Is "white genocide" happening in the U.S.?

I recently became aware of a curious concept called “white genocide”. My purpose in writing about this topic is not to convince anyone of anything. My motivation can be best described by the feeling you get when you lift a rock and find something gross. So you poke it with a stick and it squirms and changes color. So you take a video and show all your friends. That’s what I’m doing here.

I wanted to know how common it is to believe in this theory, so I ran a (very unscientific) Twitter poll:

Of the 5,253 people who voted, over 72% believe that we are in the midst of a white genocide in this country. A recent Rasmussen poll with less dramatic wording found that “57% of Likely U.S. voters believe it is likely that some people are promoting mass immigration to the United States as part of a political agenda to replace the existing American population, including 36% who say it’s Very Likely.” So what is this theory?

White genocide is another name for white replacement or the great replacement theory¹. The term “great replacement” originated in the 2011 book “Le Grand Remplacement” by French author Renaud Camus. Please don’t confuse him for the more famous French philosopher Albert Camus. I tried to get Bard (Google’s AI chatbot) to summarize the book for me, and I got this response:

Bad move, Google. Trying to suppress information is fuel for conspiracy theories. It invites people to ask “Who wanted this information to be harder to access? Why?” Of course, believers will conclude that whichever elites they blame also control Google.

The most charitable explanation I’ve heard of these theories is from Aporia Magazine. The argument there sounds reasonable and defensible: the United States is becoming less white via immigration, and Democrats support demographic change at least in part because they believe this increases their voter base.

I think the above description is a good example of the Motte and bailey fallacy: it’s easy to defend and sounds perfectly reasonable. If that’s all there was to the theory, there would not be such a backlash that Google’s AI safety team felt the need to prevent Bard from even summarizing the main points of Renaud Camus’ book. But believers of the white replacement theory generally don’t stop there: they believe that there is a deliberate plot by Jewish/globalist/liberal elites to reduce white populations throughout the world via not only immigration, but also by promoting abortion, homosexuality, atheism, transgenderism, mixed-race relationships, pornography, climate change fears, feminism, [insert any culture war issue] — as these suppress the white birth rate.

I am not sure what the motivation of “globalist/liberal elites” is supposed be — maximize profit by importing cheap labor? In that case, it becomes unclear why suppressing the white birth rate matters. More workers of any color should put downward pressure on wages, no? The purported motivation of Jewish elites is that they want the U.S. and white European countries to be roiling in racial strife so white majorities will be too distracted to persecute them — never mind that Jewish people are not magically invincible in the face of civil unrest. Allegedly, their ultimate goal is for whites to become a minority so they can fully take control. Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi is often cited by those who blame Jews. He speculated:

“The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today's races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals.”

Somehow, this became twisted into a statement about mixed-race people being easier to control. Politifact provided a debunking of the “Kalergi Plan.” In fact, Kalergi believed that race mixing in Europe would “absorb” other cultures, not that European whites would be destroyed by it.

The Aporia article from above characterizes the antisemitic aspects of the great replacement theory as fringe: “very few people who are accused of espousing the great replacement theory actually espouse the view that demographic change is the consequence of a Jewish conspiracy.” This was stated without evidence — so I ran another Twitter poll:

This one only got 3,874 votes, but nearly 65% of believers blame Jews either entirely or in part. About 55% blame democrats, at least in part. Those who voted “other” blamed Republicans, Asians, China, Iran and even whites themselves (for not reproducing, or for being pathologically altruistic).

Generally, the hardest component to prove in a genocide claim is intent. For there to be intent, there has to be a person or group in power who has the intention. Not just an intention to make the country inviting for immigrants because they believe that will help their chances at the polls. Or because they like when spicy foreign food is available on Uber Eats. An intention to destroy, in whole or in part, the white race. That’s where this theory fails.

Importantly, I don’t think genocide applies when a group enacts policies that negatively affect its own demographics. For an extreme example, consider the Shakers — they are a now-extinct religious sect that believed in celibacy: believers remained segregated by sex and did not reproduce. Did the Shakers commit genocide on themselves by adhering to their beliefs?

Similarly, since the white population of the United States is still a majority that holds considerable political power, it is not possible to enact large-scale demographic changes (e.g. white replacement/genocide) without widespread white buy-in. Supposing that the causes are correctly identified, I believe you’ll find that immigration, feminism, abortion, pornography (and all those other culture war issues blamed for the decrease in white birth rate) enjoy significant support from whites themselves.

I’m sorry, you can’t call it a genocide if you’re a willing participant. White women in the United States are not reproducing at replacement rate, but this is true for all racial/ethnic groups except Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. While it’s unclear exactly why or how to reverse this trend, most rich countries have issues with birth rates. China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and many European countries all have fertility rates below replacement, and no government policy that has been tried thus far has produced a meaningful difference. That this trend is common in rich countries (including majority non-white countries) suggests a mechanism other than nefarious elites trying to wipe out whites.

I think the true explanation for the demographic shifts we’re seeing is some combination of much more mundane factors like:

1. The expense and/or stress of raising children in advanced societies

2. Delay of parenthood and reduction in teen/early adult pregnancies resulting in women having fewer children than they want

3. Immigration to fill gaps in the labor market as the native population ages

4. Increases in “asylum seekers” motivated by local unrest and/or poor economic prospects in Africa/Middle East/South America

5. Immigration systems ill-equipped to deal with the huge influx from 4

6. Politicians unable to compromise on sensible immigration and asylum policy

Government policy is difficult to change but white individuals who are concerned about being replaced can become Mormons today. Mormons are in favor of large families, traditional values and gender roles. They’re against most of the culprits often named in white genocide theories: pornography, atheism, transgenderism, abortion, etc. They also tend to lean most Republican out of any religious group in the U.S. — and Republicans are more likely than Democrats to address the immigration issue.

So, do you believe in the white replacement theory? If so, what’s stopping you from embracing the Mormon lifestyle today?

1. They’re the same underlying concept, but the first blames Jewish elites, while the latter blames liberal elites.