Endorsing narratives of white replacement: Elite discourse, public attention, and extremist mobilization

This paper examines how endorsements of white replacement conspiracies by political leaders might redirect public attention and energize white supremacist activity in the United States. We trace the historical evolution of replacement narratives and examine their appeal to political actors, then discuss theoretical frameworks linking reports of hostile political speech, public attention, and extremist mobilization. We construct a novel dataset combining federal and state legislators’ endorsements of replacement narratives that received media attention with Google search trends and indicators of white supremacist mobilization and propaganda. Using ARMAX time-series models, we identify a robust positive relationship between the cumulation of political endorsements and subsequent increases in white supremacist activity—a pattern that is replicated in state-level analyses employing state fixed-effects models. While cumulative endorsements are associated with public attention on immigration at the state level, this relationship is less pronounced at the national level, suggesting that legislators’ rhetorical influence may be spatially concentrated within their own constituencies. These findings reveal how political elites might simultaneously shift public attention and foster climates of outgroup hostility that increase extremist mobilization, offering broader insight into the interplay between public discourse about demographic change and socio-political behavior.