White supremacists marching with tiki torches in the “Unite the Right” Charlottesville rally was the first experience most Americans had with replacement theory. Their purpose and their chants were straight from the heart of “The Great Replacement Theory.”

“You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!”

They even added an obvious Nazi chant “blood and soil,” a phrase invoking the Nazi philosophy of “Blut und Boden.”

It’s delusional to refuse to acknowledge the rancid bigotry involved in using those chants. It’s also delusional to embrace the grab bag of racist thinking that is replacement theory.

Yet, replacement theory has become a standard component of the MAGA Mind.

Replacement Theory Roots

A formerly obscure 1973 novel by Jean Raspail, The Camp of the Saints, describes an apocalyptic nightmare of mass immigration from the South destroying white Western society. The book tells of slow moving boats descending on carrying hordes of Indian people to overrun France. He describes the incoming Indians as poor, scrawny, and sexual deviants. Darker folks similarly invaded other white European nations from different directions. The French people replaced are all radical liberals unaware and even welcoming of the incoming dangers.

The publishers are presenting The Camp of the Saints as a major event, and it probably is, in much the same sense that Mein Kampf was a major event.

The Camp of the Saints can be said to make you think. So did the My Lai massacre.

Kirkus Reviews – 1975

The book’s message is clear, immigration is a fight to the death among races. Trump’s White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon is famously a fan of the book, referencing it frequently. Bannon and White House Strategist Stephen Miller framed a “Muslim ban” implemented after Trump was inaugurated.

French Racist Rerun

Renaud Camus penned The Great Replacement in 2012. The book promoted a premise similar to Saints. White Europeans “are being reverse colonized by Black and Brown immigrants who are flooding the Continent in what amounts to an extinction-level event.” Extinction-level is a bold statement making this book a popular source among white supremacists.

One such person was the Christchurch, New Zealand terrorist who slaughtered 51 Muslim worshippers in two mosques in 2019. He left a 74 page manifesto littered with replacement theory rhetoric.

The MAGA Mind and Replacement Theory

Most MAGA people aren’t hard core Nazi white nationalists like the people marching in Charlottesville. MAGA people as a whole aren’t on 8chan or other extremist sources of white supremacist disinformation. Alex Jones and his brand aren’t on the radar of MAGA people less attached to the pulse of white nationalism. The Charlottesville Nazi people and their ilk will have searched out Mein Kampf before they got their swastika neck tattoos. They’d also find other sources supporting their fear non-whites and non-Christians will replace white Christian European based Americans.

Mainstream MAGA individuals need information from sources closer to mainstream, like Fox News or a Trump tweet, before adopting it.

Why Am I Called Racist?

Most MAGA camp people are unaware how deep the roots of racism are in the replacement theory they believe explains “open borders” purposefully left unguarded by a liberal government. There’s no reason to go searching for it when it’s on Fox News and plastered across all available social media platforms. It’s the science of distribution.

MAGA people complain they are called racist for no reason. That may be true and it’s a legitimate complaint. Still, an individuals repeating a theory so obviously racist should expect to be painted with that brush without contrary evidence. The MAGA replacement theory is one of the reasons for that moniker.

High level planners like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller have studied and understand exactly what the great replacement theory is. Bannon has been publicly selling it for at least a decade, filtering it into the mainstream. Bannon and Miller understand how to implement mounting a defense against the migrants. They also understand the politically benefits and the political cover of many people believing replacement theory. They actually did initiate that defense, though the courts slapped them down fairly quickly.

Barbarians At Our Gates

The “great replacement theory” at it’s core casts a nativist eye at immigration policies with any relaxation of strict policies as detrimental to their country. Liberal immigration laws aim to replace the culture of white people on the good side of the border with that of darker people from the bad side.

The usual technique of activating replacement theory adoption is to build fear. Terms like invasion, illegal alien, conquer, terrorist, criminal, smuggle, gangs, etc. do the trick. Defensive terms like “wall” to repel the migrant invasion is part of the technique. Using a phrase stressing the importance of preventing white America from being overrun works. Then point out a liberal plot to replace “us” with “them” so “them” will vote out “us” conservative politicians.

Look at the perfectly crafted June, 2018 tweet from the MAGA leader. It pushes the invasion fear button with “pour into and infest our Country”. Then it pushes the crime fear button by mentioning the “MS-13” gang. Finally, it wraps up the replacement theory package blaming it on Democrats who “view them as potential voters.”

That replacement theory tweet garnered 42,000 responses, 23,000 retweets, and 66,000 likes. It is one of many tweets widely distributed in 2018 with the imprimatur of the MAGA leader. MAGA people accept such tweets without questioning truthfulness.

Fox News Amplifies Replacement Theory

Tucker Carlson drew about 3 million viewers a night for Fox News until they fired him. Tucker’s role in the $787 million Dominion Voting settlement made his brand too expensive, it wasn’t his racist rants. Carlson was the mainstream media source of “us versus them” conspiracy theories. His racist tropes flew much closer to the QAnon/8chan heart of darkness than did those from his Fox colleagues. As such, he was the first to feature replacement theory as a repetitive theme to his loyal viewers.

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.

That’s what’s happening, actually. Let’s just say it: That’s true.

Tucker Carlson – Tucker Carlson Tonight (Fox News) – April 8, 2021

Let’s say that again for emphasis because it’s the key to the entire immigration debate.

Demographic change is the key to the Democratic Party’s political ambitions.

Tucker Carlson – Tucker Carlson Tonight (Fox News) – April 12, 2021

They’re trying to change the population of the entire United States and they hate it when you say that because it’s true.

Tucker Carlson – Tucker Carlson Tonight (Fox News) – May 24, 2021

In political terms this policy is called “The Great Replacement”, the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries.

Tucker Carlson – Tucker Carlson Tonight (Fox News) – September 22, 2021

A 2022 New York Times report on white nationalism stated Carlson spoke of replacement theory at least 400 times in a couple years.

Consequences of Racist Agitation

In the May 14, 2022 afternoon, a young white man wearing plated armor and a tactical helmet livestreamed his attack on a Tops supermarket. The market was in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo, NY.

The shooter was armed with a semi-automatic rifle with an illegal extended magazine. He shot thirteen people before he was done, killing ten. All ten dead were black.

The perpetrator left a 19 page document describing everything from how he modified his AR-15 style rifle to a detailed attack plan. He included a thorough outline of the ideology that drove him to it. A brief snippet of the Q&A section of his manifesto concisely tells enough of the tale.

Why did you decide to carry out the attack?
To show to the replacers that as long as the White man lives, our land will never be theirs and they will never be safe from us.

To directly reduce immigration rates to European lands by intimidating and physically removing the replacers themselves.

To intimidate the replacers already living on our lands to emigrate back to their home countries.

Buffalo Tops supermarket mass murderer

The documentation of the reasons for targeting black people makes replacement theory motivation clear, as it did in Christchurch.

Replacement Theory in Politics

Republican politicians influence and are influenced by the direction their voting base leans. Handlers and influencers all contribute to the mix of messages and how often those politicians will use that language to keep voters on their side.

MAGA-forward politicians work the hardest to keep the culture wars screaming at full volume. The best way to do that is to latch onto a controversial subject liberals care about, preferably one that triggers “wokeness”, and start pumping out relevant content.

Matt Gaetz is good at it, or his handlers are. Objections to Carlson’s replacement theory endorsements ramped up enough for “woke” people to call for Tucker Carlson’s dismissal. Gaetz saw the opportunity and responded.

So did author J.D. Vance running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio.

The media calls us racist for wanting to build Trump’s wall.

They censor us, but it doesn’t change the truth.

Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.

J.D. Vance campaign ad

There are plenty of other examples of Republican politicians repeating bits and pieces of replacement theory. All of them have some influence on a customized color of replacement theory seeping into the MAGA fabric, but none more than Donald Trump.

2024 MAGA Replacement Theory

Comparisons of current politicians with authoritarian leanings to Adolf Hitler are overblown but not wholly inaccurate in any discussion of inflammatory language and it’s effect on their followers. It took years for the MAGA replacement theory to grew into a consistent talking point.

MAGA Republican influencers like Steve Bannon have read all the books with pieces of replacement theory in them, they’ve listened to and read speeches of authoritarians through history. It’s not the intent here to invoke the name of a Nazi to trigger an immediate negative reaction.

The comparison is offered because the presumptive presidential nominee from the Republican party repeatedly used very specific language. He saw it as a tool to anger anyone on the other side, the “woke” side. So he used it purposefully and not ignorantly.

To be sure, he sometimes palms off his women on influential Christians, but as a matter of principle he always keeps his male line pure. He poisons the blood of others, but preserves his own. The Jew almost never marries a Christian woman; it is the Christian who marries a Jewess.

With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people.

For a racially pure people which is conscious of its blood can never be enslaved by the Jew.

Adolf Hitler – Mein Kampf, Chapter XI: Nation and Race – 1943

They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done.

They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world.

They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.

Donald Trump – Lilac Luncheon, Concord, NH – June 27, 2023

Trump maintained he never read Mein Kampf. Perhaps that’s true, but he absorbed enough of the particular language within that book to use it fluently.

The Stalemate of Political Incentives

The Democratic party is not sponsoring or condoning an invasion of migrants from the South. The current overwhelming influx of migrants from the South is a significant political problem for Democrats and they have strong incentives for resolving that problem.

Conversely, while the current set of House Republicans loudly profess to be demanding a resolution to the border problem they are this very day (01/18/2024) using “dead on arrival” language for proposed bi-partisan legislation from the Senate. Republicans have no political incentive to make progress on immigration reform as long as the MAGA replacement theory is as fully engaged as it is now.

Because of that, MAGA replacement theory might not be in the news, but adherence to it’s deeply racist and jingoist beliefs is behind legislative activity.

Facts and Beliefs

Any large group of people has it’s share of literally stupid, ignorant, racist, any other sort of person. The issue that most adversely affects the majority of MAGA mind people is a nearly universal disregard of provable facts.

In this case, adhering to a narrative that is despicable at it’s very core is also despicable. The only excuse for continuing to support it is, then, ignorance of what it means and where it comes from. Hearing something as aggressive as “poisoning the blood of our country” should give one pause when spoken by someone asking to be the leader of the free world. At the very least, a statement like that should raise enough curiosity about it’s origins to do a few minutes of research.

Shouldn’t it?

The “poison people” are nonetheless people, and the MAGA replacement theory is that they are not people but rather something lower. That’s not the “American way” we hold our hands over our hearts for.

Research and Supporting Information

• This Stunningly Racist French Novel Is How Steve Bannon Explains The World – HuffPost
• Fox News suddenly goes quiet on ‘great replacement’ theory after Buffalo shooting – The Guardian
• THE CAMP OF THE SAINTS – Kirkus Reviews
• Christchurch Anniversary: The Islamophobic ‘Great Replacement’ Theory – Bridge
• ‘Poisoning the blood’: Trump’s ugliest moments on immigrants – Washington Post
• How Tucker Carlson took fringe conspiracy theories to a mass audience – NPR
• How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable – New York Times