They motivate the nature of its attack in Ukraine, such as wiping out Ukrainian identity culturally and physically. Ideas of replacement are central to Russian extremist, nationalist, antisemitic and fascist traditions. Systematically these black parasites in our national body corrupt our innocent blond-haired girls and thus destroy something which can no longer be replaced in this world.”Īnd, of course, we see it in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In “Mein Kampf,” Adolf Hitler wrote: “This pestilential adulteration of the blood, which hundreds of thousands of our people take no account, is being systematically practiced by the Jew today. The distortion of truth in the name of promoting an alternate reality is a phenomenon common in fascist history. To normalize something is to legitimate it, to make it a topic of legitimate public disagreement. Just days before addressing the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), which chose to convene in Budapest, Hungary’s capital, Orbán placed WRT at the center of state ideology, declaring: “I see the great European population exchange as a suicidal attempt to replace the lack of European, Christian children with adults from other civilizations - migrants.” WRT, for instance, is central to Orbán’s explicit governing ideologies and also to the messages of powerful public figures such as Fox’s Tucker Carlson. From Donald Trump to Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, these fascist ideas are shared at the highest level of so-called illiberal politics. In this context, WRT is increasingly normalized. And as with fascist leaders of the past, much of their political power is derived from questioning reality endorsing myth, rage, and paranoia and promoting lies.

Today we’re seeing an emergent wave of new right-wing populist leaders throughout the world. WRT and its ideological predecessors have been central to fascist movements in Europe, Asia, the United States and elsewhere. It’s not surprising that this resurgence of WRT comes as fascist political tactics - banning books and viewpoints associated with the political left, demonizing and then imprisoning members of the political and minority groups, creating tiers of citizenship between members of the dominant racial group and destroying democratic processes - are on the rise. Many of these killers, including Breivik Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter and Payton Gendron, the suspect in the massacre in Buffalo, New York, are self-identified as fascists. Since Anders Breivik killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, mass murders in the name of white replacement theory (WRT) have become prevalent.

How Fascism Works by Jason F. Stanley