A racist conspiracy theory is believed to have motivated the suspected gunman in the Buffalo attack. It was once a fringe belief, but it's found its way into the mainstream.
www.npr.org
Is there a difference between:
Theory 1: a conspiracy theory that some secret cabal of Jewish people and Illuminati types are trying to "replace" white-skinned people with Muslims or Latinos
and
Theory 2: a theory that in the U.S., (a) demographics are and have been shifting towards an ever increasing % of Latinos via immigration and birth rates, (b) Latinos have historically voted about 2-1 in favor of Democrats, (c) that Democrats, in general, have more liberal immigration and path-to-citizenship policies, (d) human beings and political parties are motivated by a desire for more power, CONCLUSION: at least one reason for (c) is that Democrats want more power--that it will benefit their party more.
Regarding Theory 2, factual premises (a)-(c),I think, have been pretty mainstream thought for over two decades. Premise (d) doesn't seem like much of a stretch, does it?
Is wrapping up Theory 2 with Theory 1 just a cynical ploy to convince people that believing Conclusion 2 is not only wrong, but actually racist (i.e. it's so wrong don't even listen to the argument because it's verboten)?
I'm really curious about this. I don't buy that there is a cabal of people trying to "replace" white people. But I think quite a few people in the world--including me--would like to see a blending of all peoples together so that we don't have these distinctions anymore in however many hundreds of years it takes (and which is where we are headed anyway). Am I a replacer? If I believe Theory 2, does that make me a racist or a believer in a conspiracy theory?
Finally, it is bizarre to me that the Great Replacement Theory would be a motivating reason for anti-black hatred and this shooting.(No doubt the Buffalo shooter suffers from some mental illness as nearly all these people do.) Black people are increasing as a % of the population, but not at nearly the same rate as Latinos or Asians and the growth is due to bi-racial growth (which I see as beneficial)--the % of people labeled as "black only" is actually decreasing.
The Black population in the U.S. is diverse and growing. Our analysis explores the demographic characteristics of this population in 2019.
www.pewresearch.org