It’s been three and a half years since insurrectionists stormed the US Capitol, convinced that a shadowy cabal of satanic paedophiles had stolen the election from Donald Trump. In season one of The Coming Storm, the investigative journalist Gabriel Gatehouse uncovered the roots of QAnon, exposing an “epidemic of disorientation” in America that began as a hoax on an obscure web forum, incubated by a climate of anxiety and powerlessness in the age of globalisation, which millions across the world now believe.
In the approach to November 2024, a presidential election in which some warn democracy itself is on the ballot, The Coming Storm is back to take the temperature of America. And things are even weirder. This time, Gatehouse is looking not just at QAnon, but at how conspiratorial thinking has broken into the mainstream. Covid lockdowns, the Federal Reserve, the Trump assassination attempt – it’s all a deep-state plot. Open your eyes, join the dots, and go through the looking glass.
“What QAnon told us was that the fabric of reality was beginning to fray,” Gatehouse warns, as he introduces us to the everyday Americans – a retired police officer turned yoga teacher, and an insurrectionist running for Congress who wants to abolish the federal government – who see this as a matter of civilisational proportions. Before 2021, it was possible to dismiss all this as a fringe internet phenomenon, fascinating to tech geeks, perhaps, but something mainstream politicians and journalists could safely ignore. That illusion was shattered on 6 January 2021. This isn’t just about political polarisation, fractured public trust in institutions, or the social media platforms that enable misinformation to go viral. It’s not even about Trump, not really. It’s about what happens when societies lose their shared sense of what is and isn’t real. You can do your own research, take the red pill to escape The Matrix and become a hero in an epic battle for the truth. That battle may have started as a fantasy. Now, whatever you believe, it is a reality.
The Coming Storm is on BBC Radio 4, Wednesday 11 September, 9.30am
[See also: Donald Trump is losing it]
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This article appears in the 04 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, Starmer under fire