The Rage of Replacement:
Far Right Politics and Demographic Fear
by Michael Feola (University Of Minnesota Press)
The Rage of Replacement is about the idea of the Great Replacement, and its place in the far right thought. “The Great Replacement” is the idea that white, as a race, is ending due to systemic or organized efforts. The specifics vary, as do the responses, but the idea is one that the author views as core to explicating the actions of the far right.
While the topic is disturbing, the book is a good treatment. The back half the book is the stronger section, as the author shows the specific sorts of expressions of the theory and what different segments of the far right, and not as far right, interact with it, specifically as respect to political action, succession movements, and anti-feminism.
The front half is weaker. The idea of a sort of hurtful nostalgia of melancholy does help to better understand the thinking at work and understanding the flavor of hate, which matters for laying the groundwork for the applications of the theory later in the book, but overall this and the other initial chapters wind up more survey, and while that is useful to have there is not much in the way of new ground here.
One thing is that the author does engage directly with the various terrorist manifestos from those who have acted out and commit violence on behalf of this bad idea. This is justifiable, and the book includes copious quotes from other far right writers, so it is in context, but it is often particularly stark to encounter, even as a reader who thinks himself pretty jaded on such things.
The ending of the book acknowledges the difficulty in trying to fix this. I was put off a bit by this at first – why make a conclusion to say that there is no conclusion – but the more I think on it, the more I like it. It is hard to say what it is, but some new sort of civic ideal that feels grief rather than grievance seems a sound point, or well, other than…gestures vaguely at shelf of Neil Postman books. But fundamentally it seems like a further topic of research, building on what is here, as does the core matter of the psychology of melancholy at work here and further expressions of it in particular. And ultimately I look favorably on any book that sets up clear avenues of investigation for other books.
My thanks to the author, Michael Feola, for writing the book, and to the publisher, University of Minnesota Press, for making the ARC availble to me.
CITATION HEEDED 