Monday, April 14, the Young Independents at the College of William and Mary hosted a debate on immigration in the James Room of the Sadler Center. The discussion was between themselves, College Republicans and Young Democrats. After shooting a video for Flat Hat Online, I decided to check out the debate. The event began with opening statements from each group. It then transitioned into a rotating format, where every club had an individual speak and take one question from each organization.
I decided to go up during this segment and speak on behalf of WMYD. I argued how much of the anti-immigration sentiment that comes out of the right is rooted in hatred of minority groups, ethnonationalism and racism. As an example, I brought up how Donald Trump has repeatedly parroted the language of Adolf Hitler when describing immigrants. A widely publicized example of this came from one of his New Hampshire campaign rallies. “They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” he said.
Donald Trump’s usage of “blood poisoning” to describe immigrants is concerning for many reasons. For one, this language directly replicates Hitler’s exterminationist language related to Jewish people. Secondly, this Nazi rhetoric is disturbing in how it tacitly endorses the racist and anti-semitic ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory. Proponents of the Great Replacement are similar to Donald Trump in that they’re also worried about the ‘blood poisoning’ of immigrants. The conspiracy theory falsely claims that non-white immigration into this country constitutes an ‘invasion’ and an intentional plot to replace the white population and culture of the United States. Many right-wing terrorists, including Nazis and white supremacists, have been directly inspired by this conspiracy theory to engage in hate crimes and acts of violence against marginalized groups.
After I finished speaking, I took a question from WMCR. The individual who asked the question began by refusing to say whether or not WMCR supported or didn’t support the Great Replacement theory. This person then went on to qualify this supposed ambiguous support with a hypothetical scenario. Seemingly making a comparison to what the Great Replacement argues, they asked what I’d think if I were a native person, witnessing my culture disappear during the 18th-19th century genocide of American Indigenous peoples. Genocide and peaceful immigration are obviously two very different things, so that confused metaphor made no sense.
What did make sense about this question was its intention. WMCR understands that they cannot explicitly endorse the Great Replacement because of how outwardly hateful and racist it is. What they can do is indicate support for this rhetoric while attempting to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability. Why else would you refuse to say whether or not you don’t support it? Why else would you not outwardly object to it? Why would you qualify your statement with a confused metaphor, indicating that you actually seemingly agree with this racist conspiracy theory?
WMCR has also done many other things that we can construe as being racist. For instance, they released a statement responding to Trump’s New York criminal convictions last summer. Among other things in the post, they referred to the conviction of Derek Chauvin as a “sham trial.” Derek Chauvin is, of course, the police officer who murdered George Floyd in a racially motivated incident, sparking protests and a nationwide racial reckoning during the summer of 2020.
WMCR has also invited a member of a white supremacist organization, the Proud Boys, to speak at one of their meetings. The person they invited was Jonathan G. Mellis, who was convicted for assaulting law enforcement at the Capitol Jan. 6, 2021. Mellis was later pardoned by Donald Trump for his actions in attempting to interfere with the certification of the 2020 presidential election. They invited him back to speak at one of their meetings a couple of months later. During the meeting, WMCR took a group photo with Mellis and posted it on their Instagram page. In the photo, you can clearly see Mellis flashing what appears to be a “white power” hand signal. With the context of Mellis belonging to a white supremacist organization, it’s relatively easy to deduce what exactly he meant by flashing that symbol. Although WMCR wants to claim that inviting a white supremacist to speak to their club doesn’t amount to an endorsement of these beliefs, it’s a bit harder to reasonably make that argument when you invite someone like Mellis not only once but twice to one of your meetings.
What should we do about this? At the very least, we should be more aware of what WMCR stands for as an organization. We should familiarize ourselves with the instances of harm that they have engaged in as an organization, especially when their actions negatively impact marginalized members of our community.
