Abstract

The belief that White people are targeted victims of dispossession, displacement, and genocide has spread with shocking intensity since Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral college victory. Although this Great Replacement myth may seem absurd and irrational, its destructive real-world consequences force the question: what explains its efficacy and appeal? Drawing on White nationalists Greg Johnson and Tucker Carlson, I argue that the Great Replacement myth functions as an explanation for the real socioeconomic decline that has culminated in deaths of despair. I then explore this decline’s sociohistorical context to argue that deaths of despair are consequences of political-economic domination reinforced by White supremacy. Put otherwise, these deaths result from socioeconomic violence that White people have inflicted on each other. I conclude that the real problem “the White race” faces today is not a Great Replacement but a Slow White Suicide.