By Brianna Lyman
A new poll shows a shocking amount of Democrats believe in the idea behind the “great replacement theory” despite attempts from the left to brand it as a fringe right-wing conspiracy theory in the wake of the deadly Buffalo shooting.
A YouGov/Yahoo poll found that 61% of former President Donald Trump supporters believe in the tenet of the “great replacement” theory that “a group of people in this country are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants and people of color who share their political views,” according to the poll.
But it wasn’t just right-leaning individuals. The poll also found that 21% of registered Democrats agreed with the statement while 37% of independents also agreed with the statement. (RELATED: PATEL: Are Republicans A Bunch Of Racists?)
The poll was conducted between May 19-22 among 1,573 U.S. adults.
The theory is rooted in early French nationalism but was popularized by French author Renaud Camus, who believed white Europeans were being replaced within their countries by non-whites from Africa and the Middle East, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The ideology recently made headlines after 18-year-old Payton Gendron allegedly carried out a horrific mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket. In a manifesto posted online prior to carrying out the crime, Gendron talked about how whites are being replaced nationwide. While Gendron made not a single mention of Daily Caller co-founder and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, it nonetheless didn’t stop several high profile individuals from blaming Carlson for allegedly promoting the theory.
Carlson discussed the theory in 2021 in regards to elections and voting, citing a 2015 clip from then Vice President Joe Biden who said “it’s a source of our strength,” that white people would comprise less than half of America in coming years.
“The policy is called the great replacement, the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far away countries,” Carlson said in September. “They brag about it all the time, but if you dare to say it’s happening, they will scream at you with maximum hysteria.”
“Everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it, oh white replacement. No, this is a voting rights question. I have less political power because they are importing a brand-new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that?” Carlson said in April of 2021.
Despite insistence that the theory is being pushed by Republicans, Democrats repeatedly have said they wanted to change the electorate makeup by changing the voter demographic.
A 2013 Politico article detailed how “Democrats have eyed Texas longingly for years, watching as the Republican bastion has transformed into a majority-minority state.”
The piece then goes on to explain how Democrats would focus their efforts on capitalizing on the state’s “diversity” in order to flip it from red to purple. Former Democratic Houston Mayor Annise Parker said Democrats “have been waiting in Texas for a very long time for the Latino vote to come into its own and turn the tide.”
Salon wrote in 2008 that “dems [will] win the White House every time” if Democrats “can count on Hispanics to deliver” Arizona, Texas and a few other states.
The Los Angeles Times wrote in 2008 that Democrats predicted far more victories as voters become “progressively less white.”
“A multiethnic bloc of Latinos, blacks, young people and suburban whites helped to broaden the party’s reach Tuesday well beyond its traditional base in the Northeast and West Coast – carrying Barack Obama into the White House and expanding the party’s majorities in Congress.”
“Democrats scored gains from a voting base that is growing progressively less white than the population,” the piece continued, noting places where “minorities made up a larger share of the vote” helped turn the tide from red to blue.
Liberal think tank Center for American Progress said in 2013 that supporting “real immigration reform that contains a pathway to citizenship for our nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants is the only way to maintain electoral strength in the future.”
