Conspiracy Theories: Europe is not immune from America’s political madness - by Gideon Rachman

A crowd of far-right activists break through police lines. Cheering and waving flags, they prepare to storm the legislature. In Washington DC, last week, the mob broke through. In Berlin, last August, they were stopped on the steps of the Reichstag. If the demonstrators had broken into the building, they would have found some walls still adorned with carefully preserved graffiti from when the Reichstag was sacked by Russian troops, in 1945.

Germany’s near-miss over the summer, the “gilets jaunes” demonstrations in France and the passions aroused in Britain by Brexit and Covid-19 — all underline the same point. Europeans cannot assume that they are immune to the political passions that have engulfed America. Many of the elements that destabilised the US are also present in Europe — in particular, the spread of conspiracy theories, online radicalisation and extremist political movements.

The crucial missing element is Donald Trump. The fact that America’s conspiracy-theorist in chief is also president makes the country’s situation uniquely dangerous. It was Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn the election that motivated crackpots from all over America to descend on the nation’s capital and storm Congress.

But it would be a mistake for Europeans to believe that the absence of a Trump figure makes them safe from dangerous political unrest — particularly given the economic distress and social dislocation caused by Covid-19. The Reichstag crowds were smaller than those that attacked the Capitol. But they represented a wide cross-section of groups, with the far-right mingling with anti-vaxxers and believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory that is rampant in America (and holds that Mr Trump is leading an effort to defeat a global conspiracy led by paedophiles)

Opinion polls taken afterwards suggested that 9 per cent of the German population supported the Reichstag rioters. This is a narrower base than the far-right enjoys in America, where polls immediately after the storming of Congress suggested nearly half of Republican voters approved — which would be 20-25 per cent of Americans. (Later polls suggested less support.

Support for the political extremes is closer to 25 per cent in the former East Germany. Officials in Angela Merkel’s government worry that the military, intelligence services and police have been penetrated by the far-right, and some elite military units have been disbanded because of links to political extremism. There have also been several deadly terrorist attacks by far-right extremists.

Read full report at: Europe is not immune from America’s political madness | Financial Times