White Replacement Theory and Rising U.S. Violence
A deep dive into dangerous U.S. trends and the conspiracy theory driving it
Ever since the mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., the media has screamed about something called “White Replacement Theory” and how it’s contributed to the radicalization of several killers in recent years.
However, what exactly is this conspiracy theory and just how much danger does it truly pose? To answer this question, I decided to explore something different: a larger trend of American society.
As a Jewish woman living in Phoenix, Ariz. who has personal ties to the Latino(x) immigrant community, I have felt the rising pressure of both growing anti-Semitism and vitriolic racism around me. Yet, I had no facts to back up what I was feeling. My journalist’s intuition told me there was a connection between the nagging feelings I could not ignore and this new public interest in White Replacement Theory.
Thus, I began my deep dive. I reached out and interviewed a genocide scholar from Rutgers University, pulled FBI hate crime statistics, and read through trend information from the Anti-Defamation League.
What I discovered is disturbing and should serve as a warning to us all.
Below is my in-depth analysis, based on my findings, of what’s happening in the United States of America and how White Replacement Theory is a symptom of a larger, growing trend.
What is White Replacement Theory?
“The idea of white replacement refers to the fear that a white population is being replaced by non-whites, often immigrants,” said Alexander Hinton, director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University and author of It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the U.S. “There are different versions in different countries. In Europe, for example, white replacement is often linked to fears about Muslim immigrants. In the U.S., the focus is now on the southern border, though it has permutations linked to fear of demographic replacement, race, and anti-Semitism that were manifest in the Buffalo shooter’s manifesto.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), White Replacement Theory (also called The Great Replacement) “has its roots in early 20th century French nationalism and books by French nationalist and author Maurice Barres.”
Although the original text concentrated on Muslims migrating to Europe and did not mention Jews, ADL states the white supremacist movement quickly adopted the ideology and added the anti-Semitic element.
“Since many white supremacists, particularly those in the United States, blame Jews for non-white immigration to the U.S., the replacement theory is now associated with anti-Semitism,” ADL says on its website.
White Replacement References in the Public
Several mass shooters have referenced ideology from White Replacement as the motive for their killing sprees. The ADL compiled a list of these incidents on its website, but more recent ones include:
Buffalo supermarket in May 2022, New York — Payton Gendron allegedly killed 10 people, targeting them because they are Black. Investigators are currently confirming that a white supremacist manifesto Gendron allegedly wrote before the killing spree is authentic. According to an article from the NY Post, “the self-described white supremacist and anti-Semite came to see low white birth rates around the world as a ‘crisis’ that ‘will ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people,’ he wrote.”
Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018, Pittsburgh, Penn. — white supremacist Robert Bowers killed 11 people at the synagogue. Beforehand, he wrote a Gab post blaming Jews for bringing non-white immigrants and refugees to the U.S.
El Paso Walmart in August 2019, Texas — white supremacist Patrick Crusius killed 23 people and wounded nearly an additional two dozen. Before the shooting, he wrote about a “Hispanic invasion” and referenced the Great Replacement in a manifesto.
Additionally, several U.S. politicians or media pundits have referenced White Replacement ideology or messaging, including:
U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who tweeted, “There is an attempted cultural genocide going on in America right now.”
Fox News host Jeanine Pirrio said in 2019, when talking about the Left’s hatred for Donald Trump, “Think about it. It is a plot to remake America, to replace American citizens with illegals that will vote for the Democrats.”
Laura Ingraham said on Fox News in 2018, “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.”
Hinton, who is also a distinguished professor of anthropology at Rutgers, explained the fear of immigrant invasion has long been with American society.
“What is new is the way it has been stoked by a charismatic leader (Trump), a network (Fox opinion), a new technology (social media), and now a growing number of mainstream right-wing politicians,” Hinton said. “White Replacement is no longer exceptional. It is an extremist idea that is now mainstream.”
Growing Violent Trends
Individual examples of White Replacement Theory in the public eye can certainly point to a growing trend, but what do actual crime statistics say?
According to FBI Hate Crime Statistics, hate crimes in the United States rose by 41% between 2015 and 2020, increasing steadily each year. The top driver of all hate crimes related to race/ethnicity/ancestry, with anti-Black crimes leading the bias each year. Additionally, anti-Jewish crimes led for religious-based crimes, and Jews were the second or third most targeted group for all five years.
Hinton said there is “a clear correlation” between these hate crime statistics and White Replacement Theory, although hate crimes do have many causes. When it comes to psychological drivers of mass violence, however, Hinton said demonization is the key.
“There are always multiple drivers of genocide and other atrocity crimes like crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing – upheaval, a history of atrocity crimes, polarization, the breakdown of buffers, and so forth,” he said. “Among the psychological drivers, demonization is key. In mass violence, blame is always displaced.”
Blame Messaging, Demonization, and Early Nazi Germany
If we look to our world’s past for examples, history proves Hinton correct. Nazi Germany’s official “Proclamation of the Reich Government to the German People”—the official government document issued Feb. 1, 1933 (two days after the Nazis seized power)—clearly lays the groundwork for a future demonization campaign that eventually led to the systematic murder of 12 million people, of which 6 million were Jews.
I looked up this document for myself, having found it online through Arizona State University’s (ASU) Library Collections for Holocaust Studies, which linked to the German Historical Institute’s online library in Washington, D.C.
The document, as published by the German Historical Institute, states:
“The National Government will therefore regard it as its first and supreme task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will. It will preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our state. Standing above estates and classes, it will bring back to our people the consciousness of its racial and political unity and the obligations arising therefrom. It wishes to base the education of German youth on respect for our great past and pride in our old traditions. It will therefore declare merciless war on spiritual, political and cultural nihilism. Germany must not and will not sink into Communist anarchy.”
“Proclamation of the Reich Government to the German People (February 1, 1933),” The German Historical Institute, Washington, DC.
As you can see, the Nazi Party demonized communists—to whom it tied Jews soon thereafter—and claimed its national strength lay in the country’s traditions, which included Christian morality, a focus on the nuclear family, and racial unity.
The Nazis’ Christian morality argument and its tie to racial unity sounded eerily close to messaging from modern-day Christian nationalists in the United States. I therefore asked Hinton if he saw a correlation between Christian nationalism in the U.S. and White Replacement Theory.
“While Christian nationalism is broad and varied,” Hinton said, “it aligns with the idea of White Replacement in its imagination of the U.S. as a predominantly white, Christian nation that is now under threat.”
Interestingly enough, a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center found that nearly half of Americans believe the Bible should influence U.S. laws. More than a quarter of those people also believe the government should favor the Bible over the will of the people.
Could the U.S. Be Heading Toward Another Genocide?
Ultimately, this was the question I was trying to answer. I certainly hope we are not heading toward another genocide. I do believe enough good people still live in the U.S. to prevent such an atrocity from happening. Yet, the trends certainly point to growing genocidal anger based on targeted demonization, including the recent amplification of White Replacement talking points across multiple avenues.
Hinton said the key message he wants the American public to remember is in the name of his book: “it can happen here.”
“Genocide and atrocity crimes are part of U.S. history dating back to its settler colonial origins, which involved the destruction of Native Americans (to take their lands) and, soon thereafter, enslavement (to work the lands that had been taken),” Hinton said. “We need to recognize that ‘it has happened here’ and can happen again.”
If you see the importance of the message in this commentary, please amplify it by sharing this post with your friends and family via Facebook, Twitter, text message, or email.
Don’t miss the next post by Shari Lopatin and subscribe to Rogue Writer for more sociopolitical commentary, serialized fiction, and personal essays.
Someone else on Substack gave me a link to watch a biography of Elmore Leonard on PBS https://www.pbs.org/show/elmore-leonard-dont-try-write/?r=3f2i3&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email and on there it mentioned a series on HULU called Justified. Timothy Olyphant. At least the episode one is about white nationalism. Quite a presentation. Interesting synchronicity.
Jeanine Pirrio is the daughter of Lebanese-American parents. Second born. If her father had not immigrated. If my great grandparents had not immigrated. I have a Christian neighbor who shut the door on me yesterday when I tried to tell her a renter in the building she knows had a birthday the day prior. I know she reads lots of this Christian stuff. I had a sense early on that what happened in WWII wasn't done. Your piece is thorough and frightening. I sincerely hope that calling it out, pointing it out, naming it and identifying those with beliefs aligned will keep them from acting out further. I too believe there are good people here. The world is upside down. I am sorry so many seem to feel, like Alex Jones, that there is money to be made delivering data to the unconscious. Your work is professional and trustworthy.