One of the unfortunate side effects of the terrible shooting just a week or
two ago in Buffalo is that many people who might not have been talking.
Or thinking much about great replacement theory have been forced to.
It was up until the Vivaldi shooting a big topic of conversation around the country,
but it is not new.
Not new in the American context or internationally.
So we wanted to make sure that people knew a little bit about this.
About some of the connections between this theory and different political ideologies,
some of the other outgrowths from it.
And so we're very lucky to be welcomed once again on the program by professor at
Yale, as well as the author of how Fascism works.
Jason Stanley, welcome back to the show.
>> Thank you so much, John.
>> Glad to have you here, although, as we said beforehand never talk about
anything light and sunny, but in any event.
Generally when you come on the program, it has been to talk about fascism.
Here, we're talking specifically about this replacement theory.
But in your writings,
you talk about some of the connections between these two things.
>> Right, so fascism survives on a politics of fear.
And what is the fear of?
The fear is very often characteristically in the case of
the classic fascist movements of mid century.
In Nazi Germany of replacement of the people.
The ethnic population by others, usually by non whites.
So Mussolini in 1934, gave a speech on is the white race and danger.
Hitler, this was a repeated theme, the idea that both that
Jews were bringing in immigrants to replace the Germans as a kinda tactic.
And that Jews themselves were intermingling with
good Aryan women to produce to ruin the Germans.
And our own fascist movement, the KU Klux Klan, which is generally called
the first functionally fascist organizations, say, by Robert Paxton.
That replacement was very central to their ideology.
The idea of the second clan, for instance, was that Jews were bringing in.
We're urging black people to overthrow the white race and
we're also bringing in immigrants to undermine white Christianity.
So that ultimately Jews could take over.
That's why in Charlottesville, they chanted, Jews will not replace us.
They didn't mean literally that Jews were gonna be the replace us.
They meant rather that Jews were behind the replacement of the white race.
And what we've seen across the world since
Anders Breivik's massacre of over 70 people in Norway.
And through to the Christchurch killings in new
Zealand is manifesto after manifesto.
Appeal to great replacement theory and the danger of
replacing the white population to justify mass murder.
Definitely and there's a couple of different ways this manifest that I'm sure
we're gonna talk about.
But just to be clear for people who might be new to this.
This is now something that variations of it you can see in different countries.
And certainly in the US, this is now a standard thing that's just talked
about on Fox news pretty much every day.
But to be clear, even just a few years ago, talking about replacing
the white population with more docile voters that would have been relegated
to stormfront or some extremist forum just a few years ago, right?
>> Just a few years ago, it is shocking and sorta unparalleled the normalization
of this rhetoric in mainstream political party the republicans.
We scholars of rhetoric and propaganda, don't know what to make of it.
What do you do when you have a conspiracy
theory that has justified in the last decade.
Numerous mass slaughters, Dylan Roof and Charleston,
as I said, Breivik Tarrant killed 51 people in a mosque in
New Zealand using this justification.
And historically was the center of some of the worst
movements in the right wing authoritarian movements.
The justification for their terrible internal violence.
What happens when it becomes normalized by a mainstream political party?
I don't know.
Okay, but it's not good.
>> And I believe there's a lot of mass shootings, it's tough to remember all
the details of them because they happened so frequently in the US.
But I believe the tree of life manifesto implied that they believe that
Jewish people were bringing in caravans of migrants.
And I believe in El Paso wasn't that Walmart shooting,
that seemed to have had linkages to this as well?
>> Yeah, implied is too gentle of a term for
the fact that the actual justification of the tree of life mass murder of my
fellow Jewish people was done by direct appeal to great replacement theory.
The Hebrew immigrant aid society.
So the killer went into the Tree of Life synagogue and murdered so
many Jewish people on the grounds that he believed the Hebrew immigrant aid
society was bringing in immigrants was behind immigrants.
When you hear Tucker Carlson or
others talk about globalists bringing in immigrants.
That is a dog whistle to anti Semites people who aren't anti Semites won't
hear that.
But every anti Semite will hear Jewish people are bringing in immigrants
because that is the historical center of 20th century anti Semitism in the West.
>> Yeah, now I know you said people have been trying to figure out what is it
that changed and changed so quickly that this is now not just beginning to
seep into some sorta radical right wing YouTube channel.
But this is they jumped immediately,
Tucker Carlson has the largest audience on cable news.
And it is his go to almost every night you hear it,
is this a consequence of Trump?
Are they both consequences of something?
Can we chalk this up to?
Well, once Cunanan has become normalized, literally, no conspiracy theory can be so
crazy that you can't talk about it openly.
What is your best guess at this point?
>> Well, let's be clear, the United States has long had
a history of virulent racism and anti immigrant paranoia.
In Mein Kompf Hitler's book.
He praises the United States as a model.
He says the United States with its immigration laws the Asian exclusion act.
That banned nonwhite immigrants from coming to the United States.
And forbade Asians from getting US citizenship.
These are things that affected European fascism.
So they're native to the United States.
They're native to a time when we had racial fascism,
our own native racial fascism, we had Jim Crow laws.
We had a clear, explicit demands to keep America majority white.
And so this is our home Turf.
And we thought the civil rights movement and
similar movements to address this past,
would have put it in the past, but it's not in the past.
And when we look at this past, it's the past that affects European fascism.
It's a past that was deeply anti democratic elections
were decided by white.
But with a radical voter suppression of black populations.
So I think it's a signal that we're returning to this past and
we're also but the level of mainstreaming and normalizing.
I think that the mass media brings it was always even when we talk about
Father Coughlin.
When we talk about past figures who were fascist.
The level of normalization among one political party.
And in 2022 is very worrisome and the way it justifies.
So we've seen it justified.
I think here's the key point.
We've seen white replacement theory time and
time again justify individual acts of mass violence.
What happens when a political party embraces it as its
core message and then takes power?
Well, that history suggests will justify mass state violence against populate.
>> I definitely want to turn to trying to figure out what it is that can be done as
a response to it, but just really fast.
Because before the interview we were talking a bit about some of the shift that
we seem to have seen by domestic republicans from focusing on critical race
theory to more of this gender theory.
And a gigantic focus on the trans community.
But the LGBTQ community as well is this sorta just a new form of replacement
that in the past they'd replace you with migrants.
But now they're replacing you with your kids with a trans version of your kids or
that they're stripping away something not racially about you.
But something core in terms of your masculinity is that designed to appeal to
the same fears and conservatives?
>> So, what they wanna do, it's a different conspiracy theory.
But it's designed to appeal to similar fears they wanna appeal to
threats to your children.
They wanna see they say they're threatening your children.
And liberalism allows this.
And what you need is you need a macho authoritarian response that will protect
your children.
Where are the men they say [LAUGH] which is a direct appeal to patriarchy.
It's saying a real man wouldn't allow this kinda
your children to be exposed to the idea that gender
is fluid or that same sex marriage is normal.
And so they're trying to make you fear that people will get at your children.
And so you need an authoritarian powerful response to deal with them.
So this is why you find both historically authoritarian
movements on the right and the far right, like Nazism.
Both appealing to hysteria about LGBT and racial hysteria.
This is the politics of fear, right?
So the idea is you need a strong male leader to protect you, or
strong authoritarian party.
And it is the classic tactic that we're seeing from the far
from far right authoritarian movements and governments across the world.
Starting really with Russia's adoption of the gay propaganda law in 2013.
>> Exactly, yeah.
And now we see that being such a big focus at the federal and
state level amongst right wingers here.
So, okay we've seen this happen in other countries, some form of this,
we're seeing it rapidly escalate in the US.
I don't anticipate that you necessarily have all of the specific examples of
how we fight back against this.
But at this point, based on your knowledge of the US as well as other countries,
do you have any advice to either politicians or the media?
What can we do to provide?
It's not unfalsifiable theory, the idea that like that politicians are literally
importing people to replace them.
It's it is madness that we're going up against.
So how do you fight back against something like that?
>> That is a great question, I say, stalling for an answer.
How do you fight back against the classical conspiracy theories that have
created a politics of fear?
Well, one way is you explain what's going on.
You say, look, they're trying to make you afraid this is
a politics of power to split the working class.
So that you don't unify against against essentially
billionaires who are behind this.
What they really want is they wanna keep the gas and
oil flowing they wanna keep the taxes low.
And they're splitting, the politics of fear is always done for
that reason, right?
It's always done to split the working class apart.
So you remind people like, where's your healthcare?
What's really at stake here for you?
You have retiring parents, you have healthcare costs.
This is what's really at stake.
And what this group is really after in the United States is destroying
public schools and destroying public infrastructure.
So, a thorough going of defense of the importance of public schools
of public goods in a democracy is.
I think will help here in fighting back the politics,
fighting against the politics of fear.
I'm curious, you're just a fast response for me on this.
It seems to me that when there are obviously so
many objective issues that are facing the American people.
And you have the right who has no interest in actually fighting back in.
So that's one of the reasons they're deluding people with these
conspiracy theories.
It seems like what the other side could do is, is actually address these crises,
address people's falling wages.
Address the fact that health insurance is so
expensive that home prices are rising so fast.
I feel like a direct direct counter attack to the conspiracy theory is inherently
difficult.
But I feel like you can make the ground much less fertile for
these sorta conspiracy theories to take root
by making people a little bit less terrified of the future.
That's been the theory.
That's the dominant theory.
It's sorta what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in the 1930s to fight fascism.
He pushed the new deal through.
Of course, thanks to Joe Manchin and Senator seminar,
we're not gonna get those responses.
Those sorta massive programs to deal with people's fear.
And of course, what the republicans are gonna do if they give in to this
fascist social and political movement in their midst is they won't
do anything to fight the very real social and economic fears.
Because that's what feeds the fear the politics won't work again.
They'll intend to make crime worse because if crime,
if there is greater social division, greater protest, greater hunger,
there will be greater crime and hence greater fear to run on again.
So they try to make the problems worse so
they can use the politics of fear to win again and again and again.
Yeah, well, the issue, we've got a few directions, potential to move in socially.
Hopefully we'll figure out more as time goes on.
But as always, even if we can't necessarily solve it is important to
understand the problem that we're facing.
So we do appreciate you joining us.
I know you had mentioned before we began this interview that you had
an upcoming book.
Have you released any information about that yet?
It's, it's an academic book about what I do talk about some of the street,
it's called The Politics of Language with Princeton University Press.
It really looks at some of the propaganda wars critical race theory, propaganda war.
The gender ideology, propaganda, war and
unpacks goes under the hood to see how they exploit people's unconscious biases.
So it's good to direct negative attention to targets.
So that's what they're trying to destroy the public schools.
So they say the public schools are teaching your kids gender ideology and
critical race theory.
So then people think negatively about that target and that's what's going on.
And that's what my book really unpacks on the detailed level.
Okay, I'm gonna have to definitely take a look at that.
But for now, thank you again for joining us.
We really do appreciate it.
Thanks so much, John.