Hello, you're listening to the LRB podcast, and I'm your host, Adam Shads.

The subject of this week's episode is the so-called Great Replacement, a racist conspiracy theory

that non-white individuals are flooding Western countries in a sinister

effort to remake their values, their politics, and ultimately their very demographic composition.

Replacement theory was invoked by the man who killed 51 people in attacks at two mosques

in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was also cited by the shooter

at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and by the 18-year-old man who shot 13 people dead at a supermarket

in Buffalo last month. What's more, the idea of the Great Replacement has in recent years migrated

from the fringes of the right-wing

dark web to the political mainstream. It was promoted by Marine Le Pen, Eric Seymour, and Valé

Pecrest in France's recent national elections. It has become a mantra of Tucker Carlson,

the Fox News host, and by numerous Republican politicians close to Donald

Trump. According to recent surveys, half of Republican voters believe in the great replacement.

Since the United Right Rally in Charlottesville in 2017, where marchers chanted,

You will not replace us, it's become a catch-all phrase for a set of existential fears on the white supremacist right

and to some extent on the center right as well.

Fears of immigration, of Muslims and blacks, of Jewish philanthropists like George Soros,

of white extinction, critical race theory, cultural Marxism, Islamolefism,

and Arabia. What are the origins of this idea? And how did it spread so effectively? Why has it

acquired such terrifying appeal in recent years? To answer these questions, we've invited two of the

leading experts on the far right,

Reza Zia Abrahimi and Sindra Bangstad. Reza is a historian at King's College and the author of

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