As with the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 and the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, the “Great Replacement Theory” became the motive for murder.
–
Around 2:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon, a heavily armed Payton S. Gendron entered the Tops Friendly supermarket in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, and opened fire on customers. The 18-year-old white man lives hours from Buffalo and murdered 10 people, including a security guard. He had shot at Gendron. But thanks to military protective armor and a helmet, he was not damaged. The perpetrator eventually surrendered to two police officers.
Apparently he had initially considered suicide. It then became known that he underwent a psychological examination last year, which, however, produced no evidence of a disorder. This is probably one of the reasons why he was able to purchase a rifle, a shotgun and an AR-15 automatic rifle due to the more lax regulations for long guns in the state of New York, which is actually known for strict gun controls (Link).
The act caused shock and fueled a debate that had been going on for years about the radicalization of conservatives in America under the auspices of racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda and conspiracy theories. The killer streamed his act live via a helmet camera and wrote a detailed manifesto. The focus is on the “Great Replacement Theory”, according to which Jews in America and in the West as a whole want to displace and “replace” whites with “inferior races” (Link).
Since Donald Trump’s agitation against migrants from Latin America, this theory has been increasingly promoted by Republican politicians such as Matt Gaetz or Marjorie Taylor Greene, but also by “commentators” such as Ben Shapiro (Link) propagated. The loudest drummer, however, is Fox presenter Tucker Carlson, who thus achieves the highest ratings on his station (Link).
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt had already called for Carlson’s dismissal a year ago. But Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch denied this – Carlson rejects the theory (Link). Carlson then escalated his attacks on the Democrats’ immigration policy and accused the ruling party of deliberately smuggling in Latin Americans in order to break the white majority of the population. Carlson explicitly stated that this confirmed the “Replacement Theory”.
Greenblatt reacted with outrage and renewed calls for his dismissal. Prominent Trump supporters then intervened. Rep. Matt Gaetz accused the ADL of “racism” and tweeted: “@TuckerCarlson is CORRECT about Replacement Theory because that’s how he explains what’s being done to America. The ADL is a racist organization.” However, Gaetz did not say exactly what he means. He is under investigation in Florida for corruption and abuse of a minor. Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel from Ohio, meanwhile, described Greenblatt as a “kapo”, i.e. a helper of the Nazis in concentration camps (Link). However, there is plenty of evidence for Greenblatt’s accusation. Carlson also recently announced that white, far-right terrorism does not exist in the United States (Link).
Commentators are now also making references to the recently leaked draft by the right-wing Catholic constitutional judge Samuel Alito, who justifies the abolition of the federal right to abortion with ensuring the “domestic supply of small children”. In his manifesto, the Buffalo killer babbles about the “white birth rate” which is his ultimate goal to raise (Link).
Carlson had not commented on the massacre at press time (Link).
–
