The Buffalo Shooter’s Views Are Mainstream In The GOP

While families of the dead remain stunned and grieving after the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, and some ponder how such hate and violence could happen, the frightening answer is that it all was made easy - perhaps even encouraged - by policies and rethoric widespread among today's Republican Party: The deadly combination consists of (i) few sensible limits on gun purchases which allowed the shooter to purchase three weapons legally despite a past referral for a mental health evaluation, and (ii) the increased dissemination of the so-called "great replacement" myth.  Fox News has fanned the later ideology with Tucker Carlson and other similarly reprehensible talking head claiming there is a Democrat/liberal conspiracy to replace white Americans with minorities.  A number of Republican elected officials repeat the lie.  On top of all of this, Donald Trump legitimized white supremacists when in the wake of the neo-Nazi invasion of Charlottesville he described the violent racists as "very good people."  A column in the Washington Post looks at the GOP's mainstreaming of hate and violence.  Here are highlights:

It was a conservative writer who coined the phrase “ideas have consequences.” The mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday, which left 10 people dead, shows the consequences of two of the horrific ideas that have taken root on the American right: support for the “great replacement” theory and opposition to gun control.

The 18-year-old arrested for the mass shooting posted a lengthy manifesto explaining his reasons for wanting to murder African Americans. . . . Like many on the right, he is enraged by what he imagines to be “mass immigration” and is convinced that it will “destroy our cultures, destroy our peoples.”

He believes there is a plot to replace White Americans with people of color; he even referred to his victims as “replacers.” He is also violently antisemitic and blames “the Jews [for] … spreading ideas such as Critical Race Theory and white shame/guilt to brainwash Whites into hating themselves and their people.” He condemns “elitists and globalists” and singles out George Soros — a favorite target of the right — for “his funding for the radical left.

The young man wrote that he got his beliefs “mostly from the Internet,” specifically from the 4chan bulletin board where white supremacists congregate. But his repugnant views are not confined to an obscure corner of the Internet. They have become mainstream within the Republican Party.

[T]he Buffalo gunman attacked ethnic diversity. “Why is diversity said to be our greatest strength?” his manifesto demanded. “Said throughout the media, spoken by politicians, educators and celebrities. But no one ever seems to give a reason why. What gives a nation strength? And how does diversity increase that strength?”

This is close to what Tucker Carlson, the most popular host on the Fox “News” Channel, said in 2018 and has often repeated: “How, precisely, is diversity our strength? . . . Can you think, for example, of other institutions such as, I don’t know, marriage or military units in which the less people have in common, the more cohesive they are?”

In 2021, Carlson went even further and openly embraced the “great replacement” theory that inspired the Buffalo shooting as well as the earlier white-supremacist attacks in Pittsburgh, El Paso and Christchurch. He suggested that “the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.” (His Fox News colleague Laura Ingraham has said the same thing.)

A number of Republican politicians, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Rep. Scott Perry (Pa.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), have openly espoused the “great replacement” theory too.

Little wonder that a poll taken in December found that nearly half of all Republicans believe that there is a plot to “replace” native-born Americans with immigrants. Fox talking heads and Republican politicians have mainstreamed white supremacist ideology.

Republicans, of course, will insist that they never intend for anyone to commit murder, but a growing number of GOP politicians have engaged in violent rhetoric. Even those who don’t advocate violence have made it easier to carry out by eviscerating the gun laws.

The Buffalo terrorist, like so many other mass shooters, used an assault weapon. In his manifesto, he expressed concern that, after his attack, “gun control policies will be brought forth to the state and federal government,” including “Calls to ban high-capacity magazines, assault weapons including AR-15’s, and even items such as body armor.” He need not worry: Republicans will never permit these sensible reforms to pass.

Instead, they will offer “thoughts and prayers” and claim that the way to stop mass shootings is to make guns more widely available to law-abiding citizens. This theory was tested in Buffalo and found wanting: A retired cop working as a security guard was killed trying to stop the gunman, who was wearing body armor.

Unfortunately hate continues to enjoy a safe harbor on the American right. And the casualties pile up.