Brand X

It’s been four months since I left the Nazi bar formerly known as Twitter, but that doesn’t mean I’m not keeping up with news about what’s going on there. Increasingly, it seems, the site isn’t just “a bar that lets some Nazis hang out” but rather “a bar where the owner won’t shut up with the Nazi shit, insists we call him ‘obergruppenführer,’ and holds a Weekly Wednesday Wehrmacht Trivia Night.”

As I noted last fall, in recent years we’ve seen the disturbing revival of the so-called Great Replacement Theory — the racist conspiracy theory that shadowy elites (often singled out as Jews) are encouraging massive illegal immigration in order to secure demographic change and political power that will supplant white people from their rightful positions of supremacy.

As I detailed in this piece, the Great Replacement Theory was popularized by American white supremacists during the 1920s, publicized by nativist groups like the Klan, and used by the original Nazis as the basis for the Holocaust. In recent years, it’s been the inspiration for several horrific acts of white supremacist violence.

Put simply, this is the ideology of racist murderers.

And now Elon Musk has embraced it completely:

I know, I know, it’s hard to believe a guy whose grandfather left Canada because it was becoming too diverse and decided to relocate the family to a newly-segregated South Africa could ever embrace paranoid racist nonsense, but here we are.

Now, I’ve explained at great length how the Great Replacement Theory is deeply, deeply racist but I think it’s also worth pausing to stipulate that it’s also deeply, deeply stupid.

First of all, the AP story that Musk is referencing is from three years ago, speculating about a plan Biden was considering then, but that has gone nowhere since. That’s the hook for his conspiracy! A three-year old what-if. And even by the story’s own account, this was a limited plan that would’ve meant an eight-year path to citizenship.

Ali Noorani, president of the National Immigration Forum and among those briefed Thursday night, said immigrants would be put on an eight-year path to citizenship. There would be a faster track for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shields people from deportation who came to the country as young children, and Temporary Protected Status, which gives temporary status to hundreds of thousands of people from strife-torn countries, many from El Salvador.

Second, the details of what Biden actually proposed — again, three years ago — show that this isn’t some easy blanket amnesty (because what kind of hippie would do that?) but rather a slow process with several stages and layers of vetting:

The U.S. Citizenship Act will: PROVIDE PATHWAYS TO CITIZENSHIP & STRENGTHEN LABOR PROTECTIONS

Create an earned roadmap to citizenship for undocumented individuals. The bill allows undocumented individuals to apply for temporary legal status, with the ability to apply for green cards after five years if they pass criminal and national security background checks and pay their taxes. Dreamers, TPS holders, and immigrant farmworkers who meet specific requirements are eligible for green cards immediately under the legislation. After three years, all green card holders who pass additional background checks and demonstrate knowledge of English and U.S. civics can apply to become citizens. Applicants must be physically present in the United States on or before January 1, 2021. The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may waive the presence requirement for those deported on or after January 20, 2017 who were physically present for at least three years prior to removal for family unity and other humanitarian purposes. Lastly, the bill further recognizes America as a nation of immigrants by changing the word “alien” to “noncitizen” in our immigration laws.

Third, despite the claims about Biden “encouraging so much illegal immigration,” arrests at the border and deportations increased under Biden’s watch, only dropping recently with changes in the asylum laws. You can argue with both moves (I have!) but it’s hard to spin either as “encouraging” illegal immigration.

Fourth, the key assumption of the Great Replacement Theory is that this influx of immigrants will not just be made citizens automatically and immediately, but will then vote loyally for their masters in the Evil Democratic Party, which will then lead them to exert total control on American politics forever.

Again, this is deeply stupid. The immigrant vote is not monolithic. Even the Latino immigrant vote on its own is not monolithic.

And while there’s a greater tendency for immigrants who become citizens — again, after a lengthy and extremely well-vetted process — to vote Democratic, there’s also an overwhelming tendency of those new citizens to live in states that are already Democratic bastions, like California, New York, Illinois, etc.

But even in red states with high levels of immigration, the politics of Latino voters are just not as knee-jerk as the racists insist. This is a complicated constituency that has been up for grabs in recent decades and should remain that way.

But for simple-minded white supremacists, all of those nuances are meaningless. Brown people are coming to replace white people and that should make you scared.

And, yes, if you’ve been paying attention, the racists pushing this insanity are opposed to all immigration, legal and illegal. (There’s a reason Republicans have increasingly been trying to reject the idea of birthright citizenship — the “illegal” part of “illegal immigrant” isn’t the part that gets them upset.)

Again, racist and stupid. And, again, deeply dangerous.

Slap some ugly stainless steel on it, and that’s pretty much Elon Musk’s brand.