Thread by @DavidNeiwert

Tucker Carlson trotted out this argument earlier this week to illustrate his “replacement theory” regarding immigrants and voting. It’s actually a perfect illustration of the up-is-down gaslighting of the theory. A thread. 1/

Carlson made this argument on Monday when he was doubling down on his claim that Democrats want nonwhite immigration in order to increase their power—an open embrace of white-nationalist dogma./ 2

dailykos.com/stories/2021/4…

Here’s a transcript of the clip: /3

As a fourth-generation Idaho native with family in Montana, I can tell you that this is a complete inversion of the historic demographic reality in those places. It could only be accurate if viewed from a very short-term perspective—and even then, it’s wrong. 4/

Idaho and Montana have only become deep-red Republican states in the past decade or two. Prior to that, they were classic “purple” states, electing a mix of Democrats and Republicans. What changed that was an inmigration of right-wing voters. 5/

hcn.org/issues/45.8/ho…

Montana was famous for electing noteworthy Democrats such as House Speaker Mike Mansfield. Idaho elected powerful and influential Democrats like Cecil Andrus and Frank Church. The latter mentored me as a young man. 6/

When I was a kid, anti-California sentiment was a key part of the cultural landscape because urbanites were perceived as clueless idiots. Bumper stickers and T-shirts reading “Don’t Californicate Idaho” and similar sentiments were common. /7

The general fear was that Californians would bring their woolly-headed liberalism with them. But the reality turned out to be precisely the converse. /8

The first notable example of this was when the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian in southern California, a Christian Identity operation, moved its entire operations to the Idaho Panhandle in the late ‘70s and called itself the Aryan Nations. /9

https://twitter.com/DavidNeiwert/status/1070126220396752896

One of the side-effects of the AN’s presence was that there were numerous news stories emanating from the Panhandle during their tenure there. An important subtext of these stories was that Idaho was a very white state. The image became a national one. /10

Idaho’s shift began in earnest in the 1990s, when “white flight” from California and elsewhere brought hordes of authoritarian conservatives fleeing the brown people. It transformed the region, including eastern Washington and Utah. /11

washingtonpost.com/archive/opinio…

This Washington Post piece explained the political ramifications: /12

Montana, which was still electing Democrats even recently, was hit with this change in the 2000s. These were primarily people who were leveraging the high values of their properties elsewhere to buy much bigger homes for less in the rural West. /13

montanabusinessquarterly.com/poverty-with-a…

So what the natives like myself were seeing was the converse of Carlson’s scenario: affluent _conservatives_ fleeing California because of their own white-nationalist attitudes and destroying the political landscape as we knew it. /14

grist.org/article/mannin…

They also helped destroy the local economies, driving up property values so that natives could no longer afford to live there. After Idaho’s unions and its schools and colleges were gutted by Republican politicians, that became even more acute. /15

csus.edu/indiv/f/friedm…

Many natives like myself had to leave just to find work—as well as to flee the increasingly ugly cultural scene created by this influx of gun-humping reactionaries with tons of money and big pricey pickups. We no longer even recognize our home states. /16

spokesman.com/stories/2016/m…

So yes, we were replaced by these new Idahoans, a large number of whom now strut about asserting with bellicose authority that THEY represent the _real_ Idaho. The same thing can be found with all those newly minted Montana cowboys. /17

distinctlymontana.com/gatekeeping-la…

It’s true that in recent years the demographic inmigration has become less red and more purple, enabling Boise to return to electing Democrats, for instance. But the right-wing white flight is still continuing to this day as well. /18

idahostatesman.com/news/local/art…

Like this lady: /19

npr.org/2017/02/14/512…

Note the comments from Idaho native Mary Lou Reed in the above story: /20

So what Carlson is describing for places like Idaho and Montana and Utah is in fact the converse of what has happened to those states. It’s a lie. / 21

The reality is that demographic shifts have happened throughout American history, and being able to ride those shifts politically has always been a challenge for parties, which have to figure out how to please changing constituencies. That’s what Democrats are doing. /22

Republicans, on the other hand, have clearly become so wedded to their white-nationalist politics—the ones that drove demographic change in California, Idaho, Montana, and many other places—that they will not adjust their politics to welcome in new brown faces. /23

Carlson’s “replacement theory” is about gaslighting the public into believing that liberals are manipulating demographic change rather than simply adapting to its realities—giving Republicans an excuse to cling to a political ethos in its death spiral. /24
dailykos.com/stories/2021/4…

@threadreaderapp please unroll