Xenophobia is baked in
True to form, Republicans on Day Two of their national convention leaned hard into their xenophobia. Along with “dubious or misleading statistics” cited by Kari Lake, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Mike Johnson, and Rep. Steve Scalise, Republicans repeatedly referenced (if sotto voce) the Great Replacement Theory. Specifically and falsely, they alleged that Democrats welcome non-citizens voting in elections and promote unfettered (nonwhite) immigration to turn the U.S. into a country Donald Trump would describe as a shithole.
“We cannot allow the many millions of illegal aliens they’ve allowed to cross our borders to harm our citizens, drain our resources, or disrupt our elections,” Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) told the convention. He threw in misleading statements about cities being crime-ridden. (CNN fact check):
Official data published by the FBI shows violent crime dropped significantly in the US in 2023 and in the first quarter of 2024, though there were increases in some communities; violent crime is now lower than it was in 2020, President Donald Trump’s last calendar year in office.
Kari Lake, candidate for U.S. Senate from Arizona, told the crowd that her Democratic opponent Rep. Ruben Gallego last week, “voted to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election.”
Um, no, says CNN’s fact check:
The House did not vote on whether to allow noncitizens to vote. The chamber passed a bill on July 10 that would require documentary proof of US citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Gallego voted against the legislation, which is not expected to be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
CNN’s fact chek again:
When people register to vote, they must provide a driver’s license or Social Security number, and their identity is checked against existing databases. Voters are required to swear under penalty of perjury that they are a US citizen. Noncitizens who vote illegally can face imprisonment or deportation.
Gallego said in a statement that he opposed the bill because its “only purpose is to disenfranchise tens of thousands of Arizonans, and I will not vote to take away the rights of Arizonans to stop something that is already illegal.”
(Remember, when its guns, Republicans insist no new laws are required. We simply have to enforce the laws already on the books.)
Republicans will pass a meaure “to stop illegal aliens from voting in our elections,” insisted House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, claiming without evidence that foreign prisons are being emptied to dump criminals here.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!― from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas jumped in as well, claiming 11.5 million people have crossed the southern border under the Biden administration (a gross exaggeration). He cited lurid cases of Americans harmed by noncitizens, including a Houston woman raped and mudered “by two men who were supposed to be detained and monitored but instead released and allowed to roam free.”
(For reference: Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, adjudicated in New York for sexual assault and a 34-time convicted felon, is out on bail in New York, and in Georgia in the pending election interference case.)
“It [illegal immigration] happened because Democrats cynically decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children,” Cruz insisted.
The Washington Post’s fact check:
There is no evidence for this hyperbolic claim. Federal law bans noncitizens from voting in federal elections, including races for president, vice president, Senate or House of Representatives. Under a law adopted in 1996, noncitizens who vote can face a fine or a prison term as long as a year, or both — not to mention deportation.
But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good smear job. Any excuse to make voting harder is a good one in Republican eyes.
“I don’t want everybody to vote… As a matter of fact, our leverage in the election quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” ― Paul Weyrich (1980), co-founder of the Heritage Foundation.
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