Crusius had previously warned of an invasion and wrote about the threat outsiders posed to white Americans’ way of life. Significantly, Crusius perceived immigrants as threats to Americans’ most essential resources — like water and land.
For years I’ve reported on climate change, but the events in El Paso led me to think about the changes of a warming world — heat waves, hurricanes, droughts — not just as disasters themselves, but as immense pressures that could exacerbate grievances that were already driving a historic division among the American people. This line of reporting quickly led me into an examination of American extremism and to what is known as the “great replacement theory,” the fear that immigrants are streaming into this country to replace white Americans. It’s perpetuated today by far-right pundits who use concerns about natural resource scarcity to push their anti-immigrant views. What you might not know is that these pundits are using a playbook created decades earlier by an environmentalist and nativist named John Tanton. And that’s where today’s big story from ProPublica begins. I hope you’ll give it a read. |
