Thread by @MattCarr55

This is what Trump has turned America into. What Alex Jones and so many rightwing conspiracy theories have turned America into: a country where people die of a disease they claim doesn’t exist and still praise the man who lied to them on their deathbeds distractify.com/p/man-injected…

Others spew their hatred and paranoia even as they die of covid, at the nurses and doctors trying to treat them: marketwatch.com/story/south-da…

Or do nothing to protect themselves or their loved ones until it’s too late: bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-…

None of this is surprising in a country where covid is routinely described as a hoax and/or as a conspiracy organised by Bill Gates/George Soros/China/Joe Biden etc, in narratives of grand evil that are constantly changing and evolving: uk.reuters.com/article/uk-fac…

Covid conspiracism isn’t uniquely American - as our own growing antivaxxer/antilockdown/5G movement shows - but it is particularly virulent in a country whose president dismissed the virus for many months, and cultivated a movement steeped in lies and persecutory fantasies

Which, from the very beginning of the pandemic to the present he has continued to apply to the ‘China plague’ motherjones.com/coronavirus-up…

These lies and fantasies are not unique to the right, but they have clearly had special purchase amongst the Republican base: today.yougov.com/topics/politic…

Not to mention the wider ecology of far-right groups, all of which have grown in power, influence and visibility on Trump’s watch: abcnews.go.com/Politics/qanon…

We often think of all this as new. But as Richard Hofstadter once argued in his seminal essay on the ‘paranoid style’ in American politics, grand conspiracy theories have long been a staple of the American right, and tend to recycle similar narrative components:

Whether applied to Jesuits, Masons, Catholics, or Communists, as Senator Joe McCarthy once did:

More recently, you can see precursors for covid conspiracism in the ‘New World Order’ conspiracy theories spawned by the early 90s ‘patriot ‘ militias, w/claimed the US was about to be invaded by China/UN using ‘black helicopters’ to install a ‘Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG)

There is even direct continuity between some of the militias that were around then, and those that have come to the fore under Trump: theconversation.com/lessons-from-e…

But our current predicament is certainly new in that we now have conspiracy theories coursing through social media without any mediation or intervention, encouraged by a president and a mainstream political party engaging in active anti-science, anti-truth ‘fake news’ gaslighting

In the middle of a pandemic, at a time when the firewall between mainstream conservatism and extreme rightwing thought is breaking down, and far-right movements across the world has seen covid/antilockdowns, as another opportunity to spread division, chaos,paranoia and hate

So this is why people are dying in hospital beds of a disease they don’t believe exists & praising the president who encouraged them to believe this. It’s why protesters braying about 5G, ‘muzzles’ and ‘microchip’ implants are popping up all over American and British streets

The movements and ways of thinking that have made these outcomes possible are toxic and dangerous to public health, to democratic politics. So let’s not be tempted by them. Let’s not give them any quarter or spurious legitimacy. Let’s see where they’re coming from

Let’s look at the movements and individuals who support these grotesque fantasies and treat them with the anger, ridicule, and contempt they deserve. Otherwise many more will die, and the bonds of trust and the crucial democratic tool of critical thinking will be lost

and it will be difficult if not impossible to take advantage of the marvellous scientific breakthroughs that might just bring this nightmare to an end. @threadreaderapp please unroll