White Replacement Theory and the erosion of democracy

A warning sign on the street

Context

After the ex-president won the 2016 election, with Putin's probably necessary help, theories about what happened started circulating. One prominent early theory held that many people hated Hillary and/or were miffed at economic stagnation. Also in the mix was an argument that rural folk were indignant over arrogant urban elites looking down their noses at rural bumpkins. They believed the hated urban elites disrespected them and their way of life. Another was that low information voters were being deceived and manipulated by divisive partisan echo chambers like Faux News. Other theories postulated growing acceptance of crackpot, divisive conspiracy theories, e.g., Democrats are lizard people, Democrats want to outlaw all guns, make Christianity illegal and then convert Christians to atheists in re-education camps, etc. 

There was some truth in all of those theories. For example, data indicated that some people really did hate the real and/or Republican propaganda version of Hillary*** and would not vote for her, so they voted for no one or for the ex-president. But researchers probing the mystery of 2016, started to identify a different reason as the possible most important source of support for the ex-president. It was a combination of (i) unease among White people, especially Christian men, about their and privileges rights being subordinated to racial and ethnic minorities, and (ii) unease about a perception of America's weakening place in the world. Theis idea came to be called White Replacement Theory or some variant that gets at the concept such as ethnic antagonism. It is discussed in this interview that NPR broadcast in 2021 with an expert, Kathleen Belew. Republican propaganda played on White fear to help the GOP to create unwarranted distrust, unwarranted intolerance, irrational false beliefs in lies, slanders and nonsense, intractable division and polarization, etc.

*** The GOP propaganda version of Hillary included Pizzagate pedophile, Benghazi murderer and email server traitor. Who could ever vote for that horror?

Unhappy White folks

Some of the research

In a 2018 paper, Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote, Researcher Diana Mutz wrote this:

This study evaluates evidence pertaining to popular narratives explaining the American public’s support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential election. First, using unique representative probability samples of the American public, tracking the same individuals from 2012 to 2016, I examine the “left behind” thesis (that is, the theory that those who lost jobs or experienced stagnant wages due to the loss of manufacturing jobs punished the incumbent party for their economic misfortunes). Second, I consider the possibility that status threat felt by the dwindling proportion of traditionally high-status Americans (i.e., Whites, Christians, and men) as well as by those who perceive America’s global dominance as threatened combined to increase support for the candidate who emphasized reestablishing status hierarchies of the past. Results do not support an interpretation of the election based on pocketbook economic concerns. .... Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups rather than complaints about past treatment among low-status groups. Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that White Americans are under siege by these engines of change. 

For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country, White Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race. The declining White share of the national population is unlikely to change white Americans’ status as the most economically well-off racial group, but symbolically, it threatens some Whites’ sense of dominance over social and political priorities. Furthermore, when confronted with evidence of racial progress, whites feel threatened and experience lower levels of self-worth relative to a control group. They also perceive greater anti-White bias as a means of regaining those lost feelings of self-worth.

Some recent posts here have emphasized (for about the 40th time) the nearly complete loyalty shift among Republican politicians and elites from nobler ideals such as respect for democracy, the Constitution and truth to more base impulses, e.g., (i) urges to neo-fascism, (ii) acceptance of harsh rule by a corrupt, cynical strong man and elites, and (iii) heavy reliance on bitterly divisive propaganda-fueled mendacity, slanders and crackpottery. Fear of White replacement appears to be linked to the Republican Party shift away from democracy. A 2020 research paper by Larry Bartels, Ethnic antagonism erodes Republicans’ commitment to democracy, comments:

Growing partisan polarization and democratic “backsliding” in various parts of the world have raised concerns about the attachment of ordinary Americans to democratic institutions and procedures. I find that substantial numbers of Republicans endorse statements contemplating violations of key democratic norms, including respect for the law and for the outcomes of elections and eschewing the use of force in pursuit of political ends. The strongest predictor by far of these antidemocratic attitudes is ethnic antagonism—especially concerns about the political power and claims on government resources of immigrants, African-Americans, and Latinos. The strong tendency of ethnocentric Republicans to countenance violence and lawlessness, even prospectively and hypothetically, underlines the significance of ethnic conflict in contemporary US politics.

Most Republicans in a January 2020 survey agreed that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” More than 40% agreed that “a time will come when patriotic Americans have to take the law into their own hands.” (In both cases, most of the rest said they were unsure; only one in four or five disagreed.) I use 127 survey items to measure six potential bases of these and other antidemocratic sentiments: partisan affect, enthusiasm for President Trump, political cynicism, economic conservatism, cultural conservatism, and ethnic antagonism. The strongest predictor by far, for the Republican rank-and-file as a whole and for a variety of subgroups defined by education, locale, sex, and political attitudes, is ethnic antagonism—especially concerns about the political power and claims on government resources of immigrants, African-Americans, and Latinos. The corrosive impact of ethnic antagonism on Republicans’ commitment to democracy underlines the significance of ethnic conflict in contemporary US politics. 

The support expressed by many Republicans for violations of a variety of crucial democratic norms is primarily attributable not to partisan affect, enthusiasm for President Trump, political cynicism, economic conservatism, or general cultural conservatism, but to what I have termed ethnic antagonism. 

The single survey item with the highest average correlation with antidemocratic sentiments is not a measure of attitudes toward Trump, but an item inviting respondents to agree that  “discrimination against whites is as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.”

White replacement and illegal immigration already is and will be   

a major focus of Republican propaganda in the 2022 elections

Inflation and this issue will probably be key factors in the Democrats 

losing the House and Senate in 2022, assuming they lose  

Lawsuit over corporate lies about recycling plastics

As discussed here before, it is no secret that the oil and chemical industries tricked the American people into accepting single use plastics as harmless conveniences. The corporate public relations propaganda in the 1970s was that plastics are mostly recyclable. If fact most plastics were not and still are not recyclable. 

To date, about 9% of all plastics ever made have been recycled. About 91% is in landfills, laying on the ground, in fresh waters and in the oceans. In other words, this is a public relations lie:

Symbols of deceit - ~90% of it isn't recyclable, 

making the recycling assertion 100% a lie

In an odd lawsuit, California is suing over the recycling lie. NPR writes:

Accusing the country's largest oil and gas companies of "a half-century campaign of deception," California's attorney general opened an investigation Thursday into the possible role the companies played promoting the idea that plastics could be recycled, in an effort to manipulate the public to buy more of it.

Attorney General Rob Bonta said the fossil fuel industry benefited financially from the industry's misleading statements which he said go back decades. Bonta has so far subpoenaed ExxonMobil seeking information and documents.

"For more than half a century, the plastics industry has engaged in an aggressive campaign to deceive the public, perpetuating a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis," Bonta said. "The truth is: The vast majority of plastic cannot be recycled."

The announcement cited NPR and the PBS series Frontline's 2020 investigation into the oil and gas industry which uncovered documents showing top officials knew that recycling plastic was unlikely to work but spent tens of millions of dollars telling the public the opposite. Starting in the 1980s, the industry launched dozens of ads, nonprofits, and campaigns touting the benefits of recycling plastic – and placing the responsibility on consumers – even as their own documents warned that recycling was "infeasible" and that there was "serious doubt" that plastic recycling "can ever be made viable on an economic basis," the investigation found.  

In a statement, ExxonMobil said it rejects the allegations made by the California attorney general, and highlighted that it is the first company to use what it referred to as an "advanced recycling technology" to recycle used plastic.

"We are focused on solutions and meritless allegations like these distract from the important collaborative work that is underway to enhance waste management and improve circularity," the statement said.

The industry group, the American Chemistry Council, said in a statement it is committed to keeping plastic out of the environment and has "proposed comprehensive and bold actions at the state, federal, and international levels."

One can imagine that once this lawsuit reaches our beloved neo-fascist, Christian nationalist, laissez-faire capitalist, Republican Supreme Court, the lawsuit will very likely be dismissed for obvious reasons. A snowball's chance in hell comes to mind. The rationale is simple: Lying to and deceiving the public is legal. Corporations have almost unlimited power not only to lie and deceive, but also to privatize and trickle profits up, while socializing damage, risk and costs including environmental damage. That's just laissez-faire capitalism doing its usual thing.

The theory explained: Sparrows pick through the horse packaging  

to find a few oats that might pass through and fall onto the ground

  

As a matter of fact, the corporations and their propagandists are lying when they say they are focused on solutions. What a load of crap. The allegations are not meritless. 

It is also a lie for the corporations to say that this lawsuit distracts from collaborative work that is underway to enhance waste management and improve circularity. That is meaningless blither. The lawsuit in no way, shape or form distracts from any corporate effort to recycle or "improve circularity." 

That reasoning is so ridiculous that it openly insults the public. ExxonMobil might as well also claim that the lawsuit has caused toilets at corporate worksites to get blocked up and that is causing emotional distress among workers. Hell, ExxonMobil might as well also claim that the lawsuit caused Russia to invade Ukraine and the Democrats to steal the 2020 election.

This is just routine corporate public relations in action. Stupid as it is, it will work with millions of people. It will definitely work with all or nearly all Republicans in congress. That sad fact reminds me of these fun observations by two social scientists in 2016:

“. . . . the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. . . . cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. . . . . the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.”

The Christian nationalist Supreme Court supports corporate emotional abuse

Activist Republican judges weigh in 

The Washington Post writes:

Supreme Court: No emotional harm awards in some discrimination suits

The Supreme Court split along ideological lines Thursday in dismissing a discrimination lawsuit filed by a deaf and legally blind woman who wanted to sue a physical therapy business for emotional distress.

The court ruled 6 to 3, with conservatives in the majority, saying facilities that receive federal funds under laws such as the Affordable Care Act cannot be held liable when the harm alleged is emotional rather than a financial loss.

A district judge dismissed the suit because it said Cummings could not pursue damages based on emotional harm, and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed.

So did Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority. He said the general rule is that damages for emotional distress are available only in “highly unusual” contracts, and there was no reason to believe it covered the kind of agreements such facilities enter into regarding federal funds.

It is not just the case that Republican federal judges are merely Christian nationalist theocrats. They are also laissez-faire capitalists and neo-fascist judicial activists. One can look forward to a continuing stream of decisions that take power from consumers, one after another after another, and gives that taken power to companies. The power flows to both for-profit and non-profit human beings called corporations. This is just one example of how the power shift from human people to corporate people is going to play out. 

If you want to give companies more power taken from real humans, vote neo-fascist, vote Republican! If not, go pound sand.

Nuclear war scenarios

Princeton's Science and Global Security (SGS) does nuclear Armageddon simulations. Their 2019 Plan A comments:

SGS developed a new simulation for a plausible escalating war between the United States and Russia using realistic nuclear force postures, targets and fatality estimates. It is estimated that there would be more than 90 million people dead and injured within the first few hours of the conflict.

This project is motivated by the need to highlight the potentially catastrophic consequences of current US and Russian nuclear war plans. The risk of nuclear war has increased dramatically in the past two years as the United States and Russia have abandoned long-standing nuclear arms control treaties, started to develop new kinds of nuclear weapons and expanded the circumstances in which they might use nuclear weapons.

This four-minute audio-visual piece is based on independent assessments of current U.S. and Russian force postures, nuclear war plans, and nuclear weapons targets. It uses extensive data sets of the nuclear weapons currently deployed, weapon yields, and possible targets for particular weapons, as well as the order of battle estimating which weapons go to which targets in which order in which phase of the war to show the evolution of the nuclear conflict from tactical, to strategic to city-targeting phases.

The resulting immediate fatalities and casualties that would occur in each phase of the conflict are determined using data from NUKEMAP. All fatality estimates are limited to acute deaths from nuclear explosions and would be significantly increased by deaths occurring from nuclear fallout and other long-term effects.

In the months after nuclear war, fatalities from fallout and other long-term effects like lethal radiation exposure, coupled with untreated skin piercing injuries would far surpass deaths from immediate nuclear blasts. The scale of human suffering and death would dwarf everything in prior human history. That includes Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and multiplied 10-fold. Human deaths would be billions, not just tens of millions.

Acknowledgement: Thanks to PD for bringing Nuclear Princeton and Princeton's SGS effort to my attention.

The Left Hand of (Supposed) Darkness

 On ‘sinister,’ ‘dexterity,’ ‘gauche,’ and ‘adroit’

What to Know

Sinister, today meaning evil or malevolent in some way, comes from a Latin word simply meaning "on the left side." "Left" being associated with evil likely comes from a majority of the population being right handed, biblical texts describing God saving those on the right on Judgment day, and images depicting Eve on Adam's left. Consequently, the Latin for "right," dexter, finds its way into positive words like dexterous, and the French word for right (droit) is found in adroit.

Why Was 'Left' Considered Evil?

The association of the directional left with evil is likely attributed to the dominance of right-handed people within a population, and consequently the awkwardness of motions made from the left side of the body.

Such darkness wasn’t always attached to that side, however. The Ancient Celts, for example, worshipped the left side, associating it with femininity and the fertile womb. But beginning with the appearance of Eve on Adam’s left side in accounts of Genesis, the Christian tradition finds instances of the left side being pinned to immorality.

The Book of Matthew describes how God will divide nations on the Day of Judgment, “as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left,” with those on the right sent to the kingdom of Heaven and those on the left “cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Left-handed people comprise only 10 percent of the population, and the preference for the left hand demonstrated by the popular minority was attributed to demonic possession, leading to accusations of witchcraft.

In the 20th century, anthropologists and psychologists identified left-handedness as a biological anomaly, one associated with deviancy but that could be corrected away with behavioral reinforcement.

If 'Left' Is Evil, What About 'Right'?

The historical association of sinister with evil or backwardness is balanced linguistically by the fact that dexter, the Latin word meaning “on the right side,” comes with a largely positive connotation that survives throughout its linguistic descendants.

To be dexterous, for example, is to be good with the hands (like a surgeon) or a clever thinker, while one who is ambidextrous uses one’s left and right hand equally well.

The French word for “right or straight,” droit, gives us our word adroit, with a meaning similar to dexterous. The parallel is carried on by other words. The French word for “left,” gauche, is used in English to mean “lacking social grace” (“it’s considered gauche to arrive without a gift for the host”); a synonym of gauche, also from French, is maladroit (“a maladroit attempt to express his condolences”), which again utilizes the French word droit.

And of course, our word right is used to mean “correct," “true,” or "ethically sound" (“a right answer"; "didn't have the right address"; “the right thing to do”).

A popular maxim found on refrigerator magnets says that if the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handed people are in their right minds. In spite of that observation, the linguistic bias against the left side, and left-handedness in particular, is entrenched in English and many other languages, and likely will never go away.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sinister-left-dexter-right-history

Faux News is the neo-fascist propaganda arm of the neo-fascist Republican Party

Rolling Stone writes:

CNN on Monday published a slew of text messages between Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and prominent Republican lawmakers and conservative figures — including Hannity. The Jan. 6 committee has already released several texts exchanged between Meadows and Hannity, but the ones released Monday are particularly striking, demonstrating just how firmly the White House had Hannity secured under its thumb.

“Hey. NC gonna be ok?” Hannity wrote Meadows last Nov. 3, asking whether Meadows’ home state of North Carolina was going to go to Trump.

“Stress every vote matters,” Meadows replied. “Get out and vote. On radio.”

“Yes sir,” Hannity wrote. “On it. Any place in particular we need a push”

Meadows pointed to Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada, in addition to North Carolina. “Got it,” Hannity responded. “Everywhere.”  

Twitter user @acyn responded to CNN’s report by pointing out that Hannity has in the past claimed he is “not told what to say” and that “we have always been independent and follow our on path on this show.”  

We now have pretty hard evidence that Hannity’s highly rated show was basically state-run television while the former president was in office.

Hannity happy to take orders on what to say on his show pic.twitter.com/tuidtVWfF7

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 25, 2022

Hannity: I don’t vet the information on this program that I give out pic.twitter.com/xZPdHcR1Bh

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 1, 2020

That speaks for itself.