The origins of our authoritarian era

“Kennedy brilliantly argues that we must work across lines of race and class to eliminate social ills and eradicate fascism.” -Los Angeles Times. Chosen as one of the most anticipated books of 2026 by: The New York Times, Oprah Daily, LitHub, Foreign Policy, and The Millions. Remember the words chanted in Charlottesville, Virginia: “You will not replace us!” Remember the string of mass shootings around the world – in Oslo, Christchurch, Buffalo, El Paso, and Pittsburgh – who claimed their crimes were a defense against “white genocide.” Remember the business and media figures who fuel the anxiety and hype about demographic change. These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg: popular politicians and rulers around the world have expressed a form of grand substitution theory, undermining democratic norms in the name of preventing demographic change. The term was coined in 2011 by a French novelist, who claimed that black and colored immigrants were “invading” Europe, and that hidden elites had brought them in to “replace” the white population. Hence, politicians and theorists in the United States and elsewhere recast this theory as a story of “globalists” welcoming “immigrant criminals” and promoting diversity with the aim of taking away white people’s jobs, cultures, electoral power, and even their lives. Over time, the Great Replacement Theory expanded to include threatened groups: citizens, men, Jews, Christians, heterosexuals, and ethnic majorities in countries as disparate as Russia, El Salvador, Brazil, Italy, and India, all targeted with the message that they were facing an existential attack that could only be prevented by a strong man. In The Ideas Series, international bestselling author Ibram