U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has become the face of the Republican Party’s embrace of the racist, white supremacist, and white nationalist “Great Replacement Theory” after a white 18-year-old man drove 200 miles and allegedly slaughtered 10 Black people in Buffalo. Stefanik’s Facebook ads and her rhetoric in recent months have been highlighted as contributing to advancing the baseless conspiracy theory, but rather than pull back and apologize the chairwoman of the House Republican Caucus is being accused of “doubling down” on her “terrorist rhetoric.”
“Democrats desperately want wide open borders and mass amnesty for illegals allowing them to vote. Like the vast majority of Americans, Republicans want to secure our borders and protect election integrity,” Stefanik tweeted Monday morning.
“There is nothing humane or compassionate about Joe Biden & Democrats wide open border and amnesty policies. It is Joe Biden’s Border Crisis. A tragic humanitarian crisis. A national security crisis. An economic crisis. And the American people know it,” she also tweeted Monday.
Immediately before those tweets, Stefanik issued a press release attacking the media for “disgraceful, dishonest and dangerous … smears” that accuse her of the very same “Great Replacement Theory” rhetoric she minutes later went on to invoke.
Noted economist David Rothschild, a frequent political commentator, calls Stefanik’s tweets “terrorist rhetoric.” He criticized her Monday morning, saying the New York Congresswoman “is doubling-down with numerous [tweets] this morning echoing the Buffalo’s terrorist’s manifesto with baseless, hateful rhetoric designed to encourage violence against minorities, immigrants, and Jews.”
Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy Professor Don Moynihan agrees Stefanik is doubling down:
As does historian Kevin M. Kruse:
Some more responses to Stefanik’s tweets from this morning: