4 ms·

I had never heard of this before the other day, as I doubt many had. And suddenly the left is all over it as a strawman for what their opponents must believe an

I had never heard of this before the other day, as I doubt many had. And suddenly the left is all over it as a strawman for what their opponents must believe and support. This is in line with what I've seen re other "conspiracy theories" as well, the majority of the people talking about them or believing that the theories really have proponents beyond a few nutters are all doing so to try and dismiss their political opponents.

LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago
Well, if you put it like that. How about some "fringe nutters" rambling in the NYT? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/books/review/francis-fukuyama-liberalism-and-its-discontents-yascha-mounk-the-great-experiment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/books/review/francis-fuku... Or https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/21/the-great-experiment-by-yascha-mounk-review-a-shallow-dive-into-the-diversity-debate https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/21/the-great-expe... Or https://www.cfr.org/book/great-experiment https://www.cfr.org/book/great-experiment Aaaand so on... edit: or, an excerpt from German TV, about a minute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bqjwvfe4jA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bqjwvfe4jA from 2018 edit: related https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weapons+of+mass+migration https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weapons+of+mass+migration
car_analogy 4y ago
> I had never heard of this before the other day, as I doubt many had. You must be an exception then, because even NBC has joined in on the fear-mongering: Soon, more than one-third of Americans will live in states where ethnic groups outnumber whites. Such demographic shifts are fueling criticism that the word ‘minority’ is increasingly inaccurate, obsolete or even offensive. - https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9001157 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9001157
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  > ethnic groups outnumber whites This is interesting phrasing, implying that there are two kinds of people -- people with "ethnic groups" and "whites" which apparently don't have ethnicities?
  - cato_the_elder 4y ago
    That's a very common usage: "ethnic: Relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition." (from an online version of the Oxford dictionary: https://web.archive.org/web/20200108002157/https://www.lexico.com/definition/ethnic https://web.archive.org/web/20200108002157/https://www.lexic...)
    - codefreeordie 4y ago
      I'm pretty sure that "Russian" is an ethnic group (and "German" and "Irish" and ...), and yet the "Russian" ethnic group is going to get called "white", so it's weird not to consider whites as having ethnic groups (which any statement that compares the number of "ethnic group" members to the number of "whites" is implicitly doing).
      - cato_the_elder 4y ago
        Right, but my point is that the word has multiple common meanings. Also, to your point, the usage section of the entry encourages using more specific terms: "Ethnic is sometimes used in a euphemistic way to refer to non-white people as a whole, as in a radio station which broadcasts to the ethnic community in Birmingham. Although this usage is quite common, more specific terms such as ‘black’ or ‘Asian’ are preferable."
QuercusMax 4y ago
In Charlottesville there were marchers with "Jews will not replace us" signs, and this was years ago. This stuff has been floating around for a while, it's not exactly new. I remember my mom telling me back in the 90s that at some point we'd be a majority-minority country, which she framed as a positive thing. White racists in the south have been trying to start a race war for more than a century.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  It's also spelled out in The Birth Dearth[1], but yes, the idea is much older. It is a synthesis of Hobbes and race to arrive at a conception of racial power which constructs a "looming crisis" extrapolated from a decades-long demographic trend toward racial pluralism. In so far as Wattenberg is concerned, the stakes are western civilization itself by way of an implied western chauvinism. 1. Wattenberg 1987 (ISBN-13: 978-0345343994)
mythopedia 4y ago
I think it's unfair to say that "the left" invented some strawman from thin air overnight. Here's an article from last year detailing dozens of instances where "a few nutters" endorsed this replacement conspiracy theory on one of the largest cable news shows in America: https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-fully-embraced-white-supremacist-replacement-theory-and-fox-personalities https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-fully-e... And that's just from one week. When mass murderers are quoting Tucker Carlson I don't think you can, in good faith, place the blame on the liberals.
zeruch 4y ago
"I had never heard of this before the other day, as I doubt many had." I've been aware of this for a while, and its not just something 'the left' concocted, nor is it new, and has been a bogeyman of reactionary nutjobs going back decades. I remember hearing it as a post-Jim Crow trope in the 80s, and I thought it was stupid then, and it's stupid now...but stupid and violent paranoia is what gets you things like the recent Buffalo shooting (among other things), which is likely why its getting a lot of news ink now, and justifiably so. It's not limited to the US either, but we're just really good at giving it a fresh coat of double-speak paint via buffoons like Tucker Carlson and any available Trumpkin du jour.
detaro 4y ago
Just because you haven't paid attention it is not a straw man.
hotpotamus 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turner_Diaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turner_Diaries The Turner Diaries are basically classic literature to the extreme right wing and have been around for well over 40 years now.
deleted 4y ago
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LargoLasskhyfv 4y ago

Well, if you put it like that. How about some "fringe nutters" rambling in the NYT? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/books/review/francis-fukuyama-liberalism-and-its-discontents-yascha-mounk-the-great-experiment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/books/review/francis-fuku... Or https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/21/the-great-experiment-by-yascha-mounk-review-a-shallow-dive-into-the-diversity-debate https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/21/the-great-expe... Or https://www.cfr.org/book/great-experiment https://www.cfr.org/book/great-experiment Aaaand so on... edit: or, an excerpt from German TV, about a minute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bqjwvfe4jA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bqjwvfe4jA from 2018 edit: related https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weapons+of+mass+migration https://duckduckgo.com/?q=weapons+of+mass+migration

car_analogy 4y ago

> I had never heard of this before the other day, as I doubt many had. You must be an exception then, because even NBC has joined in on the fear-mongering: Soon, more than one-third of Americans will live in states where ethnic groups outnumber whites. Such demographic shifts are fueling criticism that the word ‘minority’ is increasingly inaccurate, obsolete or even offensive. - https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9001157 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9001157

codefreeordie 4y ago
> ethnic groups outnumber whites This is interesting phrasing, implying that there are two kinds of people -- people with "ethnic groups" and "whites" which apparently don't have ethnicities?
- cato_the_elder 4y ago
  That's a very common usage: "ethnic: Relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition." (from an online version of the Oxford dictionary: https://web.archive.org/web/20200108002157/https://www.lexico.com/definition/ethnic https://web.archive.org/web/20200108002157/https://www.lexic...)
  - codefreeordie 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure that "Russian" is an ethnic group (and "German" and "Irish" and ...), and yet the "Russian" ethnic group is going to get called "white", so it's weird not to consider whites as having ethnic groups (which any statement that compares the number of "ethnic group" members to the number of "whites" is implicitly doing).
    - cato_the_elder 4y ago
      Right, but my point is that the word has multiple common meanings. Also, to your point, the usage section of the entry encourages using more specific terms: "Ethnic is sometimes used in a euphemistic way to refer to non-white people as a whole, as in a radio station which broadcasts to the ethnic community in Birmingham. Although this usage is quite common, more specific terms such as ‘black’ or ‘Asian’ are preferable."

QuercusMax 4y ago

In Charlottesville there were marchers with "Jews will not replace us" signs, and this was years ago. This stuff has been floating around for a while, it's not exactly new. I remember my mom telling me back in the 90s that at some point we'd be a majority-minority country, which she framed as a positive thing. White racists in the south have been trying to start a race war for more than a century.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
It's also spelled out in The Birth Dearth[1], but yes, the idea is much older. It is a synthesis of Hobbes and race to arrive at a conception of racial power which constructs a "looming crisis" extrapolated from a decades-long demographic trend toward racial pluralism. In so far as Wattenberg is concerned, the stakes are western civilization itself by way of an implied western chauvinism. 1. Wattenberg 1987 (ISBN-13: 978-0345343994)

mythopedia 4y ago

I think it's unfair to say that "the left" invented some strawman from thin air overnight. Here's an article from last year detailing dozens of instances where "a few nutters" endorsed this replacement conspiracy theory on one of the largest cable news shows in America: https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-fully-embraced-white-supremacist-replacement-theory-and-fox-personalities https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-fully-e... And that's just from one week. When mass murderers are quoting Tucker Carlson I don't think you can, in good faith, place the blame on the liberals.

zeruch 4y ago

"I had never heard of this before the other day, as I doubt many had." I've been aware of this for a while, and its not just something 'the left' concocted, nor is it new, and has been a bogeyman of reactionary nutjobs going back decades. I remember hearing it as a post-Jim Crow trope in the 80s, and I thought it was stupid then, and it's stupid now...but stupid and violent paranoia is what gets you things like the recent Buffalo shooting (among other things), which is likely why its getting a lot of news ink now, and justifiably so. It's not limited to the US either, but we're just really good at giving it a fresh coat of double-speak paint via buffoons like Tucker Carlson and any available Trumpkin du jour.

detaro 4y ago

Just because you haven't paid attention it is not a straw man.

hotpotamus 4y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turner_Diaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turner_Diaries The Turner Diaries are basically classic literature to the extreme right wing and have been around for well over 40 years now.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]