In mid-December, self-described “ultra MAGA” warrior Elise Stefanik asked the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University whether students “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate their schools’ code of conduct. This question was nothing but political theater and grandstanding on Stefanik’s part. Where was her indignation when the Trump administration separated over 5,000 immigrant women from their children at the southern border with no plan for unification?

While questioning the college presidents, Stefanik (a Harvard University graduate) said she was reminded of her alma mater’s motto: “Veritas – Truth.” Interesting how truth suddenly became important to Stefanik, who demonstrated nothing but blithe indifference to Trump’s over 30,000 misleading claims, half-truths and outright lies as president. She voted against the certification of the Electoral College votes for President Biden and became a leading promoter of debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election.

Lindsay Schubiner of the Western States Center (an organization calling for a 21st century civil rights movement) states that it’s hard to take GOP criticism of college presidents for antisemitism seriously “when they’re not calling it out on every occasion including in their own ranks.”

When the college presidents did not respond affirmatively to her question if calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools’ code of conduct, Stefanik stated: “Their failure that the world saw is the most morally bankrupt testimony in the history of the United States Congress.” That may be true, but if so, it ranks as a distant second (by light years) to the boot licking congressional Republicans and U.S. senators led by Stefanik, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz and Lindsay Graham who shamelessly support Trump, the most morally bankrupt president in the history of this country.

In August 2017, torch-carrying white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Klansmen (among others at a “Unite the Right” rally) marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, with many chanting “Jews will not replace us.” While Stefanik issued a statement condemning the violence, “hatred and bigotry,” she did not specifically condemn replacement theory which is its source.

In a Sept. 14, 2021 Facebook post, Stefanik said: “Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION. Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.” Shortly after this online diatribe the Albany Times-Union wrote that while “Ms. Stefanik is not so brazen to use the slogans themselves [“replacement theory“] she couches the hate in alarmist, anti-immigrant rhetoric that becomes standard fare for the party of Donald Trump.”

Replacement theory is built upon the lie that immigrants (when they become citizens) will vote as a unified Democratic party block. Yet between 2016 and 2020, Trump improved his support at the polls among Hispanic voters by 20 points in Wisconsin, 18 points in Texas and Nevada and 12 points in Pennsylvania and Arizona.

Because the total U.S. fertility rate (1.67 births per woman in 2022) was well below replacement level (2.1 births per woman) the nation’s labor force will shrink over the next two decades. Forbes Magazine reports on recent research noting that “America risks stagnation and declining standards of living without immigrants …” The role of immigrants will become especially important, according to Forbes, as baby boomers continue to retire and the U.S. remains below population replacement level.

MAGA replacement theory zealots are the latest proponents in a long history of bigots in this country. A hundred years ago Poles, Italians, Greeks and Slavs (PIGS) were singled out by racial and ethnic purists who declared these unwanted foreigners would alter the “culture” of America and eventually replace white Protestants. The unwanted PIGS were too Catholic too Jewish and not sufficiently white.

Kenneth Roberts (1885-1957), a popular author of historical fiction of the time wrote: “If America doesn’t keep out the queer alien mongrelized people of Southern and Eastern Europe, her crop of citizens will eventually be dwarfed and mongrelized in turn.”

Along with African Americans and Indigenous Americans, Jews have been at the center of hatred and discrimination in the U.S. Again, according to Roberts, Jews were “human parasites” and continued “Semitic” immigration would turn this country into a “worthless and futile” hybrid race. In the 1930s and early 1940s, Father Charles Coughlin filled the radio airwaves with groundless assertions that Jews were intimately linked to the creation and spread of communism, and groundless conspiracy theories that Jews were scheming to control the world.

Anti-immigration is now the central message of Trump’s drive to reclaim the White House. In a recent speech he said illegal immigrants are “destroying the blood of our country, they’re destroying the future of our country.” For Trump, today’s bad-blood undesirables “come from Africa, they come from Asia, they come from South America.” (In a 2018 speech Trump referred to unwanted immigrants from “sh**hole” countries.) Yale philosopher Jason Stanley notes that Trump’s racial slurs echo the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler who warned in his autobiographical manifesto Mein Kampf that German blood was being poisoned by Jews.

Sociologist Philip Gorski (Yale) states that replacement theory has “been gradually moving from the fringe of into the mainstream” of the Republican Party. “First it was the entertainment wing of the GOP. Now it’s the political wing as well.” Gorski argues that immigrants replacing white people and voting as a Democratic block is a “fig leaf to hide white supremacy.”

Replacement theory dovetails with White Christian nationalism. Gorski notes that “America’s white, Christian heritage is, adherents claim, the source of America’s power and prosperity — both of which they believe are threatened by the increasing number of nonwhites, non-Christians and noncitizens on American soil.”

In a September 2021 editorial the Times-Union stated: “If there is anything that needs replacing in this country — and the Republican party — it’s the hateful rhetoric that Ms. Stefanik and far too many of her colleagues shamelessly spew.” In this presidential election year the MAGA hate rhetoric will increase dramatically as our replacement theory spouting congressional representative dreams of her place center stage in a Trump-Stefanik administration.

— — —

George J. Bryjak lives in Bloomingdale and is retired after 24 years of teaching sociology at the University of San Diego.

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Sources

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Aleem, Z (2922) “Representative Stefanik’s shameful doubling down on ‘great replacement’ principles,” May 17, MSNBC, www.msnbc.com.

Anderson, S. (2023) “U.S. Risks Decline and Stagnation Without Immigrants,” Aug. 23, Forbes Magazine, www.forbes.com.

“Charles Coughlin” (accessed 2024) The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,

www.exhibitions@ushmm.org.

“Editorial: How low, Mrs. Stefanik?” (2021) Sept. 17, The Albany Times-Union Editorial Board,” The Albany Times-Union, www.timesunion.com.

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Garsd, J. (2023) “Federal judge prohibits separating migrant families at the border,” Dec. 8, National Public Radio, www.npr.org.

Kami, A. (2022) “Racist attack spotlights Stefanik’s echo of replacement theory,” May 22, The New York Times, www.nytimes.com.

Kessler, G., S. Rizzo and M. Kelly (2021) “Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years” Jan. 24, The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com.

“Nativist, anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. has a long history” (2018) July 27, National Catholic Reporter, www.ncronline.org.

Olivero, A. (2017) “Stefanik, opponents react to Charlottesville violence,” Aug. 18, Plattsburgh Press-Republican, www.pressrepublican.com.

Sargent, G. (2022) “Opinion: How Elise Stefanik and the GOP sanitize ‘great replacement’ ugliness,” May 16, The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com.

Simon, R. (1997). “In the Golden Land: A Century of Russian and Soviet Jewish Immigration,”

Praeger Publishers: Westport, CT.

Teixeira, R. (2023) “Opinion: The evidence mounts: Hispanic voters are drifting toward the GOP,” July 6, The Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com.

“Trump defends comments about immigrants ‘Poisoning the Blood” of America” (2023) Dec. 19, VoaNews, www.voanews.com.

Wu, L. and N. Mark (2023) “Is US fertility rate now below replacement level? Evidence from period vs. cohort trends,” Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison,

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