Well, they didn't take long to show up, and they've been entertaining in their premeditated spin, their convolution, and their delicacy in what to not say. I'm talking about corporate America's homogeneous reactions to "Replacement Theory" having become a feature on American evening news (and front pages to boot).
The written reactions have been so homogeneous and simultaneous as to suggest an Attack of the Clones, so to speak. That's what happens when writers think The Force is With Them and editors are all spin and manipulation and very little editing (of arguments, of illogic, of opinions presented as facts).
This will be one of those boring, line by line analyses of propaganda. If you have something exciting to do, please go do it and come back when you crave some literary forensics to help put you to sleep. From my perspective, it had to be written, so I'll get to it, as Chris Cuomo used to say.
I'll be taking a hard look at three pieces that were all published in the last 72 hours. What I'm going to do is pull quotes from each piece that highlight the manipulation of readers. Anyone can do what I've done here. A journalism degree is helpful but not necessary.
CNN
I'll start with CNN. An opinion piece updated yesterday by Jane Greenway Carr is titled "Opinion: What a Nobel laureate's take on Donald Trump reveals about today." The Nobel laureate in question is Toni Morrison. I want to quote and briefly review Carr's second paragraph. Here's the first sentence:
In Morrison's formulation, fear-driven devotion to racial status is more powerful to many White Americans than even self-interest, shame, or any belief in humanity.
I think Carr is laying it on a bit thick here with a touch of Disney and a touch of hyperbole (all Disney films end with big culture or universe-saving showdowns), but I have no qualms with the logic or sentiment. Then we get to the second sentence:
And it is this reality, that White Americans' anxieties in the face of a changing country have been and continue to be weaponized with disastrous and violent results, that has been instrumental in fueling the spread of so-called "replacement theory," the false and bigoted claim that elites are conspiring to replace Whites with minorities.
Now this sentence is interesting. I'm okay with the use of the word "weaponized" here. Understand, however, that using "weaponized" clearly means that the weaponization is not just happening free of human influence or planning. Saying that the violence is a result of a population segment being weaponized points the finger at human planning and design, and U.S. politics with its human avatars, as pre-meditating the disastrous results and massaging the violence into reality. If Carr wants to present things this way, I'm good with it, but I will circle back to it in a moment.
The line that serves as the backbone of Carr's piece and with which I have issues is the clause that closes the second paragraph, "...so-called 'replacement theory,' the false and bigoted claim that elites are conspiring to replace Whites with minorities." It must be nice to write whatever you want about something because you're so on the side of justice and The American Way. Here are the problems with that final clause:
1) Whites ARE being replaced by minorities. If not directly tit for tat, then outnumbered and replaced in terms of voting counts and political power. So the falsity alleged by Carr must lie not in the argument that Whites aren't being replaced, but in the claim that "elites are conspiring."
2) "Conspiring" has quite a few definitions, so please review them yourself. My point is that if a writer is going to claim that there is no "conspiring," he has a tall, tall task. Because every law, ordinance, speech, and meeting that affects racial policies or immigration policies is a form of conspiring. It would be difficult to place interactions and activities by elites regarding these policies as outside a Venn diagram defining "conspiring." Carr seems to want to define "conspiring" as membership in Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil.
If Whites are indeed being replaced, and elites are indeed having meetings and forming policies that affect and control the pace of it, where exactly is the falseness of the claim? And if these things are true, how are such claims "bigoted?" I don't even know if claims can be bigoted in and of themselves, but I learn something new every day.
My problems with that last clause are simply these: Whites ARE being replaced. Elites ARE affecting the pace of it, regardless of whether they are card-carrying evil mutants. Basically, it's disingenuous for writers to present the whole demographic shift as some kind of natural law that's happening in a political and influence vacuum. Carr is on a moral high horse, and she's going out of her way to spin her presentation and manipulate her readers. The giveaway to her writing dishonestly is that she never broaches the actual numbers regarding immigration or demographic shifts. This ignoring of numbers and trends seems to be a strategy all of these writers employ, and it's not a coincidence. Maybe it's a conspiracy?
I want to take a moment to return to Carr's declaration that White Americans have been weaponized. Her perspective doesn't assume that violence is simply happening as a natural result of cultural fault lines and a snowballing of frictions. No, it posits people and organizations as key parts of the provenance of the violence. Carr assigns cause-and-effect rather than accepting some naturalistic explanation sans specific boogeyman individuals and organizations. What's interesting, however, is that she refuses to explore or even mention the fact that individuals and organizations are part of the cause-and-effect of White Americans becoming a minority. She employs different perspectives, language, and questions depending on what suits her sermon when. And to repeat, she mentions no numbers, no historical markers and trends regarding the demography of Whites becoming a minority. She ignores laying out the statistical details for replacement theory's claims. She recognizes that NOT stating the numbers helps what effect she's trying to have on her audience.
Business Insider
The second piece I'll examine is by Yelena Dzhanova, published about 48 hours ago by Business Insider. The gist of Dzhanova's piece is about Tucker Carlson and how he should be held accountable in some legal sense for promulgating the idea of replacement theory. First, let me explain the structure of the piece. Dzhanova is writing about an interview conducted by CNN's Jim Acosta. Acosta's subject was former Fox political correspondent Carl Cameron. Cameron had some strong declarative opinions regarding how Tucker Carlson should be held accountable for "lying."
I'm going to start by quoting two paragraphs and then taking a look at them. Here's the first paragraph:
As Insider's Connor Perrett and Kieran Press-Reynolds reported, police say they found a document belonging to the Buffalo shooting suspect that was rife with conspiracy theories such as white nationalist "replacement theory," which claims immigration by non-white people is an attempt to replace the white population in the United States.
Now here's my issue with this paragraph. Saying that replacement theory "claims immigration by non-white people is an attempt to replace the white population in the U.S." is not a problem. The problem lies in implying, assuming, or declaring that the line itself is somehow wrong. Non-white people are replacing white people. They are enroute to outnumbering them, first of all. Second, if you're talking about political power, then overwhelming immigration flooding does replace white political power with non-white political power. One doesn't necessarily need an Invasion of the Body Snatchers body-for-body direct substitution for the word "replacement" to be appropriate. Third, demographers do predict that in a few years, the white American population will actually begin to decline. White deaths will outnumber white births. When that happens, there is an almost Invasion of the Body Snatchers vibe to foreign born citizens replacing dying Caucasians.
This brings me to an important point that I'll explore more fully in future entries: If a theory is more or less correct, what is the true utility in labeling it a "conspiracy theory?"
Moving along, I want to highlight the author's somewhat torturous use of the phrase "is an attempt" in this paragraph. The author tries to anchor the falseness of the theory in the falseness of the words "an attempt." "An attempt" suggests coordination, planning, policies, and effort mustered in pursuit of a goal. If this is what "an attempt" means, then in reality there is "an attempt." Demographic shifts that are primarily fueled by policies are not acts of God or laws of nature that occur without man's hand on the wheel. There are indeed plans and policies and attempts involved. To argue otherwise is absurd.
Dzhanova's next paragraph states:
Carlson latched onto that theory in his coverage of the Buffalo shooting, said Cameron, adding that the US government has to take action against people who spread and amplify misinformation.
I am no fan of Tucker Carlson, but since when is telling it like it is spreading and amplifying misinformation? If the information being spread is for the most part factually correct, what trick of linguistics, logic, or morality allows one to label accurate information as misinformation?
Next, I'd like to comment on Dzhanova's second bullet point at the opening of the article. Here it is:
* Carl Cameron said Carlson has been "screaming fire in a crowded movie house for years."
If the movie house is on fire, is it lying to shout fire? Or are we to blithely accept the occasional movie house fire as the natural progression of things, propelled by laws of nature best left unimpeded?
I want to wrap up the Business Insider discussion by pointing out that this piece curiously avoids demographic numbers or laying out immigration trends. What it does not say is wholly in lockstep with the CNN piece examined previously.
USA Today
Written by Will Carless, the title is "Yes, American voter demographics are changing. No, that's not what Replacement Theory is." The piece was published 24 hours ago. At the top of the piece are three bullet points. Here they are:
* Last week's mass shooting in Buffalo has drawn renewed attention to a racist conspiracy theory known as "replacement theory."
* The theory is often mischaracterized and confused with demographic changes that are happening in the United States.
* True "replacement theory" posits not just that demographics are changing, but that this change is being orchestrated by a sinister cabal.
Let's review Carless' bullet points one by one. I'm going to get a little bit snarky with the first two.
Regarding the first bullet point. Ahem. I am not a fan of using "racist" as an adjective, especially when the noun is not human. This is a relatively new thing. I have issues with the word "racist" attached declaratively as an adjective to theories and events. If you want to use "racists' theory," be my guest. I'm better with that.
Regarding the second bulletin point. Ahem. We have two uses of passive voice in the second bulletin point. Hard for a reader to not notice that. This second bullet feels like it's contorting itself to make some oblique point. When writers resort to passive voice, it usually means they prefer to not spell out who is doing what to whom. The best use of passive voice I've ever encountered was while trying to edit an army report about a tank that was accidentally driven into a swamp. It took three pages before I had any idea what the report was about or that tanks were involved.
Once again, as in the CNN and Business Insider pieces, "demography changes that are happening" tries to passively ignore that they aren't occurring purely through laws of nature. No mention of policies or people formulating policies. No numbers or trends. Same as the two pieces previously discussed.
The third bullet point attempts to impose a particular straw man definition of replacement theory. Carless has decided to define "true" replacement theory as one that requires demographic change "being orchestrated by a sinister cabal." And we're back to Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil once again.
Frankly, I don't know what to do with this. Carless is an expert on extremism, so perhaps he has a sense of what percent of people who espouse replacement theory are "true" replacement theory believers. From my perspective, and I did a fair share of cult research in my youth, Carless is generating a false dichotomy. I see replacement theory as anchored in facts. I also see advocacy as existing on a large continuum. Assigning belief in a "sinister cabal" as necessary for being a "true" replacement theorist seems quite a stretch. It's almost as if Carless is attempting to undermine any legitimacy, any reasonable conversation, about the topic by defining all "true" believers as paranoid psychopaths. I think this exacerbates the problem and is the wrong approach. I do wish him luck with this endeavor (and yes, Sheldon, that was sarcasm).
Looking back on Carless' piece, again there are no clearly stated demographic numbers or trends. No math to make real the replacement theorists' concerns. No mention of policies and people making policies as being part of the American demographic process.
Conclusion
A big chunk of the people who read this will decide that I'm somehow defending Tucker Carlson and a psychotic murderer. The fact that some readers may react to this entry that way is why I'm writing it. The behavior of the Buffalo shooter isn't the debate; the debate is why corporate media responded in predictable and journalistically inappropriate ways regarding a complex subject, replacement theory.
The propaganda that's most insidious is propaganda that you don't notice because you're already on board with the emotions it's trying to generate. You're resonating with it, and amplified by it, and you don't notice what it's not telling you. I anticipated how American media would respond, and I was correct. I didn't go searching for these three pieces to make my own argument. They all popped up at the same time, written with the same emphases and the same holes highlighting what they don't want to publicly acknowledge, much less discuss.
In some ways, these are the best examples of current American propaganda. They manipulate, they influence, and they avoid mentioning anything that may clog their filters. I'll return to this subject next week, featuring my own bullet points.
Bob Dietz
May 23, 2022
