Five Years On, the Conspiracy that Inspired the Deadly White Nationalist Attack in El Paso is Now the GOP’s Main Talking Point

Five years ago, on August 3, a man from Texas radicalized by white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories drove hundreds of miles to murder 23 people and injure 26 more who were shopping at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. He had been obsessed with a so-called “Hispanic invasion” of Texas and the great replacement conspiracy theory. Today, the echoes of this deadly white nationalist conspiracy were given top billing in the National Republican platform, with the first bullet point reading “seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion.” 

Once contained to the fringes, promoted by neo-Nazis and white nationalists, the antisemitic and racist conspiracy theory that Jews, globalists, or elites on the Left are intentionally facilitating an invasion of non-whites as part of a plot to steal elections and replace “real” or white Americans, has been adopted by the GOP. This is despite the demonstrated pattern of deadly political violence this dehumanizing lie has produced and the active threat it represents to democracy and the public safety of all Americans.

In the recent Congressional hearing about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the FBI revealed that the social media account they believe to be associated with the shooter made posts that “reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes, to espouse political violence." As Amy Spitalnick, ​​CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, wrote in response, “No one should be surprised. Antisemitism and anti-immigrant hate are deeply intertwined. And research shows that belief in such conspiracy theories is inextricably linked to willingness to support or engage in political violence.”

Around the time of the attack in El Paso, few Republicans had been publicly using the language of invasion and other rhetoric associated with the replacement conspiracy on their social media pages and political ads. Trump, infamously, had run over 2,000 Facebook ads pushing the invasion conspiracy in the months leading up to the attack. As well as radical Republicans associated with white nationalists like Wendy Rodgers (AZ) and Corey Stweart (VA) ran ads during the election with the rhetoric. But few others were parroting the rhetoric used by the El Paso mass murderer or the one who attacked Pittsburgh in October 2018 who also warned of a replacement theory invasion.    

Despite the deadly violence it has inspired, in the five years since the attack in El Paso, Republicans have completely embraced the white nationalist conspiracy as their own. America’s Voice has been closely monitoring the issue over the last five years and in 2024, the problem has become acutely worse. America’s Voice has identified: 

• 165 members of this Congress who have amplified the replacement conspiracy theory and invasion rhetoric. In the first seven months of this year, they have pushed this conspiracy over 650 times in their official capacity on their social media accounts. 

• 11 pieces of federal legislation employing the invasion conspiracy, including over 130 examples of Republican members of Congress using the invasion conspiracy on the House or Senate floor

• 302 Republican-aligned political ads using invasion rhetoric with TV/CTV ad spending of  $30M in six months into 2024 compared to 61 ads in all of 2022 with a total spend of $5.5M

Top Republican officials and candidates often refrain from the more explicit antisemitic and white nationalist forms of the replacement theory like those avowed white nationalists who chanted “Jews will not replace us” in the streets in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. They use coded versions, adding a level of plausible deniability to the white nationalism and antisemitism in their message. Even though many Republicans are not engaging in the replacement lie explicitly, the use of invasion is the most common method for advancing the conspiracy theory. An invasion, by definition, is an “incursion of an army for conquest or plunder,” which is used in times of war, not for people moving to different countries for a better life and opportunities. It is a language of intent and conquest, not a synonym for large.

They will also reference the conspiracy suggesting an “intentional” plot to bring in migrants to cast fraudulent votes for Democrats or suggest that increases in migration are orchestrated on purpose to dilute the voting power of “real Americans.” While some, like Rep. Scott Perry, will explicitly defend the replacement theory behind closed doors, most know they need to obscure the connection to this deadly bigoted lie in public. 

Now, Republicans are advancing the replacement theory as a core part of their 2024 electoral message.     

Just one month before the fifth anniversary of El Paso, the Republican Party released a full 20 point policy platform ahead of their 2024 Republican National Convention, with the number one priority invoking the bigoted “seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion” conspiracy, and number two, carrying out “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Both items ranked ahead of fiscal policies or energy. 

They put this abhorrent agenda on full display at the recent Republican National Convention, where speakers on the main stage across all four nights amplified the replacement theory. One of the most explicit abusers of this bigoted lie was none other than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). “We are facing an invasion on our southern border,” Cruz continued. “Not figuratively. A literal invasion … every day, Americans are dying — murdered, assaulted, raped by illegal immigrants that the Democrats have released … It happened because Democrats cynically decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children.” The Senator’s nativist rant parroted the racist screed of the white nationalist who attacked his constituents in his home state in El Paso.  

This language has become a central campaign message for Trump and his Vice Presidential running mate, J.D. Vance. In his 2022 Senate bid in Ohio, Vance repeatedly amplified the white nationalist replacement conspiracy theory. In December 2021, he retweeted popular Fox News border “journalist” Bill Melugin, stating that “never before has American leadership actively promoted the invasion of the country” from the encounter numbers at the southern border. He again retweeted Melugin in February 2022 and claimed the Biden administration was seeking to “replace the citizens of his own country with illegal foreigners. The invasion he’s allowing to happen at the border is about power for democrats and nothing more” to win the 2024 elections. He’s continued to use this dangerous rhetoric during office, including falsely pinning housing challenges on immigrants. “Stop the invasion of our country, and you’ll tamp down on housing inflation,” he tweeted. He has also joined his colleagues’ false claim that “not only is Joe Biden promoting the border invasion…demanding that banks help fund it”. Check out our analysis of Vance as Trump’s VP pick for more examples. 

Vance is not a moderate pick but another intentional choice that secures the GOP as the party that aligns itself with white nationalism. This is despite the testimony from FBI experts, the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security testifying that domestic terrorism is the biggest threat to the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas confirmed that the great replacement conspiracy theory “certainly fuels the threat landscape we encounter.” Yet Republicans continue to spread the dangerous rhetoric from the halls of Congress and on national platforms. Echoing Vance, Speaker Mike Johnson has made it his mission to push the widely debunked fear that non-citizens are voting and will swing the November election, and during the convention, claimed that we “cannot allow the many millions of illegal aliens they’ve allowed across our borders to harm our citizens, drain our resources, or disrupt our elections,” which Rolling Stone reported was “nodding to the Great Replacement conspiracy theory that Democrats are deliberately trying to flood the nation with immigrants to win elections.”

Some of the replacement conspiracy’s loudest proponents also crafted and contributed to the radical agenda outlined in Project 2025.

There are two pernicious concerns stemming from the noticeable increase in the elevation of the replacement conspiracy in this critical election. As Republicans have sought to win the votes in competitive primary elections and drive base voters to the polls, they have pushed the urgent existential threat of the replacement theory, fueling the dehumanization of an out-group. In doing so, they have increased the threat to public safety from the same sort of deadly political violence we saw in El Paso five years ago. But it is also about making immigrants the central villain in a conspiratorial lie to further socialize a justification for undermining American democracy. Adopting the lie outlined in the racist screed of the El Paso mass murder, Republicans’ Plan A is to use the lie to advance massive voter suppression efforts like the ones promised by Speaker Johnson if they win in November. Or if they lose, Plan B is to use the racist lie to attempt again to overturn the election results. 

The shadow cast by the El Paso attack was dark and devastating in its own right, the GOP’s radicalization to adopt the white nationalist lies that drove it made it even worse. But political accountability for this ugly display is still possible.