America has a growing problem with stochastic terrorism


The deadly shooting in Buffalo in which ten people were killed after a white teenager went on a rampage inside a supermarket renewed focus on “the great replacement theory.” That idea suggests that white people are being replaced by minorities. The suspect in that massacre referenced the theory in a manifesto he allegedly wrote before the shooting. Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman argues that the attack in Buffalo is another example of how stochastic terrorism may be fueling these acts of violence.

Now, when I say stochastic terrorism, I’m not saying that the individual in the media has broken a law. I’m not a lawyer. And I don’t believe that that’s the case. I’m not saying you could charge anybody in particular, because of a shooting that someone else did, through the media, that is people in the media. This is not an issue of saying their speech is against the law. It’s more an issue of responsibility. And of us as people in the media, understanding the effect that our words can have. I make every effort not to make irresponsible speech on my program. And when I get something factually wrong, I make every effort to correct it right away and not to bury the correction at the back of whatever. And, of course, I make every effort never to make a speech on my show, that could be misinterpreted, as inciting or suggesting that any kind of violence should be done. 

We are now seeing panic from those on the right, who have been espousing this great replacement theory ideology, distancing themselves from it. Ben Shapiro recently said, actually, the great replacement theory stuff, it’s it’s really woke ism, a left wing ideology. That’s not true. But that’s how Ben Shapiro has chosen to deal with it. Tucker Carlson recently said, on on his first program after the Buffalo shooting, that this is just a mentally ill person, and that we can ascribe a politics to their ideology. That’s very convenient for Tucker because it just so happens that all of the ideology, all of the people espousing the ideology, that the shooter included in the alleged manifesto, are right wing individuals. So it would be very inconvenient for Tucker Carlson for anybody to be connecting it to politics, but of course there is politics in it. So this is where it comes from.