Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday said the House will vote on a resolution that condemns the “great replacement theory” as a form of white supremacy.
Democratic leaders said they felt the need to hold the vote Thursday in the wake of the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, in which a racist gunman targeted Black grocery shoppers, killing 10.
Authorities and the media drew a connection to the replacement theory — a belief that foreign-born arrivals are crowding out the native-born — by pointing to a 180-page document allegedly written by the 18-year-old gunman. It included racist screeds and complaints about a decrease in white birth rates.
“What is happening with this great replacement conspiracy theory is harmful to our country. It endangers our people, it weakens our country and is a threat to our democracy,” said Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat. “The combination of this replacement theory and gun violence is poisonous, it’s explosive and we have seen it takes lives.”
In its most extreme, the replacement theory has been used by hate-crime killers to justify mass shootings. But a more mainstream view, held by a significant portion of Americans, is that the newcomers are being welcomed by one political party for political advantage.
Mrs. Pelosi and her troops said insecurity about new arrivals to the U.S. goes back centuries and is seeing a resurgence through online channels.
SEE ALSO: Replacement Theory’s long march from French socialist to American political inferno
“When the Italians came to Providence [Rhode Island], they were the others. When the Jews came to New York, they were the others. African Americans were here — and they were the others,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Maryland Democrat.
President Biden and congressional Democrats responded to the May 14 shooting in Buffalo by focusing on the ideology of the shooter and complaining that right-leaning broadcasters had amplified talk of white people being replaced or losing political influence.
The horrific school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, pivoted the discussion to restrictions on firearms.
“We also need to fight against hate in all of its forms to truly build a multi-racial democracy, the one that we all want so desperately,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman, New York Democrat. “In Congress, we must treat both the issue of gun control and the root causes of hate.”
The replacement-theory resolution would not change policy, but would force lawmakers to address the concept through a roll-call vote in a midterm election year.
“The great replacement theory has gone mainstream,” said Mr. Bowman, who wrote the resolution. “Nazi thinking veiled as political banter can no longer go unrecognized.”
What’s become known as replacement theory in the current political debate got its start with Renaud Camus — a former socialist and gay-rights icon — and texts he wrote in 2010 and 2011 laying out his worries about waves of foreigners sparking a clash of cultures in Europe.
Those ideas have been chanted by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, and later were attributed to mass shooters in Pittsburgh, El Paso, Texas, and Buffalo, New York — and now are being attached to those who have used the word “invasion” to describe the ongoing surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
House Democrats tied the theory directly to the Buffalo tragedy.
The resolution, which lawmakers must vote to support or reject, reads: “Condemning the atrocity that occurred in Buffalo, New York, on May 14, 2022, in which 10 Americans were killed and 3 were injured, and in which 11 of the 13 victims were Black Americans, condemning the Great Replacement Theory as a White supremacist conspiracy theory, and reaffirming the House of Representatives’ commitment to combating White supremacy, hatred, and racial injustice.”
• Stephen Dinan contributed to this story.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.