Conspiracy & Populism Eirikur Bergmann & Populism The Politics of Misinformation Eirikur Bergmann Centre for European Studies Bifröst University Borgarbyggd, Iceland

ISBN 978-3-319-90358-3 ISBN 978-3-319-90359-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90359-0

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Tis Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG Te registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Tis book is dedicated to my partner in life, Aino Freyja Järvelä. Preface and Acknowledgements

It was a beautiful, clear summer day in 2011. Te sun was shining bright where I was standing out on the deck of a ferry, sailing with a group of family and friends to the small island of Flatey, just of the western coast of Iceland. Soon, I started noticing my fellow passengers becoming preoccupied with their phones, their faces turning whiter. I dug out my device and rapidly realised that something serious was hap- pening in Norway, on the small island of Utøya, perhaps a not so dif- ferent isle to the one I was heading to—and, actually, not very far from where I once myself lived in Norway. Te reception on my phone was poor, and the reports weren’t all that clear. Still, it seemed evident that someone was massacring young members of the Norwegian Labour party. Over the coming hours, we learned the full details of this horrible terrorist attack. I opened the so-called manifesto of the attacker, , and read of his fears of those he referred to as cultural Marxists, evil multiculturalists that he accused of ruining his home country in an ongoing devious plot of turning Norway into an Islamist society. Te document was flled with many more of the most com- monly upheld conspiracy theories of the far-right in the West.

vii viii Preface and Acknowledgements

Just a few years later, the murderer of British Labour Party MP, Jo Cox, justifed his crime with that same rhetoric. During the Brexit campaign in the UK, Vote Leave argued that because of the high birth rate in Turkey, one million Muslim Turks would soon be arriving in the UK. When criticised by many special- ists for unfounded claims, a leading Brexit campaigner replied saying: ‘I think the people in this country have had enough of experts.’ Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Oklahoma federal building in 1995, had been convinced that the US government was plotting a dicta- torial communist New World Order. Many of his mates further insisted that Nazi extermination camps never existed, that they were a hoax. In the , the leader of the Freedom Party, , insisted that the Dutch people were being replaced by foreign infltrators. In France, Marine Le Pen of the National Front maintained that was being invaded by hordes of ‘stinking’ dark-skinned migrants and ‘rat people’ fowing in a ‘river of sperm.’ In America, President wrote this when justifying banning people from several Muslim dominated countries from entering the US: ‘I think Islam hates us.’ Over in Russia, the Kremlin insisted that members of the protest punk band, Pussy Riot, were agents in a Western led conspiracy of emasculating the Russian state. Tese were some of the events and statements—all discussed and referenced in this book—that got me thinking about the impact of far-right populist conspiracy theories (CTs). My previous research into Nordic nationalism and the rise of right-wing populists in Europe also pushed me onto the path of investigating CTs upheld in their politics, which is the subject of this book. Tis research has beneftted from interaction with many colleagues in several academic felds. Two Europe wide academic networks have been especially useful. Participating in the EU funded COST action, Populist Political Communication in Europe, provided me with valua- ble access to much of the most recent research on European populism. And involvement in the EU funded COST action, Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Teories (COMPACT ), exposed me to some of the most pristine studies of CTs. I believe my engagement in these networks, and Preface and Acknowledgements ix several other inter-disciplinary collaborations, place me in a favourable position to examine and compare the two tropes of study in this book. I thank my colleagues in these projects for their fruitful cooperation. I thank my publishers at Palgrave Macmillan, Ambra Finotello and Imogen Gordon Clark, for their fawless cooperation, and for all their valuable help. Tis book is dedicated to my partner in life, Aino Freyja Järvelä. I thank her and our four children, Sólrún Rós, Einar Sigurður, Hrafnhildur and Ægir—who all keep wondering about the world and continuously question its politics—for their patience and support, and not least, for stimulating discussions throughout the writing process.

Madrid, Spain Eirikur Bergmann Contents

1 Introduction 1 Rise of Populist Conspiracy Teories 3 In History and All Around 5 Stigma 6 Links to Extremism 7 Moving into the Mainstream 7 Multi-disciplinary 9 Defnitions and Concepts 12 Aim and Frame 13 Structure of the Book 14 References 16

2 Kinds of Conspiracy Teories 19 New World Order 22 Antichrist 23 Early 25 Interwar Illuminati 26 Contemporary Illuminati 27 Protocols of the Elders of Zion 28

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Anti-Catholic 30 Holy Grail 31 Anti-Islam 32 Bilderberg Group 33 Deep State 34 —Dead and Alive 35 , Disasters, Diseases and Medicine 35 Operations—And 9/11 37 Sinister Politics—Te Birthers 39 Black—And White— 40 Rankings 41 References 42

3 Te Anatomy of Conspiracy Teories 47 Conspiracies and Conspiracy Teories 49 Stigmatized Knowledge 50 Divisions and Categories 51 Practical or Pathological 52 Design 55 Unverifable Truths 56 and Agency 57 Good and Evil 58 Making Sense 59 For Losers? 61 Predispositions 62 Conspiratorial Correlations 63 General and Widespread 64 Precariousness 66 References 67

4 Dissecting Populism 71 Populism 73 Nationalism 75 79 Internationalization and Migration 79 Cultural Racism 80 Contents xiii

Oil Crisis—First Wave 82 Collapse of Communism—Second Wave 83 International Financial Crisis—Tird Wave 85 Integration into the Mainstream 88 Erosion of Democratic Norms 89 Framing Nationalist Populism 91 Common Qualities 92 References 95

5 Disrupting the Trust—Nature of Populist CTs 99 Common Tropes 101 Political Arena 102 Disrupting the Trust 105 Populist Conspiratorialism 107 Of the Powerful 108 Te National Front in France 110 Post-Soviet Russia 112 Trump’s America 115 Brexit and Anti-EU 117 References 119

6 Te Eurabia Doctrine 123 Migration 125 Panic 126 Brexit—Fear of Muslim Migration 129 Muslim America 130 Charlottesville—White Genocide 133 Infltrating the Nordics 134 Welfare Chauvinism 136 Ethno-Cultural Cohesion 137 Cartoon Crisis 138 Dominant Discourse 139 Us and Tem 140 Ultra-Nationalists 142 Fighting Islamisation 143 References 145 xiv Contents

7 Transmission and Fake News 151 Framing Fake News 153 Social Media and the Post-truth Era 155 Pizza-Gate and the USA 157 Russia’s Misinformation Tactics 159 Pussy Riot 160 References 162

8 Conclusions: Te Politics of Misinformation 165

Index 175 Abbreviations

AfD (Alternative für Deutschland ) BBC British Broadcasting Company BNP British National Party Brexit Exit of Britain from the CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CIA Central Intelligence Agency of the CTs Conspiracy Teories DF Danish Peoples Party, (Dansk Folkeparti) EP European Parliament EU European Union FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency of the United States FN Front National in France FPÖ Freedom Party of Austria, (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs) FRP Progress Party of Denmark, (Fremskridtspartiet); Progress Party of Norway, (Fremskrittspartiet) FT Te IMF International Monetary Fund ISIS Islamic State, Terrorist Organization JFK John F. Kennedy KZB Khazarian Zionist Bolshevik MEP Member of European Parliament

xv xvi Abbreviations

MP Member of Parliament NAFTA North America Free Trade Agreement NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NHS National Health Service of the UK NSA National Security Agency of the United States OEEC Organization for Economic Cooperation in Europe PS Finns Party, True Finns, (Perussuomalaiset) RT Russia Today, TV station SD Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) UFO Unknown Foreign Object UKIP UK Independence Party UN United Nations WB World Bank WHO World Health Organization WWI First World War WWII Second World War ZOG Zionist Occupation Government