At the dark heart of the mass murder committed in Buffalo on Saturday is a belief in a vile – and false – doctrine called “replacement theory.” The idea, which the suspected killer espoused in a 180-page screed, corruptly holds that Democrats are trying to sideline Republicans through policies meant to make America less white.
America is becoming less white. That’s a fact that’s been understood for decades. Projections are that in 2045, white people will comprise less than half the population. They will still be largest “minority,” making up an estimated 49.7% of the population, but that doesn’t assuage the overwrought fears of some white people.
“Replacement theory” goes further. It is a racist fabrication meant to exploit and amplify those fears. For some, it may merely confirm their fears or hatreds. Others will react more viscerally. Some will arm themselves, drive 3½ hours on a self-assigned mission to kill Black people.
That’s what police say Payton Gendron of Conklin did on Saturday, arming himself with a high-powered rifle and covering himself in armor before killing 10 people at the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue. He planned to find more people to kill after that, if he could.
Replacement theory grows best in dark places, but some politicians are cynically giving it credence. Some, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, of New York’s North Country, may not use the phrase, but they play footsie with it. It’s a tool that can help inflame a tortured part of the party’s base.
It’s a strategy with which Americans have become all too familiar. Donald Trump has based his political career on walking to the edge of decency – sometimes beyond – while holding onto a fig leaf of deniability.
In this case, that deniability stems in part from the obvious truth that a country has both a need and a right to control its borders. But that’s different from pushing – or even tolerating – a fiction that plays to racist predilections.
All elected leaders, regardless of party and especially at the state and national levels, need to speak out clearly against this dangerous and deadly lie. Lives are at risk. After Saturday’s carnage, silence on this issue counts as complicity.
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