Great Replacement Confusion

The Great Replacement theory appears in various forms and has undergone numerous permutations. For some it's about race, for others it's race on one level, but primarily it's a question of culture.

Under the latter variation a lot of 'dog whistle' rhetoric is employed which appeals to a large section of the population that could be described as 'soft racist'. These are not the sheet-wearing cross burners, Neo-Nazis, or fascist militia groups – these are more regular folks who would never be overtly rude to minorities in public but will nevertheless speak derisively of these people in their own circles and bark at their televisions – decrying the concerns of minority groups and mocking them.

Great Replacement categories are now part of mainstream discourse within the American Right. Evangelicals actively attempt to gloss this over and downplay this reality but from media figures like Tucker Carlson to a growing list of those in congress, these ideas and the language associated with them are becoming normative and gaining traction.

And yet I find little attention is being paid within the United States to Great Replacement theory and ideology in Europe – and how it is perceived in that setting. We see the same Great Replacement ideology and narratives in countries such as Hungary, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Holland. And yet in Europe (which has a deeper sense of history), these ideas and the movements espousing them are all (to varying degrees) associated with the ideals of historical fascism and represent a resurgence of the ideologies that emerged in the aftermath of World War I.

In some contexts like Germany and Holland these ideas are represented by parties that have their foot in the door but haven't attained real power. In France, despite the movement's continued attempt to repackage itself, the Front National/National Rally has roots in Right-wing fascist movements and even remnants of Vichy. They haven't won the presidency yet but they are top contenders, a top tier party in the French system.

And then we see in Italy the Lega Party which has overt connections to Neo-fascism. Under Salvini the party has held and lost power and yet continues to be a major contender. And in Hungary, the Fidesz Party of Viktor Orban which has combined some of its ideology within the context of Christian Nationalism – has now dominated Hungarian politics for more than a decade.

European audiences look at Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, FOX, and the American Right and see these people (and the Great Replacement ideology they promote) for what they are – a nascent form of American fascism. They have no doubts as to what Trumpism is and what it historically represents.

And yet this discussion is not taking place in the US context. No one here knows what fascism is. The FOX crowd thinks it's the Democrats and liberals and for decades Right-wing apologists (including not a few hacks from within the Evangelical camp) have twisted history and political philosophy to argue that fascism is a movement of the Left. And as such they have pulled the proverbial wool over the eyes of their audiences and in other cases congregations. And these folks are being blindly led down the road to destruction – to repeating the errors and evils of history, and in other cases to what must be described as apostasy.

This is not to vindicate the Democrats or the Left. They are not fascists or the communists the Right deems them to be and yet they are also evil and in some cases even find a modicum of resonance with the fascistic categories of the Right – though the Right will furiously deny this. And in other cases they have succumbed to decadent ideologies born of degenerate late stage capitalism. Absolutising the regime of 'rights' they also serve a functional role of distracting the American Left from its traditional concerns. Obsessing over 'identity politics', issues like feminism and the various perversities and permutations born of sodomy – itself a judgment, a result of socio-economic decadence and mammonism, they (in a most bankrupt fashion) have slowly but surely eliminated the Left-wing protest movements of an early generation and have swept them into the mainstream and continue to distract on these points. And all the while the leaders of the so-called Progressive Wing (Sanders and The Squad) are quick to line up with American militarism and the empire rooted in Wall Street. Their recent support for the US proxy war in Ukraine exemplifies this. Left wing parties don't support rapacious international capitalism and imperialist wars. They may reject certain aspects of social conservatism but they cannot be described as Left wing. Today's American Democrats range from Centre-Left to Centre-Right and the Republican Party is almost wholly dominated by Far Right ideology.

Fascism is not understood in the US context and there's a kind of hysteria about the Democrats that emanates from Right-wing circles. Like their Republican cousins, they're evil but it's important to understand they are in fact close cousins. There are battles within the Establishment for control and there are many dangerous and immoral ideologies at work within the US system. But there' a fascist cancer growing right in front of everyone's face and it's also telling that the Democrats are working to hide this fact from the public. Thus we learn they too are not what they proclaim to be and as an ideologically and morally bankrupt political movement they have no tools or means to combat these forces, and at the end of the day many of their ultimate goals are similar even if they package them in very different terms.

The Democrats are a party of Wall Street and American imperialism. The Republicans are too but in their case the ideologies supporting these projects take on another character. While The Great Replacement ideology is easily connected to fascism, the motivations of its supporters and adherents are driven by many different ideologies. As always it's complicated but none of this should surprise us – especially with regard to the American Right and the Republican Party. Though this history has been largely erased, obscured, forgotten, and in many cases never examined – the GOP has a long history of fascistic associations, by which I refer to actual Nazi-allied fascists of the World War II era that in many cases migrated to the United States and worked with the GOP to promote Right-wing (and thus anti-communist/anti-Soviet) ideology in both Western and Eastern Europe.

Working with Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I, they were quite prominent during the Cold War and some played a role in its aftermath and the period of Western advancement in Europe during the 1990's. By the end of that decade, there had been so much political turnover and realignment, and so many of the actual World War II era people were dead – that it was easy to sweep these things under the rug. Let's face it, during the 1990's most people were looking ahead, not behind and though a great deal was being revealed and some monumental investigations were undertaken – the market and appetite for such history wasn't there.

9/11 turned the page and opened up a new era and at this point the events of thirty and forty years ago seem like another time. And yet they're not. There is overlap there are plenty of people around who know the truth. The GOP's record with regard to fascism and association with Nazi collaborators is well documented – the readers can begin by examining some of the works of journalists like Russ Bellant and Chip Berlet for a start. For those unfamiliar with this history, even a cursory read can prove fairly shocking.

Deceit reigns and history is being repeated but it seems no one understands. As figures like Debbs and Lewis warned a century ago – fascism will come to America under the cloak of religious nationalism.  Americans are generally speaking very ignorant of world history and at this point the Church has embraced so many myths and is so divorced from the New Testament – anything is possible. But discussions that need to happen aren't happening and given the present context – cannot happen.