

Could you make that claim about any other group without having the “hate” tag hung on you?

No, you couldn’t.

The projected year for whites to cease being a majority is 2045.

That will be the year, in other words, whites will be “replaced.”

The Replacement morons are convinced it is a bad thing.

I am convinced only that it is a thing.

Whites will be “replaced.” That is not a conspiracy theory.

What we can argue about is what that will mean. 

Will America be better off with no majority?