Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Experts have warned for years that advocates of the 'Great Replacement' & 'White Genocide' theories are driving the increasing number of far-right terrorist attacks.

The #BuffaloTerroristAttack is the latest tragic consequence of this dangerously irresponsible rhetoric.

Many academics, terrorism experts, & charities have been screaming out for action to be taken against proponents of the dangerous conspiracy theories of 'The Great Replacement/White Genocide' & 'Cultural Marxism', which inspired Anders Breivik, the NZ mosque attack & now Buffalo.

Some of these debunked conspiracies - eg 'cultural Marxism' - have been amplified & pushed in the UK & USA by both the mainstream media & by mainstream Government politicians.

Let me be crystal clear: imho, evidence is growing that dangerously divisive rhetoric makes terrorists.

Of course, those of us who have been warning about this - for many years - are roundly demonised by all the usual 'free speech' advocates, who invariably use the divisive culture war rhetoric of 'woke, leftist cancel culture snowflakes' to attack us & to undermine our arguments.

I encourage everyone to read widely from expert sources on the proven dangers of divisive culture war rhetoric, & especially the 'Great Replacement/White Genocide' & 'Cultural Marxism' theories amplified daily in the UK & US by an increasingly irresponsible & extreme right-wing.

To summarise the issue & give context, what follows is a brief summary of the introduction to just one recent (2021) academic article: 'The “Great Replacement” conspiracy: How the perceived ousting of Whites can evoke violent extremism & Islamophobia'.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

In March 2019, Brenton Harrison Tarrant entered two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, & gunned down over 50 Muslim worshipers. The morning before, Tarrant released a manifesto entitled the “Great Replacement.”

Tarrant is referenced in the #Buffalo shooter's manifesto.

In both manifestos, liberals are accused of engineering the extinction or replacement of White Westerners through mass immigration of non-Whites.

Rooted in Nazi-era writings, this conspiracy has now been repurposed by the far-right, & is amplified by the likes of Tucker Carlson.

It gained prominence in 2011, with the publication of 'Le Grand Replacement' by French novelist, conspiracy theorist & white nationalist writer Renaud Camus—a book that has been argued to have played a vital role in Tarrant’s & many other far-right extremists' radicalization.

This conspiracy has had world-wide reach eg the 2019 Walmart El Paso shooter who killed 20 people near the US–Mexican border wrote in his manifesto that “in general, I support the Christchurch shooter & his manifesto. This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas”.

Likewise, the recent shooters in the US including Charleston, Pittsburgh, Poway & now Buffalo, as well as in Munich, Germany, & the mass killing by Anders Breivik in Norway, all used eerily similar language & justifications.

Andrew Brown argues these conspiracy theories adopted by far-right terrorists, including Anders Breivik, may have taken inspiration from a founding myth of contemporary Islamophobia: an invented plot, known as “Eurabia”, to destroy European civilisation.

theguardian.com/world/2019/aug…

Examining how the prevalence of extreme anti-immigrant attitudes is impacted by rhetoric adopting aspects of the “Great Replacement” conspiracy (White populations are being replaced at an ethnic & cultural level through mass migration) is urgent & important for several reasons:

First, such ideas are no longer limited to the outer fringes of the public discourse, as the proponents of this conspiracy can now be found in mainstream politics, the mainstream print & broadcast media, & the general public.

It's well established that influential Rupert Murdoch employee Tucker Carlson often promotes the Great Replacement theory on his Fox News show, but dangerous & divisive conspiracies also reach into the heart of the UK & US Governments.

https://twitter.com/NikkiMcR/status/1525630944501194752?s=20&t=6kLxin0CIobzN6YkKoPYiA

eg in the US, leaked emails show the former White House senior advisor Stephen Miller promoting far-right extremist, White nationalist ideas, & anti-immigrant rhetoric through the conservative website Breitbart, which shares much of its agenda & framing with the UK's GB "News".

In the UK, the Attorney General Suella Braverman & numerous other Tory MPs on the extreme right of the party have continually amplified the debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory of cultural Marxism, & Jacob Rees-Mogg also accused Jewish Tories of being part of the 'Illuminati'.

Another recent example from the UK worthy of note is that last year, Laurence Fox & Martin Daubney's Reclaim Party 'warmly welcomed' the defection of a former Tory councillor who had previously endorsed the far-right ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory.

hopenothate.org.uk/2021/12/07/rec…

Second, in recent years, extreme-right politicians & parties have in addition to demonising & scapegoating non-white minorities & migrants, sought to leverage the majority group’s fear of replacement, perhaps most infamously in the UK, during the run-up to the Brexit referendum.

For instance, the conspiracy has been fundamental in fuelling “nativist” campaigns like the one by Alexander Gauland, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany Party who, before the 2017 German election, made “The Great Replacement” the title of a news release.

Third, while considerable research has examined the impact of the perceived size of outgroups on one’s hostility towards them, it appears that the specific impact of perceiving that there is 'a planned attempt to replace one’s group with another' is relatively under researched.

Whereas demographic changes & outgroup size link to concerns about loss of privileged majority status & disruption of existing social hierarchies, the “Great Replacement” taps into the perception that White people face existential decline, even extinction, due to immigration.

Finally, we urgently need specific research into how perceived demographic shifts impact violent extremism.

We know far-right terrorism is the fastest growing (UK) or greatest (USA) terrorist threat, but the role of conspiracy theories & culture war rhetoric is under researched.