“Although Trump rejected white supremacy after the alleged gunman killed 22 people and injured dozens of others Saturday at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the gunman echoed the president’s own rhetoric when he announced minutes before the attack that the shooting was a response to the “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
***
“The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate,” Trump said Monday of the dark screed.”
“In addition to Trump running about 2,200 ads referring to immigration as an “invasion,” at least nine other Republicans have run ads on the social network parroting his campaign’s message, according to the watch-dog Media Matters for America.”
“The campaign ran about 1,000 ads between January and February that claimed there was a “true invasion happening” at the border. The ads asked users to take a survey about which border issues concerned them most. The choices included: criminals, MS-13 gang members, sex and drug trafficking and terrorists.”
“The campaign also ran another 1,100 ads that proclaimed “We have an INVASION!” and asked followers to donate money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.”
The ads have been reached as many as 5.5 million Facebook users, according to the Guardian.
“Other prominent Republicans, like Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, similarly ran ads ahead of the 2018 midterm elections referring to a migrant caravan as an “illegal alien mob marching on our border” and “an invading force that must be stopped.” Another ad claimed that the caravans were an “invading force approaching our southern border.”
“The El Paso shooter echoed these talking points in his racist screed, writing that he was “simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”
“”His claims also echoed the “replacement theory” rhetoric pushed by Fox News hosts, including primetime stars Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham.”
“Democrats “want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever increasing number of chain migrants,” Ingraham said on her Fox show in October. “
“Ingraham also claimed that Texas was “completely overrun by this illegal invasion” and “calling it anything but an invasion at this point is just not being honest with people.”
On August 11, 2019, Jeremy W. Peters, Michael M. Grynbaum, Keith Collins, Rich Harris and Rumsey Taylor of the New York Times penned the following report, “How the El Paso Killer Echoed the Incendiary Words of Conservative Media Stars”“Tucker Carlson went on his prime-time Fox News show in April last year and told his viewers not to be fooled. The thousands of Central Americans on their way to the United States were “border jumpers,” not refugees, he said. “Will anyone in power do anything to protect America this time,” he asked, “or will leaders sit passively back as the invasion continues?”
“When another group approached the border six months later, Ann Coulter, appearing as a guest on Jeanine Pirro’s Fox News show, offered a dispassionately violent suggestion about what could be done to stem the flow of migrants: “You can shoot invaders.”
“A few days after, Rush Limbaugh issued a grim prognosis to his millions of radio listeners: If the immigrants from Central America weren’t stopped, the United States would lose its identity. “The objective is to dilute and eventually eliminate or erase what is known as the distinct or unique American culture,” Mr. Limbaugh said, adding: “This is why people call this an invasion.”
“There is a striking degree of overlap between the words of right-wing media personalities and the language used by the Texas man who confessed to killing 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso this month. In a 2,300-word screed posted on the website 8chan, the killer wrote that he was “simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”
“It remains unclear what, or who, ultimately shaped the views of the white, 21-year-old gunman, or whether he was aware of the media commentary. But his post contains numerous references to “invasion” and cultural “replacement” — ideas that, until recently, were relegated to the fringes of the nationalist right.”
“An extensive New York Times review of popular right-wing media platforms found hundreds of examples of language, ideas and ideologies that overlapped with the mass killer’s written statement — a shared vocabulary of intolerance that stokes fears centered on immigrants of color. The programs, on television and radio, reach an audience of millions.”
“In the four years since Mr. Trump electrified Republican voters with slashing comments about Muslims and Mexicans, demonizing references to immigrants have become more widespread in the news media, the Times review found.”
“Sometimes the hosts are repeating the president’s signature phrases. Sometimes the president appears to take his cues from television pundits. The cumulative effect is a public dialogue in which denigrating sentiments about immigrants are common.”
“Before the first groups of Central American migrants received heavy news media coverage in 2018, words like “invaders” or “invasion” were rarely used by American outlets. In the last year, the use of such terms has surged, with references to an immigrant “invasion” appearing on more than 300 Fox News broadcasts. The vast majority of those were spoken by Fox News hosts and guests, but some included clips of Mr. Trump using that language at rallies and other public appearances.”
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/world/us/2019/08/11/how-the-el-paso-killer-echoed-the-incendiary-words-of-conservative-media-stars/tucker_carlson.jpg)
“The Times analysis examined the last five years of show transcripts from Fox News, CNN and MSNBC to measure the frequency of terms like “invasion” and “replacement.” Segments that included this language were verified by watching clips of the shows to determine whether hosts and guests were speaking in their own words or reporting on the language of others.”
“It’s a bit of a vicious cycle,” said the conservative writer William Kristol, a Republican critic of Mr. Trump’s who has worked at Fox News and other networks. “Something is said on Fox News, and Trump repeats it, and that legitimizes it — and then someone else goes a little further.”
He added, “The use of what once would have been viewed as really extreme and inappropriate and sometimes conspiratorial, sometimes dehumanizing language is really striking.”
Gronda Morin 
Gronda, this a post from a few weeks ago. I have made an update to it in a footnote.
“An editorial appeared in my local paper called “A false narrative links the GOP and racism” by J. Peder Zane. I will let you find the article on your own, but the premise is to say Democrats have cried wolf on racist remarks for a long time, in his attempt to defend the indefensible. So, the accusations on the current president are just more of the same in Zane’s view. Here is my email to Mr. Zane pushing back on this premise.
Dear Mr. Zane,
I read with interest your editorial published today in The Charlotte Observer. As a 60 year old white man from the south and an independent and former Republican voter, I disagree with your premise. I know dog whistle racism when I hear and see it and, while your coin of phrase “yellow dogs” being the only ones hearing it is clever, it is offensive. Nixon used it as part of his southern strategy and I saw Jesse Helms use it recurringly in its most artistic form. And, three years ago, I equated Donald Trump’s campaign comments with George Wallace and his racist remarks. This is not a new phenomenon.
To be frank, I have grown weary of my former party’s leaders defending a retreating line in the sand of indefensible behavior by the person who occupies the White House. I have shared such concerns often with my two and other Senators pleading with them to condemn the latest set of the president’s behavior, tweets or remarks. I also ask them, what will they have to defend next week? We are better than this. And, our leaders must be our better angels, not our worst.
But, don’t take my word for it. Leaders in Sweden, Germany, UK, Ireland, EU, New Zealand and Scotland have condemned his racist remarks toward the gang of four. Yet, let me close with a quote form a Texas judge from an article in The Washington Post in response to his racist remarks and doubling down on them earlier this month.
“A former top Texas judge says she has left the Republican Party over President Trump, after his racist tweet telling four congresswomen to ‘go back’ to where they came from. Elsa Alcala joins a small group of conservatives alienated by Trump’s remarks as most of the Republican Party sticks with the president — including through his latest attacks on Democratic representatives of color, three of whom were born in the United States.
‘Even accepting that Trump has had some successes (and I believe these are few), at his core, his ideology is racism,’ the 55-year-old retired judge wrote Monday in a Facebook post. ‘To me, nothing positive about him could absolve him of his rotten core.’”
I realize you are a popular conservative-bent editorialist, but so are George Will, David Brooks, Michael Gerson, Erik Erickson and others who have pushed back on this president and his behavior and words. So, I will ask you the same question I have also asked GOP Senators – is this the man you want to spend your dear reputation on? These conservative-bent editorialists have said no.
Keith
Note to Readers: Since I wrote this, Republican Congressman Will Hurd from Texas decided to not run again. Hurd is a former CIA officer and is the lone GOP African-American in the House. It should be noted that he was one of four Republicans who voted to formally condemn Trump’s racist remarks. Further, the El Paso shooter cited Trump xenophobic rhetoric as part of his reason for driving 600 miles to kill people. And, the mail bomber who forwarded bombs to about sixteen Democrats was sentenced to twenty years. I fully recognize the president did not put the gun in someone’s hand or send the bombs, but his racist and xenophobic hate speech puts targets on the backs of people. To say otherwise, is flatly untrue. This is beneath the dignity of the presidency and of a normal citizen with a conscious.
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I’m thinking trump dislikes Hispanics and Blacks because they are not white. But if he wasn’t president, would he really care about them being here? Lots of rich people and companies employ undocumented workers because they can treat them badly and they get cheap labor.
Trump surely knows most big transactions and selling of large amounts of drugs does not come from these people seeking asylum. Those drugs come in on container ships, private planes and large yachts often protected by big business and police forces being paid off.
The republicans in Congress care about money and profit only, so they’re certainly not gonna rock the boat. They may not dislike Blacks or Hispanics, but neither do they give them any passing thought. They simply do not care.
So why all the hatred and vitriol?….one reason only…to appease his racist base, instill fear in them and flame up their ignorant brainless minds.
The sad part is, it works.
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He is supposed to president of the United States of America and not the 63,0000,000+ who voted for him.
Isn’t he?
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