WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.820 You know, usually when we sit down to do a deep 00:00:01.820 --> 00:00:06.139 dive into a conspiracy theory, we are mentally 00:00:06.139 --> 00:00:09.240 prepping to talk about the fringe. Right. The 00:00:09.240 --> 00:00:11.859 really out there stuff. Yeah, exactly. We're 00:00:11.859 --> 00:00:14.519 talking about flat earthers or, you know, reptilian 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:17.160 shapeshifters or faked moon landings. Things 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:18.920 that are, let's be honest, they're pretty easy 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:20.719 to laugh off because they kind of just stay in 00:00:20.719 --> 00:00:22.440 the dark corners of the Internet. They usually 00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:24.620 live in the comment sections, not on the front 00:00:24.620 --> 00:00:28.510 page. Exactly. But today. Today, we are looking 00:00:28.510 --> 00:00:31.370 at something completely different. We're looking 00:00:31.370 --> 00:00:34.289 at an idea that started in a, well, a fairly 00:00:34.289 --> 00:00:38.689 obscure, highbrow French book. And it somehow 00:00:38.689 --> 00:00:41.590 managed to jump straight into the mouths of prime 00:00:41.590 --> 00:00:44.710 ministers, presidents, cable news hosts, and, 00:00:44.770 --> 00:00:47.689 tragically, into the manifestos of mass shooters. 00:00:48.189 --> 00:00:51.070 So today we are doing a deep dive into the great 00:00:51.070 --> 00:00:53.429 replacement. Yeah, it is a really heavy one. 00:00:53.509 --> 00:00:55.049 And I'm glad we're taking the time to really 00:00:55.049 --> 00:00:57.369 unpack this because, well, if you follow politics 00:00:57.369 --> 00:00:59.490 in the U .S. or Europe or really anywhere in 00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:01.549 the West right now, you are hearing the echoes 00:01:01.549 --> 00:01:04.650 of this theory constantly. Right. You might not 00:01:04.650 --> 00:01:07.569 always hear the trademarked name, you know, great 00:01:07.569 --> 00:01:10.810 replacement, but you are absolutely hearing the 00:01:10.810 --> 00:01:12.879 melody. That is a really great way to put it. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.599 And just so you, the listener, know exactly where 00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:17.200 we're getting our map for this territory today. 00:01:17.379 --> 00:01:19.819 We are pulling this deep dive straight from the 00:01:19.819 --> 00:01:22.859 Wikipedia article on the Great Replacement Conspiracy 00:01:22.859 --> 00:01:26.340 Theory, along with all the linked sources inside 00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:28.459 it. Which is important because there is just 00:01:28.459 --> 00:01:31.579 a lot of noise around this topic. So much noise. 00:01:32.019 --> 00:01:34.200 And our mission today is to really figure out 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:37.700 the mechanism here. How does a theory about the 00:01:37.700 --> 00:01:42.019 demographics of like rural French villages mutate 00:01:42.019 --> 00:01:45.260 into a global political ideology? It's a massive 00:01:45.260 --> 00:01:48.019 leap. It is. And this is the part I really want 00:01:48.019 --> 00:01:49.760 to get into today. Yeah. We need to figure out 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:52.400 where the conspiracy ends and the actual demographic 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:55.200 data begins. That distinction is everything because 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:57.700 there is a massive canyon between the statement 00:01:57.700 --> 00:01:59.680 demographics are changing, which is, you know, 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:02.849 just a basic fact of human history. Right. The 00:02:02.849 --> 00:02:05.510 Great Replacement, which is a very specific manufactured 00:02:05.510 --> 00:02:08.530 story being told about that fact. So let's start 00:02:08.530 --> 00:02:11.330 with that story. If you had to give the elevator 00:02:11.330 --> 00:02:14.250 pitch for this theory, you know, stripping away 00:02:14.250 --> 00:02:16.169 all the Twitter noise and the cable news shouting, 00:02:16.349 --> 00:02:19.430 what is the core claim here? Well, the core claim 00:02:19.430 --> 00:02:21.490 is actually very simple, which is partly why 00:02:21.490 --> 00:02:24.099 it sticks so well. It is a far -right conspiracy 00:02:24.099 --> 00:02:27.199 theory claiming that white European populations, 00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:29.039 what the theory calls the indigenous people, 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:32.099 are being deliberately replaced by non -white 00:02:32.099 --> 00:02:34.740 peoples. Specifically from Muslim -majority countries, 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:37.500 right? Yes, specifically that group. And the 00:02:37.500 --> 00:02:40.039 theory argues this replacement is happening through 00:02:40.039 --> 00:02:43.039 two main levers, mass migration and demographic 00:02:43.039 --> 00:02:46.000 growth, or birth rates. Okay, but, I mean, migration 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:48.599 happens. That's been true for literally all of 00:02:48.599 --> 00:02:50.840 human history. People move where the jobs are 00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:53.099 or they move away from a war zone. But you used 00:02:53.099 --> 00:02:55.039 a very specific word in there, deliberately. 00:02:55.419 --> 00:02:57.439 Yes, deliberately. And that is the conspiracy 00:02:57.439 --> 00:02:59.780 part of the conspiracy theory. Right. In this 00:02:59.780 --> 00:03:01.939 worldview, this isn't a natural movement of people. 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:03.819 It's not about economics or fleeing conflict. 00:03:04.099 --> 00:03:07.360 The theory claims this is a top -down plot orchestrated 00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:10.020 by a shadowy group of elites who they often call 00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:12.960 the replacist power. The replacist power. Yeah. 00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:16.479 OK. And what is their motive? Why would a government 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:20.360 or an elite class want to replace its own population? 00:03:20.620 --> 00:03:23.300 According to the theory, the goal is to create 00:03:23.300 --> 00:03:26.039 what they call a replaceable human. A replaceable 00:03:26.039 --> 00:03:29.039 human. Exactly. The idea here is that these elites 00:03:29.039 --> 00:03:31.240 want a population that has no national identity, 00:03:31.439 --> 00:03:34.280 no deep culture, no history. They just want generic 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:37.379 consumer units. Wow. Right. People who are entirely 00:03:37.379 --> 00:03:39.919 interchangeable. So you replace the difficult 00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:42.159 native population who have all these traditions 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:45.900 and labor rights and expectations with a malleable 00:03:45.900 --> 00:03:47.759 immigrant population. It sounds like they're 00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:51.289 describing a. A manufacturing process, not a 00:03:51.289 --> 00:03:54.969 society. It's incredibly dehumanized. It is dehumanizing 00:03:54.969 --> 00:03:57.150 by design. It turns human beings into inventory. 00:03:57.550 --> 00:04:00.229 And to really understand why that specific language 00:04:00.229 --> 00:04:02.689 is used, we have to go back to the source. Because 00:04:02.689 --> 00:04:04.830 this didn't just bubble up organically on Fortune. 00:04:05.090 --> 00:04:07.310 Right. It started with a specific French writer 00:04:07.310 --> 00:04:09.569 named Renaud Camus. Right. He wrote the 2011 00:04:09.569 --> 00:04:12.229 book Le Grand Replacement. Yeah. And reading 00:04:12.229 --> 00:04:14.509 the background on this guy and the sources, Camus 00:04:14.509 --> 00:04:16.750 wasn't some raving radical shouted on a street 00:04:16.750 --> 00:04:19.199 corner initially, was he? No, not at all. He 00:04:19.199 --> 00:04:21.939 was a pretty established, albeit controversial, 00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:25.959 literary figure in France. He wrote novels. He 00:04:25.959 --> 00:04:28.699 wrote diaries. He was actually a prominent part 00:04:28.699 --> 00:04:32.000 of the gay rights movement in the 70s. And the 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:34.379 origin story he tells about this theory is fascinating 00:04:34.379 --> 00:04:37.519 because it's just so it's so mundane. And visual. 00:04:37.800 --> 00:04:40.060 Yeah. The sources say it dates back to 1996, 00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:43.079 right? 1996. He was editing a guidebook for the 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:45.060 Herald region in the south of France. Literally 00:04:45.060 --> 00:04:48.339 just a travel guide. A travel guide. And he recounts 00:04:48.339 --> 00:04:50.300 looking out the window of a friend's house at 00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:53.660 these ancient traditional French villages. And 00:04:53.660 --> 00:04:55.740 he says he felt like the population had totally 00:04:55.740 --> 00:04:59.019 changed. He saw women in veils. He saw brown 00:04:59.019 --> 00:05:01.579 faces. And in his mind, the French people were 00:05:01.579 --> 00:05:04.319 just gone. He called it a phenomenon. He said, 00:05:04.339 --> 00:05:07.370 you have one people. And in the space of a generation, 00:05:07.689 --> 00:05:10.209 you have a different people. See, I want to pause 00:05:10.209 --> 00:05:13.649 on that because that feels like the real hook 00:05:13.649 --> 00:05:16.250 here. He's relying entirely on a gut feeling. 00:05:16.389 --> 00:05:18.629 I looked out the window and things look different. 00:05:18.709 --> 00:05:21.550 Right. That's a very powerful emotional argument, 00:05:21.649 --> 00:05:23.790 even if it's not a scientific one at all. It 00:05:23.790 --> 00:05:26.589 is the most powerful argument he has. In fact. 00:05:26.990 --> 00:05:29.709 Kimu actually argues later on that the Great 00:05:29.709 --> 00:05:31.930 Replacement doesn't even need a strict definition 00:05:31.930 --> 00:05:34.410 or statistics because, in his words, it is a 00:05:34.410 --> 00:05:37.029 phenomenon you can see with your own eyes. Don't 00:05:37.029 --> 00:05:39.800 look at the data, just trust your gut. Exactly. 00:05:39.800 --> 00:05:42.459 It validates that feeling of disorientation some 00:05:42.459 --> 00:05:44.120 people have when their neighborhood changes. 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:46.980 He basically says, trust your eyes, don't trust 00:05:46.980 --> 00:05:48.959 the spreadsheet. But he didn't just leave it 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:51.560 at things are changing. He built a whole vocabulary 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:53.540 around it to make it sound authoritative and 00:05:53.540 --> 00:05:56.139 academic. He did. And the words really matter 00:05:56.139 --> 00:05:58.579 here. He framed the whole thing as a war. He 00:05:58.579 --> 00:06:01.339 calls the elites the replacist power. He calls 00:06:01.339 --> 00:06:04.040 the white Europeans the replaced. But the most 00:06:04.040 --> 00:06:06.180 dangerous term he uses is the one he reserves 00:06:06.180 --> 00:06:09.110 for the immigrants. Yeah. The sources outline 00:06:09.110 --> 00:06:12.509 this clearly. He calls them occupiers or colonizers. 00:06:13.069 --> 00:06:15.550 Occupiers. In France? I mean, that is a very 00:06:15.550 --> 00:06:17.750 loaded term. It's nuclear. You have to remember 00:06:17.750 --> 00:06:20.230 the context of French history here. By using 00:06:20.230 --> 00:06:22.730 the word occupier and talking about a resistance, 00:06:23.209 --> 00:06:25.810 he is directly invoking the memory of the Nazi 00:06:25.810 --> 00:06:28.269 occupation of France in World War II. So he's 00:06:28.269 --> 00:06:30.529 flipping the script entirely. He is inverting 00:06:30.529 --> 00:06:33.370 reality. In his narrative, the immigrants who 00:06:33.370 --> 00:06:36.689 are often poor, marginalized, many coming from 00:06:36.689 --> 00:06:39.579 former France. French colonies, they are cast 00:06:39.579 --> 00:06:42.459 as the Nazis. And the white Europeans are cast 00:06:42.459 --> 00:06:45.660 as the brave resistance fighters. That is just 00:06:45.660 --> 00:06:48.339 a staggering inversion of history. It is. But 00:06:48.339 --> 00:06:51.220 it allows for what he calls a genocide by substitution 00:06:51.220 --> 00:06:54.160 narrative. He even compares it directly to the 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:56.680 Holocaust. It tells his followers, you aren't 00:06:56.680 --> 00:06:59.519 just a racist. You are a freedom fighter, saving 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:01.980 your people from extinction. You are the hero 00:07:01.980 --> 00:07:04.740 of the story. So he basically takes these older 00:07:04.740 --> 00:07:07.660 xenophobic fears. Right. Which, to be clear, 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:09.560 he didn't invent, right? The source mentions 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:11.639 he cites people. People like Enoch Powell. Right. 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:13.899 Enoch Powell's infamous rumors of blood speech 00:07:13.899 --> 00:07:16.759 from the UK back in the 60s. And he also cites 00:07:16.759 --> 00:07:19.399 a very dark French novel called The Camp of the 00:07:19.399 --> 00:07:22.500 Saints, which depicts a literal invasion of France 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:25.199 by a starving fleet of immigrants. So Camus takes 00:07:25.199 --> 00:07:28.000 these raw fears and he puts them in a tuxedo. 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:29.839 He gives them a pseudo intellectual academic 00:07:29.839 --> 00:07:32.339 sheen. That's a great way to put it. OK, so that's 00:07:32.339 --> 00:07:34.160 the simple pitch. Look out the window. You're 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:37.360 being occupied. But we promised you, the listener. 00:07:37.790 --> 00:07:39.889 that we would separate the conspiracy from the 00:07:39.889 --> 00:07:43.149 reality. So if we put down Camus' guidebook and 00:07:43.149 --> 00:07:44.689 actually look at the demographic spreadsheet, 00:07:45.069 --> 00:07:48.310 does the theory hold water? Is France actually 00:07:48.310 --> 00:07:50.759 being mathematically replaced? Analytically, 00:07:50.899 --> 00:07:53.199 no. The theory falls apart the moment you look 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:55.259 at the actual numbers. Give us the reality check 00:07:55.259 --> 00:07:57.759 from the sources. So scholars and demographers 00:07:57.759 --> 00:08:00.259 have looked at this extensively. Estimates for 00:08:00.259 --> 00:08:02.879 the Muslim population in France, which, again, 00:08:03.019 --> 00:08:05.819 is the specific group Camus assessed with, those 00:08:05.819 --> 00:08:10.279 numbers hovered between 8 .8 % and 12 .5 % around 00:08:10.279 --> 00:08:13.920 2017. 12 .5 % at the high end. That's a minority. 00:08:14.519 --> 00:08:16.939 A significant minority, sure, but that is mathematically 00:08:16.939 --> 00:08:19.560 not a replacement. Exactly. Mathematical replacement 00:08:19.560 --> 00:08:22.079 is extremely unlikely based on the data. But 00:08:22.079 --> 00:08:24.139 there's a bigger, more fundamental flaw in his 00:08:24.139 --> 00:08:26.199 logic, which is pointed out in the sources by 00:08:26.199 --> 00:08:28.920 geographer Landis McKellar. The theory assumes 00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:31.740 that Frenchness is essentially genetic. Right. 00:08:31.819 --> 00:08:33.710 Let's play this out. Because this is the core 00:08:33.710 --> 00:08:36.230 of it. If you have a grandfather who moved to 00:08:36.230 --> 00:08:39.210 Paris from Algeria in the 1960s, and you were 00:08:39.210 --> 00:08:41.210 born in France, you speak French, went to French 00:08:41.210 --> 00:08:43.690 schools, eat baguettes, vote in French elections, 00:08:44.149 --> 00:08:46.230 Camus would still count you as the replacer. 00:08:46.669 --> 00:08:50.330 Yes. Because for Camus, you are part of the occupier's 00:08:50.330 --> 00:08:52.750 block, purely based on your heritage or your 00:08:52.750 --> 00:08:55.539 religion. So assimilation doesn't exist? The 00:08:55.539 --> 00:08:58.419 theory ignores assimilation entirely. It suggests 00:08:58.419 --> 00:09:00.919 that if you aren't white and indigenous, whatever 00:09:00.919 --> 00:09:03.340 indigenous even means in a European continent 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:06.759 with centuries of constant migration, you can 00:09:06.759 --> 00:09:08.860 never truly be French. You are permanently an 00:09:08.860 --> 00:09:10.759 outsider. That seems to be the linchpin of the 00:09:10.759 --> 00:09:12.980 whole thing. It's a definition of citizenship 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:16.539 based entirely on blood, not on law or shared 00:09:16.539 --> 00:09:19.000 values. Which is a very old and historically 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:22.159 very dark idea in European history. Now, I want 00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:24.649 to draw a connection here. Because when I hear 00:09:24.649 --> 00:09:26.889 great replacement, I also hear echoes of white 00:09:26.889 --> 00:09:29.210 genocide. That's a term we hear much more in 00:09:29.210 --> 00:09:31.250 the U .S., usually from neo -Nazi groups. Are 00:09:31.250 --> 00:09:33.490 those two the same thing? They are cousins, certainly. 00:09:34.029 --> 00:09:36.570 But the branding is different. White genocide 00:09:36.570 --> 00:09:39.370 was popularized by figures like David Lane in 00:09:39.370 --> 00:09:42.429 the U .S., and it was explicitly anti -Semitic. 00:09:42.549 --> 00:09:45.629 It claimed a Jewish cabal was orchestrating the 00:09:45.629 --> 00:09:47.610 destruction of the white race. And the great 00:09:47.610 --> 00:09:49.629 replacement. The Great Replacement initially, 00:09:49.830 --> 00:09:52.629 at least, swapped out the overt anti -Semitism 00:09:52.629 --> 00:09:55.889 for Islamophobia. It focused heavily on culture 00:09:55.889 --> 00:09:58.990 and civilization rather than explicitly focusing 00:09:58.990 --> 00:10:01.730 on a Jewish plot. I see. That makes it more palatable 00:10:01.730 --> 00:10:04.149 for the mainstream. In a cynical way, yes. It 00:10:04.149 --> 00:10:06.230 allowed politicians to talk about defending our 00:10:06.230 --> 00:10:08.789 values against Islamization without sounding 00:10:08.789 --> 00:10:12.309 like a fringe skinhead from the 1980s. It mainstreamed 00:10:12.309 --> 00:10:14.889 the fear. It allowed it to enter polite society. 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:17.559 Though the source notes that recently those two 00:10:17.559 --> 00:10:19.220 theories have started to merge back together 00:10:19.220 --> 00:10:21.500 in some places. Yes, especially in the U .S. 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:24.419 The term globalist elites often becomes a code 00:10:24.419 --> 00:10:26.360 word that bridges the two conspiracy theories. 00:10:26.759 --> 00:10:29.259 Well, let's talk about that mainstreaming, because 00:10:29.259 --> 00:10:32.039 this definitely didn't stay confined to Camus' 00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:36.100 books. It went viral. And looking at the list 00:10:36.100 --> 00:10:38.039 of politicians in the source material who have 00:10:38.039 --> 00:10:40.960 flirted with this or outright endorsed it, it's 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:44.100 basically a who's who of the global right wing. 00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:47.559 It spread incredibly fast. You can trace a direct 00:10:47.559 --> 00:10:50.159 line from Camus looking out his window in the 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:53.419 Haro region straight to major national political 00:10:53.419 --> 00:10:55.679 platforms. Let's look at the home turf first. 00:10:56.279 --> 00:10:59.320 France. Obviously. You have the national rally 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:01.740 Marine Le Pen's party. She frequently uses terms 00:11:01.740 --> 00:11:04.299 like submersion to describe immigration. Then 00:11:04.299 --> 00:11:06.440 you have Eric Zemmour, who ran for president, 00:11:06.539 --> 00:11:08.980 explicitly pushing the Great Replacement as the 00:11:08.980 --> 00:11:11.379 central theme of his entire campaign. And Marion 00:11:11.379 --> 00:11:13.679 Marshall. Right. Le Pen's niece, who famously 00:11:13.679 --> 00:11:15.659 stated she didn't want France to become a land 00:11:15.659 --> 00:11:18.429 of Islam. But it's not just France. It's really 00:11:18.429 --> 00:11:21.129 fascinating and disturbing to see how each country 00:11:21.129 --> 00:11:23.850 tweaks the theory to fit their own specific national 00:11:23.850 --> 00:11:27.740 anxieties. Exactly. Look at Hungary. Prime Minister 00:11:27.740 --> 00:11:30.159 Viktor Orban is probably the most explicit world 00:11:30.159 --> 00:11:32.720 leader on this topic. The source points out he 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:34.899 has openly said that if Europe is populated by 00:11:34.899 --> 00:11:37.720 people other than Europeans, that is population 00:11:37.720 --> 00:11:41.019 replacement. He advocates heavily for Hungarian 00:11:41.019 --> 00:11:43.659 children rather than accepting numbers, meaning 00:11:43.659 --> 00:11:46.419 migrants. And the Netherlands. I saw a quote 00:11:46.419 --> 00:11:48.279 in the notes from Thierry Baudet that was just 00:11:48.279 --> 00:11:52.100 bizarre. Homeopathic dilution. Yeah, that one 00:11:52.100 --> 00:11:53.620 really sticks out in the reporting. What does 00:11:53.620 --> 00:11:55.840 that even mean in a political context? It's a 00:11:55.840 --> 00:11:59.019 pseudoscience metaphor. Homeopathy relies on 00:11:59.019 --> 00:12:01.679 the idea that tiny trace amounts of a substance 00:12:01.679 --> 00:12:04.419 affect the whole body. He's implying that even 00:12:04.419 --> 00:12:07.080 a small amount of foreign influence somehow dilutes 00:12:07.080 --> 00:12:09.159 or ruins the purity of the Dutch population. 00:12:09.659 --> 00:12:12.379 That is an obsession with purity that feels very 00:12:12.379 --> 00:12:14.899 archaic. It really does. It frames culture as 00:12:14.899 --> 00:12:16.960 something fragile that gets contaminated rather 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:19.200 than something dynamic that evolves. over time. 00:12:19.440 --> 00:12:21.559 And then, of course, the theory jumped the Atlantic. 00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:24.840 The US version. Now, we don't have ancient villages 00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:27.580 in the same way France does. We are fundamentally 00:12:27.580 --> 00:12:30.259 a nation of immigrants. So how did the theory 00:12:30.259 --> 00:12:33.299 mutate when it got here? In the US, it became 00:12:33.299 --> 00:12:36.480 less about villages and more about voting. It 00:12:36.480 --> 00:12:39.500 morphed from a purely cultural theory into an 00:12:39.500 --> 00:12:42.320 electoral strategy theory. Interesting. The sources 00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:44.960 cite Tucker Carlson as a huge driver of this 00:12:44.960 --> 00:12:47.600 on his show. He argued that the Great Replacement 00:12:47.600 --> 00:12:50.840 wasn't a conspiracy theory at all, but a literal 00:12:50.840 --> 00:12:53.500 strategy being deployed by the Democratic Party. 00:12:53.639 --> 00:12:56.059 To do what exactly? To intentionally import new 00:12:56.059 --> 00:12:58.860 voters to dilute the political power of what 00:12:58.860 --> 00:13:01.700 he called legacy Americans. Legacy Americans. 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:04.039 That's quite the code word. Right. And it worked. 00:13:04.100 --> 00:13:07.320 It resonated deeply. The source cites a 2022 00:13:07.320 --> 00:13:10.100 poll showing that 61 percent of Trump voters. 00:13:10.379 --> 00:13:12.000 believed a group was trying to replace native 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:13.860 -born Americans with immigrants specifically 00:13:13.860 --> 00:13:17.500 for political gain. 61%. That is huge. That's 00:13:17.500 --> 00:13:19.379 not a fringe internet theory anymore. That's 00:13:19.379 --> 00:13:22.500 a majority opinion in a massive mainstream voting 00:13:22.500 --> 00:13:25.220 bloc. It went from a French paperback to a core 00:13:25.220 --> 00:13:27.399 plank of American political belief in roughly 00:13:27.399 --> 00:13:30.379 a decade. But here is the curveball in the source 00:13:30.379 --> 00:13:32.960 material. And this is the part of the research 00:13:32.960 --> 00:13:35.039 that really stopped me in my tracks. We usually 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:37.720 think of this entirely as a white versus non 00:13:37.720 --> 00:13:40.620 -white dynamic. But tell me about Tunisia. This 00:13:40.620 --> 00:13:43.320 is the ultimate proof that the Great Replacement 00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:46.559 is a template. It's a mechanism, not just a specific 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:50.220 European heritage theory. Tunisia is an Arab 00:13:50.220 --> 00:13:52.820 Muslim majority nation in North Africa. Right. 00:13:52.919 --> 00:13:56.240 But President Kai Saeed used Great Replacement 00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:59.279 logic almost word for word. He claimed that sub 00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:02.000 -Saharan Africans, Black Africans, were migrating 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.080 to Tunisia as part of a plot to change its demographic 00:14:05.080 --> 00:14:07.659 makeup. So he was claiming Black immigrants were 00:14:07.659 --> 00:14:10.289 replacing Arab Tunisians. Exactly. He argued 00:14:10.289 --> 00:14:13.029 it was a deliberate plot to strip Tunisia of 00:14:13.029 --> 00:14:15.649 its Arab Islamic identity and make it purely 00:14:15.649 --> 00:14:18.370 African. That really breaks the mold. You have 00:14:18.370 --> 00:14:20.549 an Arab leader using great replacement rhetoric 00:14:20.549 --> 00:14:23.370 against black immigrants. It completely strips 00:14:23.370 --> 00:14:25.629 away the idea that this is solely about protecting 00:14:25.629 --> 00:14:28.429 European heritage. It shows it's just about the 00:14:28.429 --> 00:14:30.690 fear of the other, whoever that other happens 00:14:30.690 --> 00:14:33.149 to be in your specific country. It's basically 00:14:33.149 --> 00:14:35.590 Mad Libs for xenophobia. You just fill in the 00:14:35.590 --> 00:14:38.230 blanks. The elites are bringing in outsider group 00:14:38.230 --> 00:14:40.690 to replace us. You can run that exact script 00:14:40.690 --> 00:14:44.149 in Paris, in Texas or in Tunis. It plays on the 00:14:44.149 --> 00:14:47.190 universal human fear of losing status. And that 00:14:47.190 --> 00:14:49.009 script has consequences. We've talked about the 00:14:49.009 --> 00:14:51.450 books, the speeches, the polling data. But we 00:14:51.450 --> 00:14:53.370 have to talk about the real world body count 00:14:53.370 --> 00:14:55.250 because this isn't just a theoretical political 00:14:55.250 --> 00:14:58.250 science discussion. No. It's not. And this is 00:14:58.250 --> 00:15:00.230 where the deliberate nature of the conspiracy 00:15:00.230 --> 00:15:03.610 theory becomes so deadly. If you convince people 00:15:03.610 --> 00:15:06.330 that migration is just economic, they might vote 00:15:06.330 --> 00:15:08.769 for stricter border laws. But if you convince 00:15:08.769 --> 00:15:11.610 them it's an invasion, an occupation, an ongoing 00:15:11.610 --> 00:15:14.480 genocide. Well, how do you respond to a genocide? 00:15:14.740 --> 00:15:16.360 When you fight back, you use force. Exactly. 00:15:16.700 --> 00:15:19.000 The rhetoric itself creates a permission structure 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:22.340 for violence. It turns mass murder into an act 00:15:22.340 --> 00:15:24.399 of defense in the shooter's mind. We saw this 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:26.879 most horribly in Christchurch. New Zealand, 2019. 00:15:27.639 --> 00:15:30.539 Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people at two mosques. 00:15:30.740 --> 00:15:33.000 He didn't just leave a vague note. He wrote a 00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:36.580 sprawling manifesto and titled it The Great Replacement. 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:38.899 Direct reference. Direct reference to Renaud 00:15:38.899 --> 00:15:41.720 Camus. He viewed himself as a literal soldier 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:44.350 in this war. that Camus described. And that manifesto 00:15:44.350 --> 00:15:47.169 traveled. It became a blueprint for others. It 00:15:47.169 --> 00:15:49.690 became a viral virus of its own. The shooter 00:15:49.690 --> 00:15:52.850 in El Paso in 2019 cited a Hispanic invasion 00:15:52.850 --> 00:15:55.970 of Texas and cultural replacement. The shooter 00:15:55.970 --> 00:15:59.610 in Buffalo in 2022 explicitly listed the great 00:15:59.610 --> 00:16:02.169 replacement in his manifesto. The shooter at 00:16:02.169 --> 00:16:04.389 the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh back 00:16:04.389 --> 00:16:08.049 in 2018 believed Jews were bringing in invaders 00:16:08.049 --> 00:16:10.730 to kill the white race. It's a chain reaction 00:16:10.730 --> 00:16:13.419 to violence. It is what scholars refer to as 00:16:13.419 --> 00:16:16.679 stochastic terrorism. You pump this extreme rhetoric 00:16:16.679 --> 00:16:19.220 out into the world invasion, replacement, death 00:16:19.220 --> 00:16:21.799 of our culture over and over again on massive 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:24.220 platforms. And statistically, you can't predict 00:16:24.220 --> 00:16:26.639 exactly who will snap, but you can predict with 00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:28.580 absolute certainty that someone will take you 00:16:28.580 --> 00:16:30.620 at your word and pick up a weapon. And yet the 00:16:30.620 --> 00:16:32.940 originators of this rhetoric, Hannes, the politicians 00:16:32.940 --> 00:16:35.100 on TV, they usually wash their hands of it, right? 00:16:35.159 --> 00:16:37.279 They say, I never told anyone to shoot. Camus 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:39.759 explicitly claims his philosophy is nonviolent. 00:16:40.509 --> 00:16:43.289 He condemns the specific terrorist attacks. But 00:16:43.289 --> 00:16:45.929 scholars argue that his language acts as an implicit 00:16:45.929 --> 00:16:48.950 call to violence. You can't repeatedly tell people 00:16:48.950 --> 00:16:51.049 they are being exterminated, that they are being 00:16:51.049 --> 00:16:54.470 occupied by a hostile alien force, and then act 00:16:54.470 --> 00:16:57.269 surprised when they lash out violently. It's 00:16:57.269 --> 00:16:59.909 like shouting fire in a crowded theater and then 00:16:59.909 --> 00:17:02.690 calmly saying, you didn't tell anyone to trample 00:17:02.690 --> 00:17:04.410 each other on the way out. That's a very apt 00:17:04.410 --> 00:17:07.400 analogy. The language creates the life or death 00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:10.059 emergency. The violence is just the predictable 00:17:10.059 --> 00:17:12.660 response to that emergency. So pulling this all 00:17:12.660 --> 00:17:14.680 together, we've traced this from a window in 00:17:14.680 --> 00:17:16.380 the south of France to the halls of Congress 00:17:16.380 --> 00:17:19.819 and to tragic crime scenes globally. It feels 00:17:19.819 --> 00:17:21.680 like The Great Replacement is successful because 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:24.579 it vastly simplifies a very complex world. It 00:17:24.579 --> 00:17:27.339 flattens the world. We are living through massive 00:17:27.339 --> 00:17:30.299 demographic and economic shifts right now. Populations 00:17:30.299 --> 00:17:33.200 are aging. People are moving due to climate and 00:17:33.200 --> 00:17:36.619 conflict. Economies are rapidly globalized. That 00:17:36.619 --> 00:17:39.500 is scary and deeply confusing for a lot of people. 00:17:39.980 --> 00:17:42.539 The Great Replacement takes all that legitimate 00:17:42.539 --> 00:17:44.500 complexity and says, no, it's not complex. There 00:17:44.500 --> 00:17:47.779 is a villain. It is a plot. And you are the victim. 00:17:48.019 --> 00:17:50.299 It gives you a villain to fight rather than a 00:17:50.299 --> 00:17:52.559 phenomenon to understand. Exactly. And it connects 00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:56.079 your personal localized anxiety to a grand historical 00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:58.859 struggle. It gives people purpose, even if that 00:17:58.859 --> 00:18:01.380 purpose is built entirely on a manufactured lie. 00:18:01.740 --> 00:18:04.200 I want to leave you, the listener, with a thought 00:18:04.200 --> 00:18:05.819 today that kind of gnaws at the root of this 00:18:05.819 --> 00:18:08.299 whole thing. The Great Replacement relies entirely 00:18:08.299 --> 00:18:11.440 on one specific assumption. That an immigrant 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:13.319 can never truly belong to the nation they move 00:18:13.319 --> 00:18:16.390 to. That they are always the replacing. And never 00:18:16.390 --> 00:18:18.750 the new citizen. Right. It assumes identity is 00:18:18.750 --> 00:18:21.190 static, that it's forever frozen in time. So 00:18:21.190 --> 00:18:23.049 the real question we have to ask ourselves, and 00:18:23.049 --> 00:18:24.690 this applies whether you're in France, the U 00:18:24.690 --> 00:18:28.250 .S. or Tunisia, is what actually defines a nation 00:18:28.250 --> 00:18:31.569 in the 21st century? Is it a shared set of laws 00:18:31.569 --> 00:18:34.269 and civic values that anyone can adopt if they 00:18:34.269 --> 00:18:38.069 choose to? Or is it, as Camus suggests, strictly 00:18:38.069 --> 00:18:40.799 about heritage and blood? Because how you answer 00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:42.720 that fundamental question determines whether 00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:45.119 you see a new neighbor or an occupier. And that 00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:47.700 distinction changes everything. Thanks for diving 00:18:47.700 --> 00:18:49.119 deep with us today. See you next time.