I've been listening to PBS/NPR for decades and probably three or four times a year, until the Great Replacement conspiracy theory gained enough ground in the U.S., there'd be some story on demographic changes and it'd include how soon some new state would come into play for Democrats, or how the Republicans would no longer be a viable party. For instance, this analysis in 2010 concludes that "It’s difficult to look across these many demographic changes and not believe that the Republican Party as currently constituted is in need of serious and substantial changes in approach."

Where it becomes a conspiracy theory is that the goal is to replace white people and that intentional and often illegal means are employed to enact demographic change.

And, as the article I linked above somewhat acknowledges, but some don't so much, the parties can just shift positions a little bit and both are competitive again. Neither the people gloating about it on the left or screaming about it on the right seem to pay attention to that part. But the people screaming on the right aren't wrong that people on the left have been gloating for a long time, and if you're going to impute ill intent of everyone (as the extreme sides of both parties are wont to do, especially these days), it's not terribly surprising that "they love the idea that demographic change will let them win" turns into "they produce demographic change that will let them win".

The point is, though, if Hatians or whomever come into the United States--it's not an accident, "oops, I was driving from Port-au-Prince to Gonaives and took a wrong turn and ended up in Springfield"--and settle somewhere, decent human beings, even those who were in the U.S. before and object, try to find humane ways to deal with the issue, not rioting and killing/injuring tens/hundreds of the "replacers". That's as far as the analogy goes.

If someone comes and lives near you, nonviolently, and you wish that they weren't, enacting violence upon them is not in the list of reasonable forms of redress.

I'm not going to defend the proposition that religion, culture, 3000 years of history, 1600 years of history, 700 years of history, 75 years of history, or even 10 years of history entitles people to forcefully occupy land that belonged to others.

If I am unfairly evicted from my home, I don't have a right to come back and use violence to displace whomever lives there after me, even if they supported my eviction. It was unfair, unjust, and I have to move on and seek redress some other way. You might be able to empathize with my vengeful thoughts, if I have them, but you ought not condone vengeful actions.

"I blew up 45 police cars and three office buildings and it was all cool because my wife was killed by a corrupt police officer and the police department defended him" might work in action movies. It's a terrible way to run real life, unless you like your office buildings to blow up all the time.

I will, however, defend the proposition that war and ongoing organized violence entitles people to forcefully occupy land that is central to keeping themselves safer from violence and less prone to being overrun in war; and also entitles people to leave the area of war and violence so they may settle somewhere safer. This follows from basic acceptance of right to life. (Rights themselves are a somewhat fraught concept, as I've written about elsewhere, but here it's a simplification that works pretty well.)

Critically, and sadly, that means that to an extent, two populations in conflict with each other each have the right to take military action against the other once things start getting violent. That doesn't mean it's the smartest thing to do. It doesn't mean that anything is permitted, just that which is central to making a reasonable attempt at restoring safety for one's own side. But it not the tango--it only takes one, not two, to war.

Those who place other concerns well above life--say, they think they're the chosen people; or maybe they divide the world into the land of Islam and the land of war--might come up with other sorts of frameworks. We don't have to accept them.

We can simultaneously think Zionism was a bad idea, that the Right of Return is a bad idea, that Zionism saved on the order of 100,000 Jews from being killed in the Holocaust, that Israel was a bad idea, that xenophobic religion-mediated violence against Jewish immigration was a bad idea, that the Islamic countries attacking Israel instead of accepting the 1948 borders was a bad idea, that the settlements in the West Bank are a bad idea, that Israel is justified in conducting a war against Gaza in response to the attack on October 7th, that Israel is not justified in the degree of casualties and destruction that it has caused, and so on. We don't have to accept narratives warped by a desperate desire to paint one's religion-fuelled beliefs as pure and noble, and we don't have to accept retribution as more important than building a better future.

You ask me to pick a lane. But the 76 year history lane leaves one blind to extremely important context, and the 3000 year history lane is too long to be functionally useful. Pick 150 years, or pick 18 years, or pick 13 months. These are each cases where there were important major changes in the state of affairs from a background of relative calm/consistency, so starting anew from then has some internal coherency to it.