This careful analysis of so-called ‘great replacement theory’ offers a lens through which to view our broken politics
Informationsüberflutung? Weltschmerz? I’ve been searching and I don’t think even the Germans have a word that fully captures just how overwhelming the news cycle is right now. The zone has been well and truly flooded; just as you start trying to process one shocking event, something new hits the headlines.
Chain of Ideas, a new book by professor Ibram X Kendi, doesn’t provide a one-world encapsulation of our modern woes. But, in a meticulously researched 500 pages, it lays out an essential framework for parsing current events.
The central thesis is that the ideological origins of what Kendi terms “our authoritarian age” lie in the so-called “great replacement theory”. This is defined as “a political theory that powerful elites are enabling peoples of colour to steal the lives, livelihoods, cultures, electoral power, and freedoms of White people, who now need authoritarian protection”.
Is this not just white nationalism by another name? Not exactly. “Since Trump’s election in 2016 great replacement politicians and theorists had been increasingly organising international meetings, networks, charters, and associations,” Kendi argues. “For a long time, these extremists had concentrated domestically … before shifting to the transnational battle to defend the White race … which is why terming great replacement theorists ‘white nationalists’ doesn’t fully capture their new identity and ideology.”
