“It doesn’t make sense,” Johnson continued, “and what everybody across the country wants to know is, why would they do that? Because they want to turn these people into voters. That’s the only rational explanation for what they did.”
This is rhetoric just short of the “Great Replacement Theory,” an argument that has seeped from the fringes of racist discourse into the mainstream. This unfounded theory claims that there is a secret conspiracy to remake American society by deliberately attracting immigrants to the country.
Johnson’s argument reflects his support for legislation already aimed at restricting the vote for illegal and rare foreign nationals, allowing his party to debate both immigration and election security, two of Donald Trump’s pet issues. But it also means he endorses a historically unusual view of immigration, a stark departure from the once-popular idea that immigration is beneficial and a sign of American exceptionalism.
But this kind of hostility to social and cultural change is a hallmark of his party at the moment, especially for the majority of his own party who, like Johnson, are aligned with Trump.
The Pew Research Center released an in-depth report Thursday examining Americans’ views on race, gender and cultural issues, including questions that illuminate how Trump supporters view these issues uniquely and the extent to which white male status anxieties, in particular, are a key component of the movement.
Consider the question of whether the diversity of America’s population makes the country stronger. Overall, Americans were 54 points more likely to say diversity makes society stronger than they were to say it weakens it. Among Biden supporters, the difference was 78 points. Among Trump supporters? Just 30 points. Fewer than half of Trump supporters said America’s diversity makes society stronger.
This was just one question; the survey included several similar questions aimed at uncovering how comfortable Americans are with different aspects of diversity.
We extracted six of them, two relating to each of three themes: race, immigration, and gender. The results are below, broken down into total population, Biden supporters, and Trump supporters. (The label “total” applies to all members of these groups, i.e., all Biden supporters.) Some thoughts follow the graph.
Race: First, note the difference between younger and older people’s responses to the question about race. As we’ve noted before, younger Americans are more likely to be non-white, which is likely at play here. Also note that even within the subset representing Biden supporters, black respondents’ opinions are stronger than the group as a whole. (There were not enough black Trump supporters to categorize their responses.)
Also note the shockingly low numbers among white Trump supporters, most of whom do not believe slavery has any current impact, and few believe that white people have any systematic advantage in society. Instead, many Trump supporters and white Republicans White Feelings of injustice and being the target of discrimination have long been a driving force behind support for Trump.
ImmigrationHere again, there is a divide between younger and older respondents, but on the issue of immigration the divide is more pronounced among Trump supporters. Younger Americans are also more likely to have immigrants in their family or to be immigrants themselves.
sexJust as Trump supporters are less likely to believe there are systemic barriers to black Americans, they are also more likely to believe that systemic barriers to women have been overcome. When Pew Research broke down the responses to these questions by gender and age, it found that male Trump supporters, especially those under 50, are more likely to believe that systemic sexism is a thing of the past.
They are also more likely to see women’s gains in American society as a zero-sum game, with four in 10 Trump-supporting men under 50 believing those gains come at the expense of men. Biden-supporting men under 50 are also more likely to hold that view than Biden-supporting women, but are less than half as likely as Trump supporters within that group.
Perhaps Pew’s most pointed question on the subject focused on the long-term increase in racial diversity in the United States, primarily due to the rise in immigration since the end of the baby boom. Most Americans, including most Biden and Trump supporters, don’t see the decline in the white share of the population as either a good or bad thing. But Trump supporters are 35 points more likely to say it’s bad than to say it’s good, comparable to the 14-point difference overall.
Nearly one in five Trump supporters believe that increasing diversity in the United States is a very bad thing for society.
Polls suggest that white Republicans are more upset by reports of declining white population density in the U.S. and that the idea of ​​hard-line racial identity is too simplistic. A Pew Research Center survey reveals how the former concerns are expressed on the right.
Of course, that’s Johnson’s rhetoric as well. He knows there’s more political gain to be had by claiming that Democrats are plotting to overturn white political supremacy. Of course, that was the underlying meaning of what he said. So that’s what he’s claiming.
He is giving Trump supporters what they want.
