How the GOP Came to Embrace ‘Replacement Theory’

Aaron Blake: “The story of the Republican Party in the Trump era is, by and large, one of a boiled frog.”

“Trump constantly pushed the envelope in ways that made his allies uncomfortable. They sometimes spoke out, especially early on, only to have the base stand by the president and rebuke them. That meant that when Trump pushed even further, his duly chastened allies increasingly responded accordingly: with silence. It’s how we got from a guy carping about supposed voter fraud in an election he won, in 2016, to a guy spurring a harebrained effort to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost.”

“The boiled frog (the proverbial tale of a frog that is boiled too slowly to realize what’s happening to it) is now returning, in the form of replacement theory. The GOP seems either unconscious of what’s happening — or doesn’t care.”