"The great replacement is very simple," its originator has said. "You have one people, and in the space of a generation you have a different people." This equates immigration with genocide, which logically REQUIRES genocidal violence in response. It calls out for terrorism. 2/19
When @ADL called on Fox to #FireTuckerCarlson for invoking racist/antisemetic "Great Replacement" conspiracy, Fox refused, falsely claiming he "decried and rejected" it. But he didn't. He denied using it, reframing it as concern with "voting rights" (of white's, of course) 3/19
Here's a key passage where Carlson articulates his sanitized version--whites losing voting power & thus losing "America": 4/19
But conservative WaPo columnist @MJGerson saw through Carlson's thin disguise: "Nearly every phrase of Carlson's statement is the euphemistic expression of white-supremacist replacement doctrine." 5/19 washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
But it's also a much darker conspiracy theory to stand in for the evidence-less voter fraud conspiracy theory Republicans have been pushing for ~20 years: 6/
This week, Carlson attacked welcoming Afghan refugees by again invoking "The Great Replacement": nefarious elites importing nonwhite foreigners to replace white citizens, deceitfully taking advantage of their generous nature: 7/
But Carlson is merely a transmitter of these ideas forming a whole worldview whose modern origins can be found in a 1973 book—The Camp of the Saints—with several variations, explained by ex-intelligence analyst @4GWDOTDOTDOT in an earlier interview: 8/19 salon.com/2020/09/26/beh…
The underlying "Camp of the Saints" worldview "is widespread in right-wing media, think tanks & political parties," @4GWDOTDOTDOT told me. "There is very little difference between the rhetoric of right-wing media and the rhetoric of right-wing terrorists or mass murderers." 11/19
In Europe, this evolved via 3 stages described by @ArunKundnani in "Blind Spot? Security Narratives and Far-Right Violence in Europe," icct.nl/app/uploads/do… referring to how rightwing terror had "had begun to absorb significant elements from official security narratives" 12/19
.@ArunKundnani's phrase, "the identity of Western liberal values," should set off alarm bells, coming from neo-Nazi-affiliated political activists. It's an example of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) [which I've written about before]: 13/19 salon.com/2016/07/16/don…
I asked @4GWDOTDOTDOT whether racist right-wingers claiming to be defenders of Western values offer a paradigmatic example of 4GW & he agreed: 14/19
But one last point: this worldview entails a "Great Replacement" of conservative ideas. Some elements (such as free trade) are dropped, other retained, but related in different ways, with new deeper significance & voter suppression *expresses* a core value. 16/19
If "invading hordes of immigrants" are the enemy and falling white birthrates are key to the problem, then the right's misogynist agenda & its xenophobic agenda are much more tightly linked than ever before. As is Christian nationalism per @ndrewwhitehead & @socofthesacred 17/19
In short, it's a much more unified worldview than Buckley or Reagan ever imagined, even encompasssing voter suppression as a core ingredient: 18/19
Thus, "The Great Replacement" is not just a conspiracy theory, but a conservative mythos. So the Great Replacement that has actually taken place is the replacement of the ideas, ideals and mores of conservatism.
19/19
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
.@elizagriswold wrote a compelling NYer story about Mastriano, but the world he moves in has too much going on for one story to capture. Deception & denialism run rampant throughout. 1/13
"You know who's not canceled? The endless parade of conservative pundits and politicians complaining about 'cancel culture.' You know who is canceled? George Floyd is canceled." Turn off the gaslight. #ConservativeCancelCulture is real. 1/12 salon.com/2021/05/01/con…
"Cancel culture" is a meaningless term, @mmfa editor @ParkerMolloy writes. But "For conservatives, that meaninglessness is a feature, not a bug," I note. "Those words mean whatever a right-wing accuser needs them to mean in the moment": 2/12 mediamatters.org/fox-news/woke-…
But there are two constraints on what "cancel culture" means: that it's new & comes only from the left. The truth is exactly the opposite: #ConservativeCancelCulture#gaslighting 3/12
Behind All The Hucksters, Liberalism is the True Conservatism: Liberalism delivers what conservatism falsely promises 1/11 salon.com/2021/03/27/can…
The ends conservatives hold out — preserving social order, local integrity, historical continuity, respect for authority, high levels of personal morality and religion's place as a polestar in people's lives — cannot be met by the means they insist on. 2/11
Conservative temperament and character traits are part of human nature, that should be thought of as gifts," as @dannagal told me: 3/11
Congress can wait: How Biden can reshape our future with executive action.
POTUS has enormous power to act based on existing laws. Rather than gnash our teeth over lost opportunities, let's focus on how much can be done, per @ddayen at @TheProspect: 1/6 salon.com/2020/11/29/con…
14 months ago, @ddayen at @TheProspect laid out the scope of what a Democratic POTUS could do without Congress, long before anyone else was thinking about it. Cancelling student debt was just the tip of the iceberg: 2/6 prospect.org/day-one-agenda…
This month, @jeffspross made an even deeper argument regarding long-term power to defeat Trumpism. It has 3 main parts: 1) The only way to defeat Trumpism is by repeated electoral victories ala the New Deal forcing the GOP to change. 3/6 prospect.org/day-one-agenda…
Feeling crazed? Want some distance? My author interview re "Conservatism: The Fight For A Tradition" explores a broader historical framework (2 centuries 4 countries) for understanding Trump: 1/10 salon.com/2020/10/24/how…
Conservatism is first a fight against the modern world, but also has an internal fight between those who accommodate to it ("liberal conservatives") & those who resist it (the "hard right") as well as specific historical factions. 2/10
Regarding the first fight, "What conservatives reckon they're resisting has changed as modern liberal life has changed". They fought both liberalism ("which lays out the feast") & democracy ("which draws up the guest list"): 3/10
Contra #NeverTrump narratives, Trump pushing US toward racial civil war has a *very* long history in white thought, which the right especially has nurtured, as @4GWDOTDOTDOT explores in a new report & discusses with me at @Salon: 1/9 salon.com/2020/09/26/beh…