Democracy Dies in Darkness

Conservative media is familiar with Buffalo suspect’s alleged ‘theory’

Updated May 15, 2022 at 4:26 p.m. EDT|Published May 15, 2022 at 2:01 p.m. EDT
The scene Sunday morning after the deadly shooting Saturday in Buffalo. (Libby March for The Washington Post)
5 min

The suspect in Saturday’s killing of 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket allegedly wrote a document endorsing “great replacement theory,” a once-fringe racist idea that became a popular refrain among media figures such as Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham of Fox News and conservative writer Ann Coulter.

Before the shooting rampage that also left three wounded, the suspect, Payton S. Gendron, 18, allegedly posted a lengthy document invoking the idea that White Americans were at risk of being “replaced” by people of color because of immigration and higher birthrates.