From below:
The Southern Poverty Law Center polling found that close to 70% of
Republicans believe that this great replacement is being orchestrated by
liberal elites — which is a subtext that means either wealthy people
like George Soros and other people who have become bogeymen on the
right, or in some cases that means Jews to people — but essentially that
elites are stepping in to try to change the demographics of the United
States to either gain a political advantage or to weaken white people
and white people's political power in the United States.
https://news.yahoo.com/how-a-dangerous-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-became-part-of-the-midterm-election-season-163841108.html
Yahoo News
How a dangerous right-wing conspiracy theory became part of the midterm
election season
Kate Murphy
Producer
Fri, October 28, 2022 at 9:38 AM
This week, the nation marked the fourth anniversary of the Tree of Life
massacre, which left 11 people dead at a Pittsburgh synagogue. It was
the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in U.S. history.
The suspected white gunman, Robert Bowers, had a history of posting
antisemitic slurs on social media associated with what is known as the
“great replacement” conspiracy theory — including a rant blaming a
Jewish American group that provides aid to refugees for bringing violent
“invaders in that would kill our people.”
This theory, which promotes the baseless idea that there is a plot to
weaken the influence of white people in America, has also been peddled
by some mainstream Republican candidates during the 2022 midterm
election season, including Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters,
Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Eric Schmitt and Ohio U.S. Senate
candidate J.D. Vance.
There used to be consequences for engaging in white supremacist
rhetoric, but that kind of policing doesn’t happen anymore, Heidi
Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism,
told Yahoo News.
“I find it astounding that you can get away with pushing these ideas
knowing that it's connected directly to mass killing,” Beirich said.
“Could you imagine a politician pushing ISIS or al-Qaida beliefs when
those are directly connected to terrorism? This is no different, and
this is terrorism right here in our homeland.”
To help further explain just how dangerous the great replacement theory
is, where it came from and how it made its way into mainstream politics,
Yahoo News also spoke with Marilyn Mayo, senior research fellow at the
Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, and Michael Edison Hayden,
senior investigative reporter at the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Some
responses have been edited for length and clarity.)
Heidi Beirich: The great replacement theory is a white supremacist idea
that there is a plot either orchestrated by elites, or globalists, or
sometimes Jews in an antisemitic version, to replace white populations
in what they consider their home countries with people of color.
Depending on which country you might be in, that might be Muslims, that
might be refugees, that might be Latino immigrants here in the United
States.
The key thing is this is viewed as an orchestrated plot — so there's
something being done specifically by these terrible forces to basically
wipe out white people in what they consider their countries.
Where did the theory come from?
Marilyn Mayo: The great replacement idea has been around for quite some
time, but the most recent iteration really comes from a French writer
named Renaud Camus, who wrote a book, and before that an essay, called
"The Great Replacement." He was writing about Europe, and about
immigrants from Africa and Arab countries replacing white Europeans.
And, of course, white nationalists around the world were very much
influenced by this essay.
There are somewhat different versions of the great replacement, and
that's important to point out to people. For example, Renaud Camus, when
he was writing about the great replacement, he did not mention Jews. He
really focused on immigration and didn't talk about the Jewish
population. However, as other people start talking about the great
replacement, there are some people in the white nationalist or white
supremacist movement who do blame Jews.
So there's an antisemitic version of the great replacement, in which
Jews are blamed for bringing nonwhite immigrants into both the United
States and Europe. This is, of course, based on antisemitic tropes, and
it's this idea that Jews control world situations, or they're trying to
manipulate situations to their advantage, and that they would bring in
all these nonwhite immigrants with the idea that they would control them
and then be able to control whatever countries they're in.
There is a third version of the great replacement that is being used
quite a bit by, let's say, more mainstream figures, but still figures on
the right or on the far right. And this version has a bit of a twist to
it. It's not antisemitic, but what it basically says is that Democrats,
or the left, or liberals are trying to bring immigrants from nonwhite
countries. And they're doing this through open borders. And that the
reason they're doing this is so that these immigrants coming through
will then vote Democratic and replace what they call traditional Americans.
Why is the great replacement theory dangerous?
Mayo: The great replacement theory has inspired a number of extremist
murderers, and we've seen a rash of horrendous extremists and mass
murders in the last few years. Anders Breivik in Norway has inspired a
lot of the people who came after him — he killed 77 people because he
was opposed to immigration and wrote a manifesto about being opposed to
immigrants coming into Norway and Europe, etc.
The people who came after him, and I'm talking about Brenton Tarrant
[who shot and killed worshippers in a 2019 mosque attack in
Christchurch, New Zealand], Patrick Crusius [accused of killing 23
shoppers in 2019 at an El Paso Walmart], as well as the shooter in
Buffalo [Payton Gendron, who allegedly killed 10 Black people at a
Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket in May] — they all mentioned the great
replacement specifically, and actually said that this was a motivation
for the act that they were carrying out.
How has the great replacement theory been promoted in mainstream media
and politics?
Mayo: What we're seeing is that this idea of the great replacement is
being mainstreamed by many different pundits, politicians, media
personalities, etc. And it's part of the environment that we're seeing
right now, of grievance and a kind of victimization in this sense.
There's this idea that people, basically white Christian America, is
losing out right now due to the influx of immigrants, and not just
people that they don't consider American, but people that they don't
feel can adapt to American culture, so that they feel they don't really
belong here. But it's been weaponized in many ways because it's being
talked about by these pundits and politicians and basically in the
context of, these people are coming over and they're going to take
either your position, your job or something away from you, and therefore
you need to fear these people.
There may be legitimate issues around immigration and about the country
absorbing a large number of immigrants, but that's different from saying
that there's a plot to actually get these people to come over here and
to vote a certain way and then take your place and control the country.
And that's essentially what makes it a conspiracy theory.
Beirich: Tucker Carlson of Fox News has brought up the replacement
theory many, many times and essentially endorsed that it is actually
happening. And after the Buffalo mass shooting, where the shooter was
inspired by the great replacement theory, Tucker Carlson tried to blame
Democrats for engaging in replacement.
Beirich: I think the way that the great replacement has become so
mainstreamed in terms of an electoral strategy for candidates goes back
to Donald Trump making the decision to take on Latinos, take on
immigrants, right from that first day when he announced his run, and
also throughout the entire time that he was in office. He put in place
some of the harshest immigrant measures. He had advisers like Steve
Bannon who bought into this, and Stephen Miller, who bought into great
replacement ideas as well and had relationships with white supremacists.
And by doing that, they injected a racial issue around immigration into
campaigns. And so now conservatives are using this as a way to mobilize
their base, by demonizing immigrants, by using the great replacement
theory to argue that there's some sort of plot involved with people
coming here, and to get their base riled up on a racial issue to come
out and vote.
I've been looking at extremism networks for 30 years, and I have never
seen this kind of white supremacist hate be mainstreamed like this.
Has this conspiracy theory been normalized?
Michael Edison Hayden: The Southern Poverty Law Center polling found
that close to 70% of Republicans believe that this great replacement is
being orchestrated by liberal elites — which is a subtext that means
either wealthy people like George Soros and other people who have become
bogeymen on the right, or in some cases that means Jews to people — but
essentially that elites are stepping in to try to change the
demographics of the United States to either gain a political advantage
or to weaken white people and white people's political power in the
United States.
This has been a trend that, while disappointing, is also not at all
surprising given the kind of rhetoric that we've seen from people with
massive audiences starting in 2015. And you can really think of Trump's
first speech, in June 2015, when he spoke about Mexican people and
referring to them as rapists and things like that — from that moment on
until now, the normalization of that rhetoric is really undeniable.
