Democrats can celebrate the migrants pouring into America as a hopeful new generation, but the moment a Republican suggests his political opponents see illegal immigrants as a potential new voting bloc, he’s a racist conspiracy theorist.
Just ask the Southern Poverty Law Center, which acknowledged Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., winning election to become speaker of the House by attacking what it called “hate groups” that celebrated his elevation. Toward the top of this screed, the SPLC slammed the new speaker’s “xenophobic rhetoric and policies” and faulted Johnson for echoing a “racist conspiracy theory.”
The “hate group” attack comes as no surprise.
As I explain in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC weaponized its track record of suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy by branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups” and putting them on a “hate map” alongside Klan chapters. A former employee called the hate accusations a “highly profitable scam,” and the “hate map” inspired a 2012 terrorist attack at a Christian nonprofit in Washington, D.C.
The SPLC has used its “hate group” accusation to smear conservatives and Republicans while turning a blind eye to extremists such as Antifa on the Left.
Yet the claims about Johnson echoing a “racist conspiracy theory” mark a new line of attack against the new speaker—and they are so baseless, one need read nothing besides the SPLC’s own claims to debunk them.
“Some of Johnson’s statements on immigration mimic ‘great replacement’-style rhetoric,” the SPLC claims. “The ‘great replacement’ is a false and racist conspiracy theory purporting that white people are being intentionally displaced by ‘elites’ and replaced by immigrant people of color.”
Elsewhere, the SPLC specifies that this conspiracy theory often faults the Jews as being the “elites” responsible.
How has Johnson supposedly propped up this conspiracy theory?
“Johnson has repeatedly accused Democrats of encouraging immigration to secure a supportive voting base,” the SPLC breathlessly intones.
You see, the Louisiana Republican dared criticize President Joe Biden’s lax border enforcement during a July 2021 appearance on Fox News.
The ostensibly damning quote?
‘Why in the world would any elected official in this country go along with this terrible policy? This dangerous set of policies that they’re engaging in? You’re always drawn to that ultimate conclusion: They want to turn these people into voters,’ Johnson said.
Yet the SPLC has more evidence, dear reader.
Johnson repeated a similar argument during a July 2022 episode of his podcast ‘Truth Be Told,’ which Johnson hosts with his wife, Kelly. He described the Democrats’ ‘ultimate objective’ as being ‘to turn illegal aliens into Democrat voters.’ In a hearing later that same month with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Johnson said, ‘We have a literal invasion of lawless masses flooding over our border from more than 160 countries.’
Nowhere in these quotes does Johnson mention the illegal immigrants’ races. Nowhere does he suggest that a cabal of “elites” or Jews has orchestrated a replacement of “white people.” The only “replacement” he seems to worry about is a potential replacement of voters, the ultimate sovereign in America’s constitutional government.
