Opinion

‘Great Replacement Theory’ isn’t about voting. It’s about whiteness.

A few years ago, the idea known as “great replacement theory” — that liberal elites are scheming to “replace” native-born Americans with non-white immigrants — began to migrate from the far-right fringe into the outer reaches of the Republican Party.

A leading indicator of this came from Donald Trump advisers Stephen K. Bannon and Stephen Miller, who began touting “The Camp of the Saints,” a racist 1973 novel in which dark-skinned immigrants destroy France. Versions of these ideas found their way into Trump speeches, but at the time, few understood this development’s implications.