I know that the left
and all the little gatekeepers on
Twitter become literally
hysterical if you use the term
replacement.
If you suggest the Democratic
Party is trying to replace the
current electorate
with new people, more obedient
voters from the Third World.
But they become hysterical because
that's that's what's happening,
actually. Let's just say it.
That's true.
If look, if this was happening in
your house, your parents adopted
a bunch of new siblings and
gave them brand new bikes.
You would say to your siblings, you
know, I think we're being replaced
by by kids that our parents love
more.
That's Tucker Carlson.
Summary of the great replacement
theory, a trendy conspiracy
theory that was echoed in ongoing
comments from Republican members of
Congress, such as Matt Gaetz and
Elise Stefanik of New York.
She's run campaign ads accusing
the Democrats of planning a
permanent election insurrection
by granting amnesty to 11
million illegal immigrants
who will overthrow our current
electorate and create a permanent
liberal majority in Washington.
The great replacement theory is
spectacularly wrong in asserting
that the government is really going
to create millions of new citizens
overnight, or that in the unlikely
event that that actually happened,
they will be obedient in voting
for Democrats.
Tucker and his pals are also really
worried about the government giving
all sorts of new and better and
shinier stuff to immigrants.
But he's got it backwards.
Immigrants consume fewer welfare
benefits than native born Americans.
And historically, when the U.S.
has had an open door policy, there's
no evidence that government spending
has been greater than in the periods
when immigration has really been
restricted.
The last truly major immigration law
was passed in 1986, when
Ronald Reagan signed bipartisan
legislation that ultimately
allowed 2.7 million illegal
immigrants, mostly from Mexico,
to gain citizenship.
Since then, reform in Washington
has proven elusive.
Indeed, like George W Bush's
promise in the mid 2000s,
Joe Biden's stated desire
to provide a path to citizenship
for 11 million illegals has gone
exactly nowhere.
Partly because he's maintained and
in some cases even expanded.
Donald Trump's terrible, draconian
immigration policies.
But even if those immigrants somehow
became citizens overnight,
there's no reason to believe they'd
automatically vote for Democrats
and produce what Representative
Stefanik calls that permanent
liberal majority in Washington.
Think about this.
Within a few years of Reagan's
amnesty program, the GOP
took control of the House for the
first time in 40 years.
More recently, between 2016
and 2020, Donald Trump made
gains with every demographic
group except for white men
who's getting replaced.
In the 2004 election,
George W Bush grabbed 44%
of the Hispanic vote, which was just
five points off the 49%
of the Hispanic vote he secured in
the 1998 Texas
governor race.
Believers in the great replacement
theory might be surprised to learn
that Greg Abbott won 44%
of the Hispanic vote in his first
run for the governor's mansion in
2014.
And that Texas and Florida are not
only the two fastest growing major
states, but they are also major
magnets for immigrants and yet keep
getting more and more Republican.
There's at least one more thing to
consider, too.
Representative Stefanik and other
replacement theories routinely
inveigh against reckless spending
and the need to rein in government
spending. Hooray!
I'm with you on that.
But here's the thing.
Higher levels of immigration
seem to discourage big hikes
in government spending.
It was only after the United
States closed its borders in the
1920s that government
spending ratcheted up sky
high and stayed there.
As Alex Nowrasteh and Andrew
C Forester, the Cato Institute of
Documented between 1921
and 1968, restrictive
immigration laws cut the percentage
of the population that was foreign
born from 13%
down to 4.8%.
During that same period, though,
the New Deal and Great Society
programs because government spending
as a percentage of GDP to soar
from 6.9% to
18.9%.
That's a hike of 174%.
Immigration laws were loosened up
in 1968 and the foreign
born population started growing
again, reaching almost 14%
in 2017.
Yet over that same time period,
federal outlays as a percentage of
GDP went from 18.9%
to 20.4%,
an increase of less than 8%.
What explains this relative
stinginess on the part of Americans?
Americans may have been more
tolerant of spending increases
because closed immigration removed
the politically effective immigrant
welfare queen argument, according to
Nebraska and Forester.
Ironically, if proponents
of the great replacement theory
really want to get government
spending under control, they'd
best start lobbying for more.
Newcomers, including from countries
whose descendants voted in bigger
numbers for Donald Trump in
2020.