From extremist chat rooms to the GOP

When I saw the news alert about the mass shooting in Buffalo, I felt sick about the loss of innocent lives — parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, murdered as they did their Saturday morning errands.

But having spent the last 2½ years immersed in research for my upcoming novel, “Some Kind of Hate,” I also felt queasy because I was worried it would turn out to be the latest incidence of stochastic terrorism — “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act.”

Sadly, my initial concern was validated. The shooter’s manifesto (largely cribbed from the manifestos of other right-wing extremists), consisted of the ideas I’d seen in regularly in various online forums.

To understand the mindset of a teen boy who is radicalized to white nationalism through gaming platforms, I interviewed former extremists to find out what drew them into hate movements, as well what sparked their decisions to leave.

I also spent as much time as I could bear lurking in extremist chatrooms on Telegram. It was like being showered by a toxic firehouse of racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and misogynist thoughts and memes.

A prevalent idea in these extremist chatrooms was Replacement Theory. It’s rooted in antisemitism, namely that there is a Jewish-led conspiracy to encourage both immigration and intermarriage between races to cause “white genocide” — hence the chant of “Jews will not replace us” at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. It inspired domestic terrorists to commit mass murder at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 and an El Paso Walmart in 2019.

But these ideas are no longer confined to the political fringes — they are the essence of today’s Republican Party, having been mainstreamed straight from the Oval Office under the former president, by media figures such as Tucker Carlson, and politicians such as Elise Stefanik and Matt Gaetz. A recent AP/NORC poll found that 32 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “there is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace nativeborn Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views.” Those holding a belief in such conspiracies are “more likely to identify as Republican, consider themselves born-again Christians, and interpret the Bible literally, than the general population.”

Republicans are using multiple strategies to fight this alleged “genocide” — which at its heart is the fear of no longer controlling the reins of power due to America’s changing demographics.

The Brennan Center for Justice found that not only were there an increased number of restrictive voting laws in 2022, the harshest legislation was being proposed by almost exclusively by Republicans, and that they disproportionately affect people of color.

Then there’s the assault on women’s bodily autonomy. Oklahoma just passed a law that gives the fetus personhood from the moment of conception. This isn’t “pro Life,” because make no mistake, women will die because of this law. It’s an attempt to establish Christianity as the law of the land, as if the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment doesn’t exist.

If you think these things aren’t related, Matt Schlapp recently said the “quiet part” aloud at CPAC in Hungary: “If you say there is a population problem in a country, but you’re killing millions of your own people through legalized abortion every year, if that were to be reduced, some of that problem is solved ... If you’re worried about this ... replacement, why don’t we start there? Start with allowing our own people to live.”

When pressed by journalists on his belief in Replacement theory, Schlapp made the derisible statement, “I don’t know if I understand what that is.”

Another prong in the attack is a coordinated effort to take over local school boards, as we saw last year in Guilford by raising unfounded fears that Critical Race Theory is being taught in K-12 schools. An allegedly “grassroots” groups called Moms for Liberty that claims its funding comes from t-shirt sales, yet curiously has strong connections with powerful figures in the Republican Party and the Heritage Foundation. The group is also stoking the book banning trend sweeping Republican states in the South. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the focus of these bans are books by authors of color and those featuring LGBTQIA characters.

A letter signed by 1,300 children’s book authors was recently submitted to the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties decrying these censorship efforts. “Reading stories that reflect the diversity of our world builds empathy and respect for everyone’s humanity. At a time when our country is experiencing an alarming rise in hate crimes, we should be searching for ways to increase empathy and compassion at every turn,” it said.

As writers, we know that words matter — that they can be used to create understanding, or to stoke hatred and dehumanization, with deadly results.