By Juan Cole
Before a hate-filled 18-year-old murdered 10 and wounded 3 African Americans in Buffalo on May 14, he penned a rambling screed about replacement theory.
The most common version of this whiny idea, imported from the more hysterical fringes of the French far right, holds that Jewish capitalists are importing cheap immigrant labor to replace more highly-paid white workers.
Notoriously, the Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 against the removal of Confederate statues chanted “Jews will not replace us.” The shooter who killed 11 Jewish Americans at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 also espoused the idea of the “great replacement.”
This hateful ideology is shamelessly promoted by Fox News. The worst offender is the Lord Haw-Haw of the 21st century, Tucker Carlson, who exposed his audience to great replacement excrement 400 times in the past year.
Republican legislators across the United States have been passing laws against teaching critical race theory, which hasn’t killed anyone — and which helps us understand the effect of ideas like the great replacement. But they don’t seem to be as eager to legislate against Nazi ideas.
And make no mistake: The great replacement is an explicitly Nazi idea.
The theory originated in Europe and had many exponents of various stripes. But the phrase, and the most extensive elaboration of the theory, originated with the French Nazi René Binet (1913-1957), who served during World War II in the Waffen Grenadier Brigade of the SS Charlemagne, which consisted of French Nazi collaborators.
You don’t get more fascist than that. The Charlemagne Brigade included the last troops to defend Hitler’s bunker before his suicide.
Binet fulminated after the war against “the invasion of Europe by Negroes and Mongols,” by which he meant the Americans and Soviets who fought the Nazis. A biological racist, he saw all Americans as an impure mestizo “race.”
So this now far right American nationalist idea actually originated in hatred for Americans and a denigration of their supposed “whiteness” by the European right, which did not see Russians as “white” either.
Unlike cowardly boot-lickers like Binet, the true patriots of the period were the multicultural French. The French Army and then De Gaulle’s Free French Army included thousands of riflemen (or Tirailleurs) from Senegal.
History.net explains: “During World War II the French recruited 179,000 Tirailleurs; some 40,000 were deployed to Western Europe. Many were sent to bolster the French Maginot Line along its border with Germany and Belgium during the German invasion in 1940 — where many were killed or taken prisoner.”
Even after the fall of France, these Senegalese fighters “served in the Free French army in Tunisia, Corsica, and Italy, and in the south of France during the liberation.”
I had two uncles who served in World War II, one at the Battle of the Bulge. In my family, we’re not in any doubt that it was the multi-racial Allies who were the good guys. With famous units like the Tuskegee Airmen, who bombed Nazi targets, the Allies drew srength from their diversity — and that gave them the strength to prevail.
People like Tucker Carlson are pitifully ignorant of history and so are wielding an anti-American, highly unpatriotic notion for the sake of their television ratings. Ironically, Tucker’s intellectual forebear, Binet, would have considered him a mongrel.
As defenders of illiberalism and implicitly of hatred of Jews, these useful idiots of the far right are symbolically still deployed around Hitler’s bunker, defending it from the approaching Allies.
Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the founder and editor of Informed Comment (JuanCole.com). This op-ed was adapted from Informed Comment and distributed by OtherWords.org.
Deka says
I guess you are so afraid of hearing the truth. You come across as if there is another reason bumbiling biden is leaving the southern border wide open. If is NOT for the reason Tucker has stated, please educate me for the reason we are not defending our Southern border??? Bumbiling binden has agreed to spend more than $40 BILLION of our tax payer money to defend the Ukraine border but has done NOTHING to stop folks from crossing the Southern border. Please enlighten us as why????? If not for future democratic votes they why is he doing NOTHING?
C’mon man says
Dumbest article I’ve ever read. Thanks for wasting 5 minutes of my life. Liberalism is ruining this country. Go ahead and bash me I won’t be back to read them
James says
Interesting piece, I have to admit I wasn’t familiar with the gory details of “replacement theory,” nor this fellow Binet.
Oddly enough, Binet probably was lucky that the Nazis didn’t win… ironically he probably would have been one of the first to get a bullet to the head had they did. After he wore out his usefulness of course.
G A says
If you are a rabid follower of Tucker Carlson’s, I do hope someone near and dear to you loves you enough to get you mental help.
The dude says
Yet you will…
Sherry says
We are a nation almost wholly comprised of “IMMIGRANTS”! Please turn off FOX, stop the fear and hate, and get educated!
The plenary and unqualified power of the federal government to regulate immigration, naturalization, and related foreign policy belongs to Congress.
Does the Constitution restrict immigration?
“It’s notable that nowhere in the Constitution is there listed any power of the federal government to restrict immigration … It was only in 1889 in the Chinese exclusion cases that the Supreme Court ruled that there was such a power.”
M says
It is so sad that anyone could ever respect a single word tucker Carlson would say
I am a true believer in capitalism and I am proud of what america achieved
Now I am witnessing the best country in the world committing suicide
I’m not far right or far left I always try to be logical and practical but that no longer works……..it is so sad to watch such a great nation disintegrate
Deborah Coffey says
We’re not afraid of hearing the truth. YOU are afraid of KNOWING the truth! What you and Tucker are espousing is pure Nazism…and, you don’t even seem to be aware of that.
Surreal says
It’s getting pretty darned absurd how columnists & politicians are labeling everyone who disagrees with them aS “racist”. I’m an ‘independent’ voter, not affilliated with either party. My life’s experiences have formed my political opinions, and based on them I cast my votes. As of this moment, what I perceive is a growing desperation of the people [unelected cabal] who are actually acting collectively as the ‘President’, are playing a serious, and potentially dangerous political low-blow game of ‘divide & conquer’… only the ‘divide’ portion of that game may be tenable as they are potentially alienating the rational ‘independents’ who are hip to their tactic. Why won’t this current administration focus on pulling our country out of economic catastrophy rather than fomenting internal, social collapse? Seriously! What benefit is there in calling me a “racist” for watching Fox News along with CNN, MSNBC, Sky News, BBC & Al Jazeera in my daily hour of news gathering/viewing? Is it wrong to want to view/read a diversity of subject-matter along with its relevant & affiliated commentary? Do you believe that Americans will be better-off with solely ONE VIEWPOINT? One which only supports & promotes ONE SIDE of ANY political issue? In my book, and likely in many pages of other ‘independent’ voter’s books… that would be the definitive characterization of “FASCISM”.
DaleL says
The 40 billion dollars in US aid was approved by an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress. 39 of the 50 Republicans in the Senate voted for the aid. The US budget is trillions of dollars. The aid to Ukraine is a tiny percentage of all Federal spending.
The Biden administration is continuing to enforce the border regulations as did the previous administration. I would much rather live in a country in which people wish to come, as opposed to one that people desperately want to leave. At worst, the new immigrants change the ethnic makeup of communities, but they do NOT replace people. Rather they add to diversity and drive growth. Until such time as new immigrants become US citizens, they cannot vote in national elections. Even then, there is no certainty as to whether they will vote for one party or another. Thanks to Governor DeSantis, Florida had a serious undercount in the 2020 Census. This has likely reduced our US Congressional representation by one House seat.
I did learn one thing from this story. I had known that the Tuskegee Airmen formed a pursuit (fighter) air group. I did not realize that they also formed the 477th bombardment (bomber) group.
We live in a great country. A country in which our elections still count and no one party has complete control. In contrast, our enemies have totalitarian governments in which one person or party controls the government. Mr. Putin, for example, has been in power since 1999. China is ruled by just one party, the Communist Party.
Tucker Carlson is a TV personality who promotes lies simply for profit.
Hi leftists says
It is amazing to me how fearful and angry you far left people really are of the truth that Tucker Carlson tells on his show. How about this…if you don’t like him do not watch him and stay living in you crime ridden over taxed cesspools.
Robert says
Tucker nneds to be taken off the air for promoting propaganda and supporting communistic leadership. If Fox Station is sued you see how fast they get rid of him.
Jack Howell says
Tucker is nothing more than a carbuncle on humanity.
Laurel says
To show you how qrazy the far right is, one man drove to a pizza parlor to save children from being stored in a basement for, I guess, food for Democrats. Now, this 18 year old kid killed old, black church women so they won’t take his job. When these seriously sick people watch that nit wit Carlson, or not so bright Trump, this is the result. The selfishness of these two men is astounding!
I beg to differ with the author about Carlson being ignorant of history. I can see that history is where he gets his ideas, and he cares not for any resulting violence as long as he gets his ratings.
Fox is not a news company, it’s an entertainment company. It’s a highly irresponsible entertainment company.
Laurel says
Surreal: I, too, am a life long Independent and am often baffled as to how easily each side is manipulated by their party. I used to wonder how in the heck did Hitler convince most of Germany to follow him. Now I’m seeing it before my eyes right now, in our own country.
There is a term for this: Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. Wikipedia
This confirmation bias is used by politicians and media to sell themselves and products. They are more than willing to sell our wonderful country down the river for ratings, power, and of course, money.