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No. 3 House Republican Elise Stefanik echoed racist theory allegedly espoused by suspect

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HR King
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Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers came under scrutiny Sunday for previously echoing the racist “great replacement” theory that apparently inspired an 18-year-old who allegedly killed 10 people while targeting Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo.
The baseless conspiracy theory claims that politicians are attempting to wipe out White Americans and their influence by replacing them with non-White immigrants. The theory was cited repeatedly by 18-year-old shooting suspect Payton Gendron in an online document that appeared to have outlined his intention to carry out his planned attack in Buffalo because of its significant population of Black people.
Eleven of the 13 people shot at a Tops Friendly Markets store on Saturday were Black, according to police.
Buffalo residents mourn those killed in mass shooting
Residents of Buffalo are still reeling after a gunman launched a racially motivated attack at a grocery store, killing 10 people. (Video: Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)
While Stefanik has not pushed the theory by name, she and other conservatives have echoed the tenets of the far-right ideology as part of anti-immigrant rhetoric that has fired up the Republican base ahead of the midterm elections.
It marks a rapid transformation for Stefanik, who has sought to firmly align herself with former president Donald Trump and his nativist “Make America Great Again” agenda over the last year after she replaced Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) as GOP conference chair. Cheney was pushed out for criticizing Trump’s role in spreading falsehoods about his election loss and for stoking the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
In response to the shooting Saturday, Stefanik tweeted that the U.S. “is heartbroken about the tragic news of horrific loss of life in Buffalo. We are mourning for the entire community & loved ones,” she wrote before thanking law enforcement for facing “skyrocketing violent crimes.”
But Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who is no stranger of denouncing pro-Trump colleagues, asked his followers in a tweet whether they knew “@EliseStefanik pushes white replacement theory?”
“@GOPLeader should be asked about this,” he said, referencing House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). His office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Kinzinger was referring to a series of Facebook ads published in September 2021 by Stefanik’s campaign committee that charged that Democrats were allowing undocumented immigrants into the United States as a ploy to outnumber, and eventually silence, Republican voters.
“Radical Democrats are planning their most aggressive move yet: a PERMANENT ELECTION INSURRECTION,” reads one of the ads, which shows a reflection of migrants in sunglasses Biden is wearing. “Their plan to grant amnesty to 11 MILLION illegal immigrants will overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.”
Rep. Stefanik claims in ads that Democrats seek a ‘permanent election insurrection’ by providing pathways to citizenship
It’s a similar argument frequently espoused by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, leading the Anti-Defamation League to repeatedly call for his firing since April 2021 after he appeared to endorse the concept during one of his segments.
Tucker Carlson twists Biden’s 2015 comments to push conspiracy theory
On Sept. 22, Fox News host Tucker Carlson misrepresented past immigration remarks by President Biden to suggest the existence of the “great replacement theory.” (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
A Stefanik spokesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about her thinking, said the ads were pushed at the time when New York City was debating whether to allow roughly 1 million non-residents the chance to vote only in local elections. City council approved the measure in December, allowing those living in NYC for over 30 days with a work permit — not undocumented immigrants — to partake.
In a scathing editorial responding to the “despicable” ads, Stefanik’s hometown newspaper, the Times Union of Albany, wrote that the New York representative “isn’t so brazen as to use the slogans themselves; rather, she couches the hate in alarmist anti-immigrant rhetoric that’s become standard fare for the party of Donald Trump.”
In response, Stefanik said Republicans stand for “legal immigration while Democrats support amnesty for illegals.”
“To equate opposition to illegal immigration with Nazism and white supremacy is a desperate attempt to stoke outrage & avoid covering Joe Biden’s border crisis,” she wrote in a Facebook post.


 
Facebook ads published in 2021 by Stefanik's campaign committee charged that Democrats were allowing undocumented immigrants into the United States as a ploy to outnumber, and eventually silence, Republican voters. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
In a statement Sunday responding to the resurfaced posts in light of the Buffalo massacre, Stefanik’s senior adviser Alex deGrasse said, “Any implication or attempt to blame the heinous shooting in Buffalo on the Congresswoman is a new disgusting low for the Left, their Never Trump allies, and the sycophant stenographers in the media. The shooting was an act of evil and the criminal should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
He added, “Despite sickening and false reporting, [the] Congresswoman has never advocated for any racist position or made a racist statement.”
Other Republicans in Congress have been pushing the theory in more explicit terms. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the current chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said during a subcommittee hearing examining migration from Central America last year that many Americans believe “we’re replacing national-born American — native-born Americans — to permanently transform the political landscape of this very nation.”
After the ADL again called for Carlson’s firing in September, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) came to his defense, saying in a tweet the Fox News host “is CORRECT about Replacement Theory as he explains what is happening to America.”
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll from December found that 1 in 3 U.S. adults believed there was “an effort to replace U.S. citizens with immigrants for electoral gains.” More Republicans believed in the likelihood than Democrats, 36 percent to 27 percent.
Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), who represents the Buffalo area, called on leaders to denounce the theory and recognize the dangers that come with its rhetoric.
“The Great Replacement theory is racist nonsense that cynical politicians have used to foment division in America. What truly needs to be replaced in this country is ignorance and hate, which is driving division, perpetuating lies, and killing our neighbors,” he said in a statement Sunday. “The amplification of racism in all of its forms is sick and un-American and everyone - especially those who call themselves leaders - must speak out against it.”
McCarthy and other Republican leaders have been largely silent on the replacement rhetoric embraced by some of their colleagues, hoping to keep their focus on the economy and other issues that they feel will help them take back the House and Senate in November.
That dynamic also explains Stefanik’s transformation.
Last year, Republicans sought to oust Cheney from leadership for her repeated criticism of Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection, saying they considered the issue a distraction and said Cheney should have been focused on keeping the GOP conference united ahead of the midterms.
Stefanik was considered a front-runner to replace Cheney but faced significant pushback from colleagues who questioned whether she could represent the pro-Trump conference given her background as more of a pro-business, anti-tax Republican cut from the same cloth as mentor Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), the former House speaker.
Her record on immigration was also questioned ahead of her ascension into leadership. A number of anti-immigration groups criticized her March 2021 vote for the Farm Workforce Authorization Act, for example, which would give legal status to undocumented farmworkers in the United States.
From Paul Ryan acolyte to Trump disciple: Stefanik sets out to replace Cheney in GOP leadership
Stefanik has since followed the trends of her party and district, which was once a Democratic stronghold but flipped for Trump by double-digit margins in 2016 and 2020.
She quickly gained Trump’s backing after she defended him during his impeachment trial and has since peddled his falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen.
Stefanik is seen last week on Capitol Hill. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg News)
Just last week, Stefanik appears to have amplified prominent QAnon conspiracy language fixated on pedophiles when alleging that the Biden administration does not have a plan to address a current baby formula shortage, referring to Democrats as “pedo grifters.”
A spokesperson later clarified that the term referred to the anti-Trump political action committee the Lincoln Project, specifically allegations that a former co-founder was sending unwarranted sexual messages to young men.
She and several congresswomen, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also spent the past week spreading falsehoods that the Biden administration was prioritizing sending baby formula to migrant babies at the border rather than feeding American-born children.
“Your plan #EliseStarvefanik is to starve babies. You have no excuse so now you’re just lashing out,” Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) said in response to Stefanik’s “grifters” tweet. “Picking on babies for political gain is so low and trashy.”
 
Covid ="The blood is on trumps hands!"

More people dye under Biden than Trump= silence.

Lunatic kills people: "the blood is on a politicians hands!"




Yall are ridiculous.
People die because they made the decision to die, whiskey. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. The blood is on the hand of those who chose to ignore the science (vaccine), not. Biden.
 
The democrats might gain some voters if they quit talking about men getting pregnant and birthing people.
Agree. The Dems keep screwing around trying to appease people and be everything to everybody.

The attempts at bipartisanship haven't worked. So... force your agenda and if voters don't like the results, vote them out.

Republicans play dirty and the Dems try and be the nice guys.

Dems need to get down in the mud.
 
People die because they made the decision to die, whiskey. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. The blood is on the hand of those who chose to ignore the science (vaccine), not. Biden.
Ignoring science is not ANYONE’S fault but the individual who chooses to remain ignorant.
 
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People die because they made the decision to die, whiskey. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. The blood is on the hand of those who chose to ignore the science (vaccine), not. Biden.
In the case of thr Buffalo shooter, people died because an asshole decided to kill them.
 
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The GOP is "off the rails" with their radical views. I'm amazed they have so many everyday Mericans duped.

It's astonishing in a really bad way.

What’s astonishing is that you think others who hold any sort of different political viewpoint are evil, deplorable and live in the mud. These might be people who work or live by you and don’t discuss politics or beliefs and just coexist.
Have you ever looked at them, understood what life events have formed them, and used that understanding to reflect on your own beliefs?
 
The ability of this kid to go online and get radicalized absolutely scares the hell out of me.

I hope most of it can be reported so that parents and frankly everyone can understand the vile garbage on the internet

I read that his parents were in shock but were fully cooperating. I didn’t know everything my kids were doing when they were seniors in HS but I sure tried. I will be interested to read more about who they are going forward.
 
They're different things. This looks like the left trying to capitalize politically by attaching the right to neo-nazi rhetoric.

Traditionally "Great Replacement Theory" contends that elite jews are importing immigrants and other ethnicities to replace the native white population for whatever nefarious reason.

What we've seen from some republicans is that the dems want more immigration so as to dilute the vote or "replace" current voters. Because dems know this will favor them in any election.

Now of course that's conspiratorial, a bit crazy and wreckless. But you know.. republicans these days.

 
Stefanik obviously believes Democrats are much smarter than they are. Traditionally Democrats can’t form a single line to wait for a urinal....and this nut-job believes they can replace all the white folks with minorities? How phar ophph the phuquin’ deep end is the Lady from New York?
She used to be normal but she has gone all in on Trumpism to get McCarthy's job.
 
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I feel like the connection and implied causation/responsibility would be more significant if the kid murdered some immigrants rather than blacks to stop the Replacements.

Does the killer and Elise both prefer dogs to cats? Do they both prefer NY style pizza? Do they both use replacement theory as it suits them? Probably lots of things in common, and sure one is particularly vile. However, that doesn't mean the replacement theory is why the killer did what he did, or that Elise had any impact. That of course doesn't excuse her for employing the replacement theory in bad faith, it's awful on it's own and what it says about her and what she thinks of her base, but playing a role in this killing is a stretch.
 
What’s astonishing is that you think others who hold any sort of different political viewpoint are evil, deplorable and live in the mud. These might be people who work or live by you and don’t discuss politics or beliefs and just coexist.
Have you ever looked at them, understood what life events have formed them, and used that understanding to reflect on your own beliefs?
Some, like you, are deplorable. Others are just ignorant. People like my father in law. Ignorant.
 
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Dems right here on this board have openly noted that changing demographics due to immigration have turned Texas from red to purple. And they have openly bragged that if Texas turns blue then it’s game over for Republicans at the national level.

That’s also why many Dems yearn for statehood for Puerto Rico. It’s not as if Democrats lie awake at night lamenting the fact that Puerto Ricans aren’t enjoying the full benefit of American citizenship. They covet the extra two senators and three electoral votes Puerto Rico would give them.

None of this is a secret. Show me where Stefanik called for violence against non-whites.
 
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Dems right here on this board have openly noted that changing demographics due to immigration have turned Texas from red to purple. And they have openly bragged that if Texas turns blue then it’s game over for Republicans at the national level.

That’s also why many Dems yearn for statehood for Puerto Rico. It’s not as if Democrats lie awake at night lamenting the fact that Puerto Ricans aren’t enjoying the full benefit of American citizenship. They covet the extra two senators and three electoral votes Puerto Rico would give them.

None of this is a secret. Show me where Stefanik called for violence against non-whites.
I watched that Tucker clip and the. I read your post. Is that what this replacement theory is? It is no secret that Texas has turned more purple due to the folks coming from other regionals but I wouldn’t call it white replacement. It’s more of a demographics change
 
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I watched that Tucker clip and the. I read your post. Is that what this replacement theory is? It is no secret that Texas has turned more purple due to the folks coming from other regionals but I wouldn’t call it white replacement. It’s more of a demographics change
Feel free to take the quiz. It's been posted multiple times in threads you are participating in.

 
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Dems right here on this board have openly noted that changing demographics due to immigration have turned Texas from red to purple. And they have openly bragged that if Texas turns blue then it’s game over for Republicans at the national level.

That’s also why many Dems yearn for statehood for Puerto Rico. It’s not as if Democrats lie awake at night lamenting the fact that Puerto Ricans aren’t enjoying the full benefit of American citizenship. They covet the extra two senators and three electoral votes Puerto Rico would give them.

None of this is a secret. Show me where Stefanik called for violence against non-whites.
How can any reasonable adult even consider endorsing what the "modern Republican Party" has become? (Unless of course, you own a night light business.)
 
(in this caae, dead)
and yes, to ignore science is a FAULT....ignorANCE is the leading cause of stupidity...and Stupidity is mostly an avoidable disease (there can be genetic causes, too....)
No argument here. Sorry find someone else to argue with okay.
 
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I'd guess there's like a 1% chance that Elise actually has any genuinely held beliefs with regards to the Replacement Theory stuff. I'm sure she'd rather be the admired moderate, thoughtful and accepted, perhaps even an icon - for a good reason. Rather than being stuck trading in race related conspiracy theories.

Unfortunately, with the current state of the MAGA GOP that's how you disappear or get forced out.

So while it's just a tool for politicians like Elise to agitate the base, drive turnout and win elections. It has unfortunate implications for everyone else. We'll probably continue to see more of it as it contains some seemingly effective aspects:

1. Republicans/conservatives being victimized by being replaced/silenced loss of power. This theme is consistent, loud and frequent. Very comfortable for the base.
2. Democrats/Elites/Deep Staters are the perpetrators, the bad guys pulling levers and moving pieces to achieve power and ultimately destroy the very essence of the nation. Another very comfortable notion to nod along with.
3. Immigrants/non-whites/Jews as the tool the Democrats utilize to achieve their aims. Hard to say how important this actually is to the MAGA base. For a lot of people just the first two may be enough to get agitated, but for others this may be icing on the cake and for some this may be the most significant aspect.
 
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