Transcription
I want to show you something that will change the way you think about migration. This map of Europe shows what its demographics may look like at the end of this century, the year 2100. The red symbolizes a decrease in population. The gray shows an increase in population. The redder a country is, the more its population is expected to shrink. If current trends hold, this is where much of the continent is headed.
Now look at this map. This is what Europe's population would look like without immigrants. The deeper the red, the sharper the drop in population. Point is, Europe is getting older and its birth rates are dropping fast. As a result, its economy is cracking, its workforce disappearing. So, some governments have done what seems like the obvious solution. They've increased immigration. But over the last few years, it has gone from being seen as just another economic policy or a conversation about border security to something entirely different, something more sinister.
You may have heard of the great replacement theory. If you haven't, these guys have.
>> No to radical Islam. No to migrants claiming welfare. No to open borders. No to anything other than mass deportations. >>
These protesters say their governments have conspired against them to flood their cities with people from outside Europe. Migrants who will take their jobs, buy their homes, and erase their culture. In other words, they'll replace them. They've opened THE BORDERS. THEY'VE FLOODED our nations. WE ARE THE START OF A COUNTER REVOLUTION. The worse Europe's demographic crisis gets, the worse its economies perform, the angrier these people become. And they're looking for someone to blame.
But here's the thing. These anti-immigrant movements aren't completely organic. They're backed by powerful people. And these guys, these guys are playing their own game. These tech billionaires have more in common than being against immigration. They share a deeper ideological opposition to liberal democracy itself. They say that institutions like the European Union are destroying Western civilization, but they aren't trying to save European democracy. They say they want to destroy it. And they may be getting their way.
I'm Muhammad Hassan and this is Pinch Point, where politics and geography collide. This is a complex story. It involves some pretty dry government statistics, American billionaires, and a transatlantic network of dark money. But how do we go from anxiety around immigration to a potential conspiracy to topple the European Union? All of these threads are connected, but to make sense of it, let's start in Japan.
Have you heard the story of the Scarecrow village? This is Nagoro, a small village on the island of Shikoku. If you walk around it today, you'll see these life-sized dolls everywhere. At bus stops, inside restaurants, in classrooms. What you won't find are many people, real people. They've mostly been replaced by these dolls. Nagoro is facing a problem. Its elderly are dying, while its young left for the big cities a long time ago. A baby hasn't been born here in 20 years. An artist named Tsukimi Aayono started making these dolls to remember what the village felt like in her youth. When she was a child, 300 people used to live here. Now less than 30. One day, it's likely all that will be left are Aono's dolls. Eerie, right?
There are hundreds of towns like Nagoro across Japan. In 2024, nationwide, one child was born for every three people that died. It is a trend facing many wealthy nations. And in Europe, it's impacting the whole continent. Fertility rates have dropped from 2.1 children per woman to just 1.4. In Italy, population decline is reaching a critical point. Check this out. This is the number of Italians aged 25 to 34 over the last 3 decades. Now, look at those aged over 75, well into their retirement. By 2050, less than a third of Italians will be working, and they'll be expected to support their parents and their grandparents, who will make up the vast majority of the country. Without a quick solution, Italy's economy and its healthcare system will crumble.
So, Italy is faced by two choices. Raise taxes by a lot or bring in young migrants to fill up the workforce. This represents a problem for right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. She ran on slashing immigration, but has been forced to increase it to keep the agriculture and tourism industries afloat. Some estimates show Italy would need to bring in 10 million more migrants of working age over the next 20 years.
This isn't a new phenomenon. After World War II, many European nations encouraged migration to help them rebuild and replace the working-age men who died on the front lines. Germany's Gastarbeiter or guest worker program brought in 14 million foreigners from 1955 to 1973. They helped Germany become one of the biggest industrial economies in Europe. France and the UK did the same, which is why you have the best kebabs in Berlin and some of the best curries in Manchester. A similar trend occurred during the COVID pandemic when healthcare systems became overwhelmed and governments fast-tracked temporary visas to keep up. Immigration from outside the EU doubled between 2021 and 2022, mostly to Germany, Spain, and Italy. That year, the median age of EU nationals was 45 years old. Meanwhile, the median age of non-EU residents in Europe was 36. As Europe got older, migrants were once again filling the gap. And between the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and Britain's exit from the EU, Europe's future looked deeply uncertain.
These were complex problems, but for some, there was a simple solution, or maybe an easy scapegoat. In the aftermath of the so-called European migrant crisis in 2015, the political right took on the rallying cry of harsher border policies. In Italy, Denmark, Hungary, Finland, and Serbia, right-wing parties swept to power. In France, Germany, and the UK, far-right parties gained significant political ground for the first time in half a century. These parties are united by two policies. They want to stop asylum seekers entering the EU and redefine their relationship to the bloc.
In the UK, Nigel Farage was an architect of the Brexit campaign. He sold people on an idea that the European Union had eroded Britain's sovereignty and allowed in too many immigrants, changing the UK's very identity.
>> We have a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values. In fact, loathe much of what we stand for. >>
>> Are we talking about Muslims here? >>
>> We are. >>
And while they didn't say it out loud, Farage and others were tapping into an idea growing popular among the far-right in the United States. These new voices argued that immigration wasn't just bad policy, it was an anti-white European conspiracy.
>> They're replacing the indigenous population. >>
>> That seems to be what's happening. The great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different. >>
>> The great replacement theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party's platform. >>
So, what is the great replacement theory? The idea has existed for a long time, but French author Renaud Camus coined the phrase in 2010. Camus argued Europe was being reverse colonized by people from Africa and the Middle East, particularly Muslims. And he said they were intent on conquering the West by, in his words, outbreeding white natives. He also believed that liberal elites were promoting pro-immigration policies as a form of social engineering. Camus said he was inspired by right-wing British politician Enoch Powell, whose 1968 speech against post-war immigration predicted racial tensions would result in rivers of blood in England.
>> In this country in 15 or 20 years time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man. >>
This idea has even more nefarious roots. In his book Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler says the presence of Afro-Germans was proof of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white race and take its place. In August 2017 in Charlottesville, young men invoked the idea when they marched against the planned removal of a statue of a Confederate general.
>> TWOS WILL NOT REPLACE US. >>
>> TWOS WILL NOT REPLACE US. >>
In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán railed against Jewish philanthropists like George Soros, saying his funding of pro-democracy groups was destroying the country's Christian identity. The Hungarian-born Soros has become a favorite target of right-wing nationalists for his donations to civil society groups, NGOs, and pro-democracy organizations. Soros's worldview and philanthropy were greatly influenced by the impact of communism on his country as well as the Holocaust, which he survived at the age of 13. But that hasn't stopped the conspiracies.
In 2024, tech billionaire and ex-owner Elon Musk replied to a tweet accusing Jewish people of a hatred against whites and linked this hatred to the hordes of minorities flooding Western nations. Musk replied, "You have said the actual truth." He later apologized but has continued to liken Europe's pro-immigration policies to "suicidal empathy."
>> There is this whole system that Soros built up over many decades. You know, they believe in open borders. They they believe we shouldn't prosecute crime. This is insane. >>
Since 2024, Musk has taken on an active role in promoting and collaborating with far-right political movements across Europe. In January 2025, he spoke virtually at a campaign rally for Germany's anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party. He told its supporters to move beyond their historical guilt for the Holocaust and not lose their German identity to multiculturalism. Then in September, Musk appeared via video link at an anti-immigration rally in London where he called for the dissolution of the British Parliament. He also said the country was being eroded by massive uncontrolled migration.
>> Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die. You either fight back or you die. And that's the truth. >>
Now, let's talk about money because there is a lot being thrown at this movement. Tommy Robinson, the far-right agitator who led that London rally Musk addressed, has financial backing from US tech billionaire Robert Shillman. Shillman is said to be part of the so-called counter-jihad movement, a loose coalition of groups and individuals who believe the West and Islam are at war and that Muslim migrants should be deported from Western countries. He has sponsored influential far-right figures in the US, UK, and Europe, including Dutch MP Geert Wilders, conservative US commentator Ben Shapiro, and the late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. A number of anti-Muslim nonprofits in the US, the UK, and Europe are funded to the tune of tens of millions of dollars each year through largely anonymous donations. This network of funders has been called the "Dark Money ATM" of the conservative movement. At the head of this network is the Mercer Family Foundation, set up by another US tech billionaire, Robert Mercer. Mercer bankrolled the Brexit campaign and set up the ultra-right website Breitbart News. He was also a major investor in the online data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which shut down after accusations it used private Facebook data to manipulate people's political views. During Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, its chief strategist and Breitbart co-founder, Steve Bannon, said the Mercers had laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution.
You might have noticed that all of these financiers are American. Why are they so invested in European politics? Two people articulate these ideas most clearly. The first is Bannon, who since 2016 has been touring Europe building a network of far-right political groups under an organization he calls "The Movement." Its members include euroskeptic parties like the AfD, the National Rally in France, and the Sweden Democrats, who want to replicate Nigel Farage's Brexit model and push for a "Frexit," a "Swexit," and a "Dexit." That's a Deutschland exit. And if that happens, it would be the death knell of the European Union, which is exactly what Bannon wants.
>> The beating heart of the globalist project is in Brussels. If I drive the stake through the vampire, the whole thing will start to dissipate. And that's literally when we take over the EU. >>
The second is Curtis Yarvin, a software developer turned political philosopher. His ideas have been cited by US Vice President JD Vance and German-born tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who's close to Trump and the Mercer family. Yarvin, an architect of the so-called "dark enlightenment" movement, advocates for an end of democracy and a return to monarchy. He says this new monarch would be first democratically elected, then they'd get to work dismantling checks and balances to rule as a kind of tech CEO with total power. Yarvin and his disciples Vance and Thiel believe liberal democracies have become what they call "a cathedral" where academics, the media, and others worship the tenets of human rights law and progressive values.
>> The European integration project for Curtis Yarvin and others in MAGA, it's the materialization of this liberal international system and although it now exists largely in Europe because globally it is being attacked by MAGA and by the Americans who've been the big supporter of this. If you want to destroy it, Curtis Yarvin says, you need to attack the European Union and you need to help those parties in Germany. Whatever the costs for Europe, European stability, German stability, help those parties that promise to do away with all of this. >>
And this isn't just about ideology, it's about business. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have long used their tremendous wealth to vie for political influence. When they co-founded PayPal, their ambitions extended far beyond creating a digital payment platform.
>> The basic idea was that uh we could never win an election on um on re on getting certain things because we were in such a small minority. But maybe you could actually unilaterally change the world without having to constantly convince people and beg people and plead with people who are never going to agree with you through technological means. And this is where I think um technology is this incredible alternative to politics. >>
Thiel went on to found his next big startup, Palantir, in 2003. It has since used AI and data mining to allow US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to surveil and deport undocumented migrants. And Musk's takeover of X saw a sharp increase in the spread of misinformation about migrant-related crime across Europe. Both men helped steer Silicon Valley towards Trump and MAGA in the 2024 US presidential election. Musk, one of the valley's biggest success stories, donated more than $200 million to Trump's campaign. And Thiel, a major MAGA donor, was a big influence in swaying Trump to pick JD Vance as his vice president. Analysts say a big motivator was defeating the Democrats, who under Joe Biden had focused on breaking up tech giants and regulating social media and AI companies. Much like what the EU has been doing successfully since 2016.
Have you ever wondered why every time you go on a website, you're asked over and over to accept its cookies? It's because of the General Data Protection Regulation. This is an EU law that went into effect in 2018 in order to protect EU citizens from having their private data collected without their consent. Within a few years, almost every company around the world was forced to change its websites so that they could do business in Europe. Then that became international standard. Basically, it impacted all of us.
When Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he came into direct conflict with the EU, refusing to abide by its Online Safety Act. The law forced social media companies to submit risk assessments to the EU and provide fact-checking tools to users. In 2024, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, took him to court for violating its regulations and failing to crack down on misinformation. Though that case didn't really go anywhere. That August, EU Commission member Thierry Breton wrote to Musk ahead of his live-streamed interview with Donald Trump, who was campaigning for president. Breton warned Musk that under EU rules, he could be held liable if he promoted hatred, disorder, or incitement to violence to the 300 million users on X. Musk responded by calling Breton "the tyrant of Europe." Musk then scheduled another live-streamed interview months later, this time with the head of Germany's AfD, reiterating his support for the far-right party and accusing the EU of hating democracy. Following the interview, a German nonprofit won a public access lawsuit against Musk. It forced X to provide public data ahead of Germany's federal elections in line with the EU's Digital Services Act. This was while X was approving far-right ads on its platform. One of these was calling for immigrants to be gassed and imprisoned in concentration camps. Musk is also suing the EU over its tariffs against electric cars made in China. That's where Tesla's manufacturing hubs are.
In November 2025, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched the "Democracy Shield." It's a project to crack down on foreign political influence in EU politics and specifically the spread of online disinformation. On paper, the plan is meant to tackle Russian disinformation. But it was Musk who took offense, writing to von der Leyen on X that if she really believed in freedom, then her position as EU leader should be elected directly by the people. To be clear, the EU president is chosen by the elected leaders of EU countries. And then that decision is ratified by the EU Parliament, also elected. Clearly, Elon Musk has beef with the EU, and he isn't alone. Peter Thiel has long accused Europe's leaders of trying to regulate big tech out of jealousy. And more recently, he said attempts to rein in the AI sector were like ushering in "the Antichrist." Yes, the Antichrist.
And since Trump returned to office, we've seen the interests of big tech and US policy align more closely. In November, the White House said it would sue US states trying to regulate AI companies. Vance, who suggested pulling support for NATO if the EU tried to regulate X, publicly attacked Europe for what he described as failing to live up to its free speech ideals. Instead, the US Vice President told his political allies in Munich they should respect their people's desire to rid the continent of migrants.
>> No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. But you know what they did vote for in England? They voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. >>
Full circle. During that visit to Munich, Vance had a long meeting with the AfD, then attacked German officials for trying to block the party from contesting the 2025 elections.
So, how have Europe's liberal leaders responded to the rise of the far-right? In many cases, they've adopted their language. In May 2025, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a white paper to vastly reduce the number of immigrants in the UK and make it harder for them to get citizenship. In a speech many compared to Enoch Powell, Starmer said Britain was becoming "an island of strangers."
>> So when you have an immigration system that seems almost designed to permit abuse, that encourages some businesses to bring in lower-paid workers rather than invest in our young people, or simply one that is sold by politicians to the British people on an entirely false premise, you're actually contributing to the forces that are slowly pulling our country apart. >>
Starmer seemed to want to signal that he wasn't weak on immigration and to counter the rise of Nigel Farage and his Reform UK. Instead, it suggested the opposite.
>> which validates those voters who think, well, you know, I may as well have the the parties that really seem to believe that this matters as opposed to, you know, you guys who um have been in power or, you know, the main opposition for decades and haven't really done much about it. >>
French President Emmanuel Macron rose to power on an explicitly pro-immigrant platform in 2017. Since then, his policies have shifted to the right, taking on much of the same anti-Muslim language as his opponents. And it seems those ideas have now gone mainstream. In the 2022 election, two French parties ran on platforms that promoted the great replacement theory. And in 2023, a study found about a third of all British citizens believed it was true.
This growing belief that migration is part of an international plot by powerful elites has poured fuel onto the fire of public anger over a cost-of-living crisis that has continued to worsen across the continent. It's led to mobs attacking hotels housing asylum seekers in the UK and a surge in anti-Muslim hate crimes across Europe. Many far-right voices are now using their platforms to spread false statistics about migrants committing sexual assault. And in the heat of the fire are the immigrant and refugee communities who are increasingly feeling vulnerable, isolated, and unsafe.
But some are speaking out.
>> This debate is both factually and morally wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. The far-right are twisting facts into ignorant, hate-fueled portrayals of migrants. Women's rights organizations are rejecting your cynical weaponization of our pain for your racist agenda. I have my voice. Don't you dare claim to represent it. >>
During Germany's February elections, in which the AfD won 10% of seats in parliament, hospitals took part in a campaign to highlight what their wards would look like without immigrants. It's a powerful visual not just about the need for essential workers, but about how immigrants contribute to their communities, especially on an aging continent.
And that brings us back here to these two maps, these two possible paths for Europe's future. On one side, you have the EU and its leaders who know their economies desperately need immigrants, but who seem to have given up on trying to convince their own people, of selling them a vision of hope for the future, one they can believe in. On the other side, you have the far-right who have allied with some of the richest and most powerful people in the world. Together, they are exploiting the anxieties of ordinary people, fueling their anger and channeling it into a political force intent on bringing down the walls of liberal Europe and everything it stands for. And if their dark vision becomes a reality, what replaces it is anyone's guess.