How the Radical Right's Embrace of the Great Replacement Theory Is Tied to Overturning Roe v. Wade

There is a lot of important news coming at us pretty fast these days. But David Roberts nailed it!

It is so wild to me that they're holding CPAC in Hungary, openly celebrating Orban's defeat of democracy, openly planning to do the same in the US ... it's just all out in the open now. And still the media can't seem to convey it clearly to the public.

— David Roberts (@drvolts) May 20, 2022

The CPAC conference in Hungary comes on the heels of the two biggest stories of the last month: (1) the leak of Alito's draft demonstrating that the Supreme Court is about to overturn Roe v. Wade, and (2) the shooting in Buffalo, NY by an adherent of the great replacement theory. Speaking from Hungary, Matt Schlapp (head of CPAC) tied the two stories together.

The GOP has come up with a solution for the “great replacement” it fears is threatening to replace traditional white Republican voters with immigrants: an abortion ban...

“Roe v. Wade is being adjudicated at the Supreme Court right now, for people that believe that we somehow need to replace populations or bring in new workers, I think it is an appropriate first step to give the…enshrinement in law the right to life for our own unborn children,” [Schlapp] said...

“If you say there is a population problem in a country, but you’re killing millions of your own people through legalized abortion every year, if that were to be reduced, some of that problem is solved,” Schlapp said. 

Hungary is the European country where "the great replacement theory reigns supreme." Viktor Orban's response has been to promote "procreation not immigration." So he's been tying the two together for years now. That is the basic idea behind "The Handmaid's Tale" taking root in the 21st Century.

A lot of the stories I've seen lately tie this fascination with Orban's policies in Hungary to the fact that Tucker Carlson took his talk show on the road there last fall. Sometimes those stories acknowledge that it was one of the thought leaders of the new right - Rod Dreher - who talked Carlson into the idea. But this melding of the radical right with Orban's great replacement policies started long before that.

In March 2019, the Hungarian Embassy hosted a "Make Families Great Again" conference at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Attendees at this invitation-only even included White House special assistant Katy Talento, White House strategic communications director Mercedes Schlapp (Matt Schlapp's wife) and several members of Congress.

The Trump Administration sent representatives to the International Conference on Family Policy that was held in Budapest in September 2019. There, Trump officials lauded Hungary’s “procreation, not immigration” policies.

But the Trump administration didn't just participate in conferences. HHS provided $5.1 million Title X family-planning funds to an organization called Obria, which aims to be a pro-life alternative to Planned Parenthood.

In 2015, Obria’s founder and current chief executive explained, “When [Europe’s] nations accepted contraception and abortion, they stopped replacing their population. Christianity began to die out. And, with Europeans having no children, immigrant Muslims came in to replace them, and now the culture of Europe is changing.” She warned that America is “on the same track as Europe” and that “[i]n only two of the past 40 years have we replaced our population.”

After leaving office, former Vice President Pence got in on the action by attending the Budapest Demographic Summit last September.

Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday that he is hopeful the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court created during his and President Donald Trump's administration will soon overturn abortion rights in the United States.

Pence spoke at a forum devoted to demographics and family values in Budapest, Hungary, where conservative leaders from central Europe expressed their anxieties about falling birthrates in the Western world and discussed ways to reverse the trend.

“We see a crisis that brings us here today, a crisis that strikes at the very heart of civilization itself. The erosion of the nuclear family marked by declining marriage rates, rising divorce, widespread abortion and plummeting birth rates,” Pence said.

As I've written before, this is the tie that binds the radical right's Christian nationalism, racism, and misogyny. They are making it very clear by saying it out loud and demonstrating that they're willing to destroy democracy (and, at minimum, justify violence) in their quest to implement their goals. Anyone who ignores the threat simply isn't paying attention.