Ben Shapiro tries to distance the right from the great replacement theory
Shapiro: “The racial essentialism of the great replacement theory looks a lot more like wokeism than it does, like, mainstream conservatism or mainstream liberalism”
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From the May 16, 2022, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): Naturally, the left immediately swiveled from focus on red flags and mental health issues, and they focused immediately into the idea that because this shooter was a white supremacist, therefore the entire right is guilty of white supremacy.
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Now, the peg that they are trying to hang their hat on here is the fact that this guy was a devotee of the so-called great replacement theory. Now, what the left is trying to do is broaden out the term great replacement theory to include any normal sort of concerns about illegal immigration, any suggestions that demographic voting patterns make a difference -- which, of course, everybody both left and right knows that they do. I mean, the left has been claiming for literally as long as I've been alive that changing demographic patterns in the United States were going to shift the politics of the country in a progressive direction.
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The great replacement theory is the theory that, essentially, there are a bunch of Jewish elites and this coterie of Jewish elites wishes to pervert the racial stock of a country like the United States -- a predominately white country -- in order to weaken the country from within. That is the great replacement theory. It is not concerns about illegal immigration, it is not concerns about cultural assimilation. The great replacement theory is the idea that there can never be cultural assimilation. The great replacement theory is the idea that race is destiny.
In fact, the racial essentialism of the great replacement theory looks a lot more like wokeism than it does, like, mainstream conservatism or mainstream liberalism. Neither of the two major democratic parties is a believer that simply because you're of a particular race, this means that you're inherently, genetically designed in order to vote a particular way. That is relegated to the wokeist left and it is relegated to the white supremacist right who, sort of, join hands in this belief that we can look at your race and know inherently how you're going to vote and how your kids are going to vote and how your grandkids are going to vote.