5 Charts & 2 Videos on the Truth Behind “Great Replacement Theory” + Debunking Key Immigration Myths with Ruth Milkman
+ New Op-ed on Democrats and Immigration Policy + Extremism in America (Retro Report & WNET)
The racist murders in Buffalo are part of an ominous escalation of white supremacist violence that includes the mass shooting in El Paso, the rampage and violence in Charlottesville, and the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. What connects these events is the noxious ideology of “great replacement theory,” which falsely claims an elite (often Jewish) conspiracy is working to replace native-born white people with people of color. This xenophobic fever dream fits the definition of “preposterous”: “contrary to reason or common sense; utterly absurd or ridiculous.” Indigenous people were the victims of genocide in an actual “replacement,” the ancestors of Black Americans today were enslaved and first brought to the US in 1619 against their will, and many immigrants of color are forced to come to the US because of the effects of US foreign and economic policies and climate change caused by carbon emissions in the global north.
This poison of great replacement theory has been mainlined into American culture by the likes of Tucker Carlson, who has invoked it in more than 400 episodes of his show. And now, according to an Associated Press poll, an astonishing one-third of Americans believe it to be true. Sen. Mitch McConnell repeatedly refused to dispute the theory when asked about it after the Buffalo terrorist attack — for the obvious reason that it has come to define his party. This past week, CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Committee, held a special meeting in Budapest, Hungary, with a keynote speech delivered by the autocrat Viktor Orbán, who has turned “great replacement theory” into state ideology. Great replacement theory is not a uniquely American phenomenon — it is being promoted by racist thinkers and groups around the world. It lies at the heart of the rise of authoritarian movements and governments in Europe. And they are indeed conspiring.
In contrast, there is no conspiracy to replace white Americans. But there is a vast demographic transition underway. Few political leaders on the center-left or left have talked in plain English to the country about why it's happening or what it means. The lack of leadership, together with the attack on workers that has eroded living standards for two generations, and a long history of successful demagogic, racist appeals, has enabled this pernicious conspiracy theory to take root.
In this issue, we feature:
Graphs and data that show the stark reality of the white population’s aging and decline, the rapidity of the demographic shift towards a majority-of-color country, and the extent of the crisis the country faces with a flatlining population and a rapidly shrinking ratio of working-age adults to retirees. We examine the causes of this demographic shift and illuminate what a compelling progressive story about it might look like.
In a powerful 18-minute video produced by Harry, sociologist Ruth Milkman debunks a crucial part of the ascendant “great replacement” ideology — the claim that immigrants are taking jobs from native-born workers. Milkman examines the history of several industries and shows that American workers are right to be angry, but they should be angry at corporations that lowered wages, attacked unions, and degraded working conditions. Milkman makes a novel and crucial argument based on her research: the assault on wages and working conditions preceded the entry of immigrants into occupations like construction, trucking, and meatpacking. Native-born workers left really bad jobs after corporations had degraded the conditions of work, and only then did immigrant workers move into those industries. You can read more of her analysis in her book Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat and her chapter in Immigration Matters: Movements, Visions, and Strategies for a Progressive Future.
A new op-ed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Deepak, “It’s Past Time to End Title 42” on CNN.com, criticizes Democrats who are trying to reverse President Biden’s overdue decision to end the policy preventing asylum seekers from gaining refuge at the southern border. They argue that rather than run away from the issue, Democrats need to lean in on immigration on both moral and strategic grounds. (The op-ed was published before a Trump judge blocked the Biden administration’s plan to lift Title 42 restrictions).
5 Crucial Data Points About the Country’s Dramatic Demographic Transition
White population growth has been declining from the 1960s onward and actually shrunk for the first time in the history of the country between 2010 and 2020.
2. The very modest population growth the country has had comes exclusively from people of color, particularly Latino and AAPI communities and people identifying as bi- or multi-racial.
3. The country’s population growth rate has flatlined. Population growth between 2010 and 2020 was the second lowest in the country’s history. (It was only lower in the 1930s during the Great Depression). And population growth between July 2020 and July 2021 (0.1%) was the lowest it had been in the last 120 years.
4. The main cause of this demographic decline is declining birth rates among native-born Americans. However, Trump’s nativist immigration policies also had an impact — reducing net immigration to the US from around a million per year previously to less than 25% of that, at 244,622 in 2020-21.
5. The consequences of this demographic decline are serious. As William Frey, the demographer whose work we rely on here, puts it
One less flashy finding from the 2020 census is the fact that America’s under-age-18 population declined nationally (by 1 million) and in 27 states during the 2010s. At the same time, the 65- to 74-year-old population is estimated to increase by almost half. This suggests that we could be facing high levels of what demographers call “age dependency,” in which the number of seniors starkly rises in relation to the people of working ages who must support them through taxes and national productivity. It is a far cry from the years when baby boomers themselves were young: In 1960, people under age 18 made up a whopping 35% of the U.S. population, dipping now to just 22%.
There is nothing inherently progressive about population growth in the U.S. (or about economic growth). However, an unsustainable ratio of retired to working age Americans is already having huge consequences, most visibly in depopulated rural areas and a care crisis. With such a skewed ratio, there’s no sustainable future for Medicare or Social Security as they are currently financed.
Great Replacement theory is finding a receptive audience because it is connecting some factual dots in an outrageously racist way. The portion of white Americans is declining rapidly. There has been an assault on living standards and wages over a generation leading to stagnant or declining living standards. Replacement theory makes sense of this reality by casting people of color and Jewish people as villains, and whites as innocent victims of a conspiracy so nefarious that it justifies extreme counter-measures. Adam Serwer explains how it works politically in “Conservatives Are Defending a Sanitized Version of ‘The Great Replacement’
Nevertheless, the conspiracy theory of a Great Replacement is now part of the Republican mainstream, as I warned it would become four years ago. During the Trump administration, conservative elites could distance themselves from Trump as an individual while still supporting his policies. But now that so many important Republicans have embraced the idea, the conservative elite must find a way to make the sanitized version of this genocidal nonsense respectable. A strain of self-implicating paranoia underlines the entire concept, the fear that once they are a minority, white people will be subject to revenge for the dark chapters of American history, a past that Republican-controlled states are attempting to erase.
A progressive story about all this would first embrace the country’s multi-racial identity — acknowledging forthrightly its racist past and ongoing racism. It would make the case that there is another vision of who we can be that has been valiantly fought for and defended by generations of people of all races, particularly Black Americans and other people of color, but also including many white people. For those upholding a vision of a white republic, this demographic shift can only be experienced as a threat to be met with nativist policy and racist violence. The replacement lies are designed to foment division and generate profits for entrepreneurs of white supremacy, who are the real villains. We have an opportunity to build the world’s first, enduring multi-racial democracy. Undergirding that national project should be policies, practices, and a “welcoming culture” that embrace the country’s growing diversity and economic justice. Developing this story and constructing identities grounded in passionate conviction about this positive vision are crucial to the future of multi-racial democracy.
That story provides a framework to reconsider the role of immigration in American life. In this context, immigration is not an existential threat, but as Ruth Milkman and Deepak argued in a piece in The American Prospect, the key to American renewal.
Could admitting millions more immigrants over the next decade be the jolt the U.S. needs to revive its economy, culture, and politics? After four years of restrictionism under President Trump, ongoing border controversies, and an escalating culture war led by nativists, this idea may seem counterintuitive or even far-fetched. But recent labor market trends, demographic changes, and even accelerating climate change all point to dramatically increased immigration as a logical catalyst for national renewal. Becoming the most welcoming country on Earth for migrants—breathing new life into our most flattering, if too often inaccurate self-image—could be our salvation.
And as Steve Phillips has persuasively argued (for example in this recent C-SPAN appearance), the coalition for multi-racial democracy, properly supported and engaged, can defeat the authoritarian faction. Every action creates a reaction — and the various groups targeted by and opposed to white supremacist politics are a latent and potentially powerful historic bloc. Constructing such a coalition will require more than a condemnation of individual acts of racist violence — it depends on telling a persuasive and compelling story of who we’ve been, who we are, and who we could be.
Extremism in America, an outstanding new series of five short documentaries by Harry’s former colleagues at Retro Report and the WNET Group’s reporting initiative “Exploring Hate,” reveals a major part of the story of “who we’ve been.” The series shines a light on the powerful force of white power extremism that has been growing for decades, fueling the rise of the MAGA movement, while many in the GOP have aggressively worked to deny, dismiss, and hide the real and mounting threat — a threat that climaxed in the effort to destroy American democracy on January 6th, 2020. We urge you to watch from the beginning, but if you’re pressed for time, start with the last video, “Out of the Shadows.”