On January 15th, we discussed here at the Latino Observatory the issue of political radicalization in the United States and the risks of the rise of violence as a political weapon in the country, including drawing attention to the risk of an eventual civil war, as some American political analysts fear. Violent actions are increasingly constant, against the background of widespread racial hatred with neo-Nazi groups that are currently linked to the Republican Party.

We can mention three examples of actions of internal terrorism practiced by the extreme right. The first occurred on October 27th, 2018, when extremist Robert Bowers attacked the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, murdering 11 people and injuring seven others. The attack on the Jewish community took place, according to the terrorist, inspired by the conspiracy theory known as the “Great Replacement”.

Also, under the inspiration of the same conspiracy theory, far-right activist Patrick Wood Crusius opened indiscriminate fire on customers at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, on August 3rd, 2019. In the attack, they were murdered 23 people and 23 others were injured. This was the deadliest attack against members of the Latino/Hispanic community in the country's recent history. The terrorist said that he focused on Mexican immigrants. Shortly before the attack, Crucius posted a message on the online forum “8chan” (back to the internet in 2019 as “8kun”) in which he mentions the 2018 Christchurch Mosque massacre in New Zealand, in which dozens of Muslims were murdered.

The third attack worth mentioning took place in Buffalo, New York on May 16th, 2022, when far-right terrorist Payton S. Gendron shoot at the Tops Friendly Market and murdered 10 people, and injured three others. Most of the victims was part of the African-American community. The white supremacist himself (a euphemism for Nazis in the United States) admitted that the attack was racially motivated. He also invoked the Great Replacement conspiracy theory.

There are many sources that explain and analyze the Great Replacement theory. The Wikipedia entry is quite enlightening, as is the explanation by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL). According to the sources, this racist and far-right theory was spread by Frenchman Renaud Camus and postulates that the so-called “globalist” elites are promoting a “replacement” of the population of Caucasian (white) origin by non-white peoples, such as Arabs, African, and Asian in Europe, especially by the incentive to the immigration of groups that belong to non-white and Christians communities, a fact that would shake the cultural and religious traditions of France. According to Wikipedia and the ADL, although similar ideas have characterized a number of far-right theories since the late 19th century, such as the theories of Frenchman Maurice Barres and Adolf Hitler, the current concept was popularized by Camus in his book 2011 “Le Grand Replacement”, or the Great Replacement.

Camus argues that the "Great Replacement" was nurtured by the industrialization, de-spiritualization, and deculturation that characterize materialist and global society, which created a kind of replaceable human being without any national, ethnic, or cultural specificity. In this regard, the text of the former Brazilian Chancellor, Ernesto Araújo, deserves attention, who in the magazine “Cadernos de Política Exterior”, wrote an article entitled “Trump and the West”, in which he reproduces the arguments of the international far-right against “globalism” and the loss of national identity in the West.

This conspiracy theory was incorporated by far-right parties in Europe and migrated to other countries where the majority of the population is Caucasian, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Supporters of the theory believe that there is a political project linked to immigration that would ultimately extinguish the original white population in favor of people of color, even claiming that whites would suffer genocide in their own nation.

According to the ADL, the "great replacement" philosophy was quickly adopted and promoted by the white supremacist movement, as it fits their conspiracy theory about the imminent destruction of the white race, otherwise known as "white genocide." It is also a strong echo of the white supremacist rallying cry, the so-called “14 words”: “We must ensure the existence of our people and a future for white children”. Since many white supremacists, particularly those in the United States, blame Jews for non-white immigration to the country, replacement theory also includes anti-Semitism, as it is not restricted to the black, Latino/Hispanic, and Asian population in the United States. 

It is worth mentioning how this conspiracy theory has found reverberation in traditional media to expand beyond social networks on the Internet, further according to the ADL:

In July 2017, Lauren Southern, a Canadian far-right activist, posted a video titled “The Great Replacement” promoting Camus’ themes. That summer, Southern was involved in “Defend Europe,” a project lead by European white nationalists to block the arrival of boats carrying African immigrants. Southern’s video further popularized Camus’ theory.

In October 2018, on Fox News' The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham said, "Your views on immigration will have zero impact and zero influence on a House dominated by Democrats who want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever-increasing number of chain migrants".

In October 2019, Jeanine Pirro was discussing Democrats' hatred of Trump on Fox Nation's The Todd Starnes Show. She declared, "Think about it. It is a plot to remake America, to replace American citizens with illegals that will vote for the Democrats".

On April 8th, 2021, on Tucker Carlson Tonight, the host explicitly promoted the ‘great replacement” theory. Carlson discussed “Third World” immigrants coming to the US who affiliate with the Democratic Party. He asserted, “I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term 'replacement,' if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate — the voters now casting ballots — with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World, but they become hysterical because that's what's happening, actually. Let's just say it. That's true".

On April 11th, 2021, Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, posted on his own platform: “Now today the ADL is trying to cancel Tucker Carlson for daring to speak the truth about the reality of demographic replacement that is absolutely and unequivocally going on in The West. These are not ‘hateful’ statements, they objective facts that can no longer be ignored”.

As we discussed in the analysis of May 22 th, there is a strong link between the proceeding of creating fake news on the Internet, such as the theory of the “Great Replacement”, and its validation by the mainstream conservative press. In this aspect, it becomes interesting to follow how a traditional party like the Republican exchanges its history for short-term gain that can make the country politically unfeasible.

On March 20th, 2022, the Latino Observatory highlighted the news that Texas primaries pointed to the trend of growing support for the Republican Party among Latino voters. It may seem a paradox if, in fact, this trend materializes in the midterm elections of November 2022, as Republicans boast anti-immigration rhetoric and, most of them, adhered to the racist theories embraced by the Tea Party, Q-Anon, and by the theory of the Great Replacement. A feasible explanation concerns the fact that Republicans have gained ground by managing to instill in part of the Latino population the idea that Democrats are socialists, contrary to “American values” and defenders of agendas that attack the traditional family, issues related to the agenda of customs, such as abortion rights, same-sex marriage and, more recently, the so-called “Critical Racial Theory”, as we discussed in the March 13th analysis. These niches of the Latino community are indifferent to the racism manifested by broad sectors of the Republican Party.

The FiveThirtyEight website drew attention to this contradiction. On the one hand, Republicans seek to consolidate the support they enjoy among white voters, who make up 80% of their supporters, spreading alarmist messages against an alleged immigrant invasion, against the “Great Replacement” and the progressive-sponsored culture war. In the aforementioned article, he asks: “But where does this leave the GOP in its efforts to appeal to voters of color, especially the Latinos whom J D Vance [Republican candidate for the Ohio Senate] and others have routinely cast as bogeymen despite then-President Donald Trump making sizable gains among them in 2020? At first glance, this messaging may seem at odds with a GOP that has tried to rebrand itself in fits and spurts as the party of the working class for all Americans. Yet, as counterintuitive as it sounds, these messages of racial grievance could also appeal to voters of color, especially Latino voters, who were already open to supporting Republican candidates”.

The electoral logic makes the leaders of the Republican Party cling to the paradigms that were consolidated during the Donald Trump administration, even if this associates them with racist and neo-fascist discourses, and rejects any initiative defended by the Democratic Party. This was seen in the vote on tightening laws against domestic terrorism practiced by radical groups established in the United States, which took place a week after the Buffalo bombing. The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act was proposed by the domestic terrorism offices within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It passed the House on May 18th, in a tight vote. The score was 222 to 203, with only one Republican, Adam Kinzinger (IL), voting in favor of the Act.

In that context, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one day after the vote, condemned the “replacement theory” as “extremely disturbing” and the centerpiece of the racist massacre that killed 10 people in Buffalo. She challenged Republican lawmakers to publicly reject this conspiracy theory. According to a report in the Independent, relayed by Yahoo News, Pelosi taunted her opponents: “Why isn’t everyone in this congress saying I reject replacement theory?” she said outside the US Capitol on May 19th, joined by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus and Asian Pacific American Caucus.

In the context of parliamentary paralysis created by the veto power that Republicans hold in the Senate, this bill will not go ahead. Among others, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) will block the bill as he believes the new legislation will target conservative groups rather than the left. According to an article in The Hill, he stated: "I'm completely opposed to this idea that we would be giving the federal government and federal law enforcement power and authority to surveil Americans, to engage in any kind of monitoring of speech that is directed toward censorship. I think it's extremely frightening and I can't believe they haven't learned their lesson from the disinformation board debacle," Also, according to The Hill, some Republican senators see the domestic terrorism bill as another attempt to target the right, much as Democrats did after the Jan. as possible threats of domestic terrorism.

The society of the United States, as indeed of many other countries that are facing political polarization, lives in a situation of anomie, as defined by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim, where the basic social rules of coexistence are in deep crisis. When we concluded this analysis, which was motivated by the Buffalo attack, another tragedy was befalling American society: a gunman of Latin origin, Salvador Ramos, murdered 19 children of two teachers in an elementary school Uvalde, Texas, on May 24th. The city's population of 16,000 is mostly Latino. Unfortunately, this is yet another case and will not be the last in a country where the number of guns in possession of citizens is greater than the population itself. Guns, hatred, misinformation, manipulation, polarization, and indifference are explosive elements in any society, especially when racist and conspiracy theories dominate the political process, as does the Great Replacement theory.