‘Nebulous’. ‘Far right’. ‘Conspiracist and anti-vax’. ‘Radical far left’: almost every label has been applied to the ‘Bloquons tout !’ (‘Let’s Block Everything!’, i.e. ‘Bring France to a Standstill!’) movement since it first emerged in early July in Telegram groups. So what exactly is it? Clearly, the reality of the movement is disparate, colorful, and […]
November 2023, halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. A few weeks after the October 7 attacks, Keti Shitrit – a Likud MP, the party of Benjamin Netanyahu – appears live on television. Wearing a smart purple suit with matching jewelry and immaculate manicure, the Israeli politician chooses her words carefully. Calm but firm, she declares: […]
When the most notable victim of MAGA-approved conspiracy merchant Candace Owens announced a decision to fight back against her bullying, the response came in typical style. “Today I have been sued by the First Lady-Man of France,” announced a gleeful Owens, an unrepentant peddler of anti-women, gay and transgender slanders as well as Holocaust denial, […]
Dan Bongino is a former Fox News host and top-rating far-right podcaster who popularized conspiracy theories about the so-called “Deep State” and the “stolen” 2020 U.S. presidential election. He also encouraged the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots and spent years disputing the facts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to combat it. Despite his […]
In dramatic scenes on Capitol Hill, Robert F. Kennedy Jr found himself subject to furious questioning by Democrats over his firing of the United States' entire 17-person vaccines expert advisory board and replacing it with a handpicked cabal of some of his favored anti-science conspiracy theorists. But instead of mea culpas during the hearings, Donald […]
It took barely 24 hours following the weekend assassinations of Democratic lawmakers from Minnesota, Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and the attempted murders of state Senator John Hoffman and his wife. While the suspected killer was still on the run, a swarm of far-right pro-Trump voices scrambled to spread conspiracies pinning the blame […]
It began on the evening of Sunday 25 May, when Emmanuel Macron arrived in Vietnam with his wife, Brigitte, at the start of an official tour of Southeast Asia. As the pair disembarked at Hanoi airport, a few press agency cameras caught a fleeting moment: Brigitte Macron’s hand moved toward her husband’s face. He appeared […]
For almost a century, right-wing extremists have been trying to introduce their conspiracist ideas into popular discourse. Through a number of central concepts, they want to dominate and distort political discussion and public opinion. ‘Umvolkung', a term used by the Nazis for the ‘re-Germanization’ of the diverse populations of Eastern Europe, has more recently been […]
It often takes just one offhand remark, misinterpreted picture, or joke that doesn’t land to start a conspiracy theory that subsequently never goes away. We’ve seen it happen time after time – World Trade Center owner Larry Silverstein’s comment that the firefighting team working to save WTC 7 should be “pulled” serving as “proof” that […]
