For Ibram X. Kendi, It’s Nazis All the Way Down

A conspiracy theory is soothing to the believer not just because it promises a complete explanation for all that appears wrong with the world, but also because it confirms the sense that something is wrong with the world. Society is in flux: New technology is altering how we work and think, centuries-old definitions of gender are collapsing, long-trusted institutions are crumbling, the weather itself seems to be in revolt. Any or all of these changes might make you feel unmoored, as if you are no longer in control. The conspiracy theorist comes along and says you are right. And more than that: Someone, or some group, is completely to blame; they are actively working to take away what you so recently took for granted. If this answer flies in the face of all observable truth, if it reduces life to a zero-sum game, it can still feel plausible because the conspiracy theorist is speaking to a human anxiety about the good and prosperous life being a limited commodity. As Naomi Klein put it in her recent book, Doppelganger: “Conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong but often get the feelings right.”Ibram X. Kendi correctly calls the “Great Replacement” theory, which jibes perfectly with the description above, “the most dominant political theory of our time.” The idea that nefarious forces, usually Jews (or “globalists,” in the more polite versions), are opening the gates to Black and brown immigrants in order to eradicate white culture has propelled extreme-right nativist movements over the past 15 years. We’ve heard this from the mouth of Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk, but also from Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orbán. In Kendi’s new book, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age, he sets out to capture this theory’s spread.The goal is an admirable one—the danger of this idea has been proved again and again as it’s shown up in the scrawled manifestos of mass shooters from South Carolina to Norway. But the book Kendi has written reads less like an effort to understan