26 United States The Economist May 21st 2022
naissance. He mapped out the shop’s
aisles. And his manifesto outlined his mo
tives, based on a belief in a sinister plot
known as the Great Replacement theory.
This conspiracy theory, which has deep
roots, asserts that there is a plan to bring
nonwhite people to Western countries to
replace whites. The “invaders” would
eventually lead to the extinction of the
white race. Some extremists, like one who
killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue
in 2018, think Jews are behind it all. The
previous year white supremacists chanted
“Jews will not replace us” in Charlottes
ville, Virginia, as they protested against the
removal of a confederate statue. Such rhet
oric was once confined to the fringe, but
some of its themes have been echoed by
media personalities and politicians.
A New York Timesinvestigation showed
that in more than 400 episodes of his Fox
News show, Tucker Carlson alluded to the
theory when he said that Democrats and
elites want to use immigration to force de
mographic change. During a visit to Buffa
lo on May 17th to comfort victims’ families,
President Joe Biden called white suprema
cy a “poison” which had been “allowed to
fester and grow right in front of our eyes”.
Whitesupremacist terrorist attacks
have risen alarmingly in America (see
chart on previous page). In 2019, half of all
attacks were orchestrated by supremacists,
up from 14% in 2000. New atrocities create
fears of copycat killings. The Buffalo gun
man hoped he would be emulated.
Mr Gendron wrote in his manifesto that
he became radicalised browsing 4chan, a
farright message board. Ideas travel far
and fast online. Erin Miller of the Universi
ty of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Data
base, which tracks attacks, thinks this
“creates an incentive to take action...when
you’re feeling insignificant”. Dylann Roof,
a teenager who killed nine church congre
gants in South Carolina in 2015, also radi
calised himself online. In Buffalo Mr Gen
dron copied the methods of Brenton Tar
rant, who killed 51 people at mosques in
Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019. Mr
Tarrant, too, wrote a manifesto (Mr Gen
dron lifted whole passages) and live
streamed his attack.
Hours after Mr Biden spoke, a few peo
ple yelled at police for not killing Mr Gen
dron when they had the chance. Others are
frustrated that no red flags were put on his
record last year, after he threatened to car
ry out a school shooting. Instead, he was
able to buy a weapon easily in New York,
which has stricter gun laws than Pennsyl
vania, where he also bought some of his ar
senal. Few expect a tightening. According
to Pew Research Centre polling, barely half
of Americans even want stricter laws (see
righthand chart on previous page).
There is anger in Buffalo, but mostly
there is sorrow and fear. At a vigil outside
thesupermarketonMay17th,prayersand
hugs were in abundance. People also
queuedfordonationsoffood,babyformu
laandnappies—withTopsclosed,thelow
incomeneighbourhoodiswithoutitsonly
supermarket.IsaiahGoldsmith,acollege
studentwhogrewupnearby,saysTopswas
a placewheretheneighbourhood’selderly,
includinghisgrandmother,wouldsocial
ise.JeffersonAvenueisoneofthemain
commercialarteriesforBuffalo’sAfrican
Americans.Ina way,saidonelocal,“Tops
isJefferson’sheart.”n
Comforters-in-chief
Supplychains
O’Hareport
F
or passengersarriving at the rather
faded terminals at Chicago O’Hare, it
may not feel like it. But as of last year they
are landing at America’s most important
port, measured by value of trade. In the
northeastern corner of the airport, a state
ly if ageing Korean Boeing 747 lands and
within ten minutes moves into position
outside a giant warehouse. On board,
bound in plastic and cord, are 115 tonnes of
cargo—mostly consumer electronics, but
also pharmaceuticals, food and more. In an
hour it will be unloaded, and will soon be
on trucks heading around the country. If
the cargo is worth the average of cargo pro
cessed at O’Hare, that one flight will have
brought $14m of imports into America.
Chicago is built on its transport links.
Before European settlers arrived, it was the
site of a portage between the Mississippi
river and Lake Michigan, over which peo
ple carried trade goods between boats by
hand. Later, in the mid19th century, came
the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and then
the railways, linking the fastgrowing
farmlands of the Midwest to the industrial
cities of the east coast, and turning Chica
go into the “hog butcher for the world”. To
day its airport is doing the lifting work of
the City of Broad Shoulders. And it shows
how the pandemic, and its supplychain
stresses, are changing American trade.
In 2021, reckons usTradenumbers.com,
a website, goods worth roughly $305bn
passed through O’Hare, about 6.6% of
American trade. It is far from being the port
that receives most goods by volume (that is
Los Angeles) or even the busiest airport
(Anchorage’s moves more goods). But the
2.5m tonnes moved through Chicago is
made up of far pricier stuff.
Though they are designed in California
and assembled in China, it is Chicago
where almost all Apple’s products arrive in
America. So, too, do aeroplane engines
manufactured by RollsRoyce in Britain,
car parts made in Japan and sensitive med
icines synthesised in India. Products from
midwestern factories, such as two enor
mous hotelkitchen ovens destined for
Singapore, are loaded up for the journey
out (flying things out to Asia costs a tenth
of what bringing things in does).
The pandemic has boosted the airport’s
freight business. Before covid19, people
said that “bellies [of passenger jets] are tak
ing over the world, we don’t need freight
ers”, notes Shawn McWhorter, the boss in
America of Nippon Cargo Airlines, a Japa
nese firm. For Chicago, where most flights
are domestic, that was not so positive. But
when people stopped flying because of the
pandemic, the cargo holds of passenger
planes were no longer available. Instead,
more freight has been flown into special
ised cargo terminals, like the one in Chica
go. Since 2019 the amount moved through
O’Hare has increased by 47% in value, and
almost as much in volume.
Now, passenger flights are returning,
but not everywhere. Transatlantic travel is
back almost to prepandemic levels, but far
more imports are flown in from Asia,
where covid restrictions are still in force,
so specialist cargo flights are still needed.
Other factors too are fuelling demand,
says Neel Jones Shah, a vicepresident at
Flexport, a freightforwarding firm which
operates a warehouse at O’Hare. Not only
are Americans buying more physical stuff
than ever, but also congestion at American
seaports means that items that would pre
viously have been shipped by sea are being
flown instead. Even simple car parts are
now being flown in to take to factories in
Michigan. McDonald’s French fries made
from Idaho potatoes are being flown the
other way. (Mr McWhorter recently
CHICAGO
Supply-chain woes are forcing more
trade onto planes