As the election year gets underway, a conspiratorial narrative typically circulated by fringe movements has come to dominate mainstream Republican discourse on immigration, extremism researchers warn. Specifically, they say that rhetoric used by Republican officeholders about the surge of migrants at the border with Mexico increasingly echoes the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory that has inspired violence in the past and could do so again in the future.
"This is the idea that directly influenced the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter, the El Paso Walmart shooter, the Buffalo supermarket shooter," said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which tracks domestic and transnational far-right movements. "It is the font of terrorism around the world."
