How Taylor Caldwell Set the Mood for the Far Right

If you were a middle-class White mom in 1976 with copies of lifestyle magazines piled in the corner of a green shag-carpeted room designed by a Dorothy Draper protégé, you probably also had a few thick Taylor Caldwell novels tucked in the bookshelf…

The Conspiratorial Legacy of 9/11

One of the lasting legacies of 9/11 is the growth and mainstreaming of conspiracy theories, across the U.S. and the world. Within hours of the attacks, theories cropped up online to identify culprits, explain their motives, and uncover their…

Q&A with author David Neiwert

Conspiracy theories can be many things to different people. For some, it’s fun: the entertainment value of outlandish “alternative facts,” the promise of secrets revealed, the thrill of envisioning oneself a detective, scouring the internet for…

In late June, anti-vaccination groups planned to hold two events in New York, in the towns of Ghent and Akron. While…

Horror and Hope in QAnon Apocalypticism

On October 28, 2017, the now infamous “Q” posted for the first time on 4chan in a chat thread titled “Calm before the Storm.”[1] The thread’s title seemed to reference a puzzling statement President Trump…

There is no question that social media has been a meteoric tool of the Right: propelling Donald Trump to office in 2016, mobilizing his supporters to mount a nationwide resistance to the outcome of the 2020 election, and fueling the growth of far-…

Far-Right Candidates Reveal Where the GOP is Headed

While the Trump administration is over, part of its legacy is helping carve a place for 21st Century far-right movements and ideologies in the halls of government and within Republican ranks that look more like 19th Century…

Mapping a QAnon Lockdown Network

In late April 2020, Jessica Prim left her home in Peoria, Illinois, and headed east to New York Harbor, where the U.S. Navy Hospital Ship Comfort was docked. She arrived at midday on April 29. Although the Comfort was serving as a field hospital for…

The Language of “Anti-Sorosism” in the U.S. and Hungary

“I really feel that Soros, in many ways, is the biggest danger to the entire Western world.” So argued British right-wing populist Nigel Farage in 2018 on the U.S. right-wing TV network Fox News.[1] Though…

ReOpen Protestors Turn to Constitutional Sheriffs to Defy State Policies

In May 2020, a leader of the recent wave of anti-Lockdown protests against government issued Covid-19 directives and ReOpen America founder, Suzzanne Monk,…

Antisemitism and Anti-China Nationalism In the Era of Coronavirus

As the coronavirus crisis deepens, voices across the Right are mobilizing a politics of resentment to distract from the Trump administration’s botched response, and to advance an exclusionary nationalist agenda. Their antagonist is China and their…

On February 19, a 43-year-old man shot and killed eleven people, including himself, in Hanau, Germany, a small city some 15 miles east of Frankfurt. The victims are Ferhat Unvar, Gökhan Gültekin, Hamza Kurtović, Said Nessar El Hashemi, Mercedes…

On Monday, October 22, reporting that someone had placed a bomb in the mailbox of billionaire George Soros dominated news coverage.1 Similar devices were subsequently discovered to …