How The Far Right Is Exploiting The Pandemic With Conspiracies

Just as the global death toll from COVID-19 reached 250,000 at the start of May this year, a short film emerged that has since been called “the first true hit conspiracy video of the COVID-19 era”.

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, ruler of France from 1848 to 1870, was “the most enthusiastic supporter of photography in all of Europe”. Yet , photographs, even of bridges or hospitals, are never neutral: they are a tissue of the choices made by the photographer. In choosing to tell one truth, photographers can obscure many others.

The 2016 Republican National Convention was filled with chants of “lock her up” and “build that wall,” packed with fear-mongering and often openly racist messages.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice, the gun industry’s trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, estimates that gun sales from March through July were 8.5 million.

Mask mandates do not violate the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech, assembly and association, as I wrote recently in a story that examined Constitution-based objections to mask-wearing requirements.

Not too long ago, few companies paid much attention to Black Lives Matter. Today, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, it seems as if most major companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook have endorsed the movement

Politics can divide even friends and families. When this happens, we like to tell ourselves that the explanation lies in honest differences in values and preferences.

The U.S. Postal Service is under threat of collapse and privatization. This comes after years of federal political maneuvering that has effectively depleted revenues and staffing – issues now amplified by new cuts to overtime worker pay and slowed delivery.

We all hoped for a rapid and effective COVID-19 response. For the United States, that has not occurred. It is now host to more documented COVID-19 cases and deaths than any other country.

Joe Biden’s promise to name a woman running mate has prompted familiar debates about gender and power.

While the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are still unclear, it is certain that they are a profound shock to the systems underpinning contemporary life.

In 1879, French polymath Gustave Le Bon wrote that even in “the most intelligent races” there “are a large number of women whose brains are closer in size to those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains”.

The United States isn’t the only country debating Confederate symbols. The Confederate flag can be seen flying in Ireland, Germany, Brazil and beyond.

Led by physicians, scientists and epidemiologists, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of the most reliable sources of knowledge during disease outbreaks

The number of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has jumped to around 50,000 a day, and the virus has killed more than 130,000 Americans.

Today, the US is not dominant, it is in crisis: convulsed by riots and protest, riven by a virus that has galloped away from those charged with overseeing it, and heading into a presidential election led by a man that has possibly divided the nation like no other before him.

The fundamental difference between leaders who are good demagogues and leaders who are dangerous demagogues is found in the answer to this simple question:

As a sociolinguist who studies and writes about language and discrimination, I was also struck by the name given to Cooper in several headlines: “Central Park Karen.” On Twitter, the birder’s sister also referred to her as a “Karen.”

A doctor speaks about events they think will put public health at risk. Instead of responding with gratitude, political officials seek to silence and discredit the doctor.

US President Donald Trump, who tweeted more than 11,000 times in the first two years of his presidency, is very upset with Twitter.

COVID-19 has put political leaders and health care systems worldwide to the test. Although lockdowns are the common approach, some countries have opted for less stringent measures.

Obamagate is the latest conspiracy theory to be pushed by US president, Donald Trump. It started on the morning of May 10, when Trump retweeted the word “OBAMAGATE!”

The existential threat we’re facing right now might explain the proliferation of conspiracy theories, extreme political ideologies and #Reopen protests.

Followers of the QAnon movement believe in wild and dangerous conspiracy theories about U.S. President Donald Trump.

Resilience, communication skills, openness and impulse control top the list of six qualities that presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin says are common to good leaders.

The “anti-lockdown” and #Reopen protests in the U.S. have powerful and secretive backers, but there are real Americans on the streets expressing their opinions.

In March 1861, as Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president, the United States faced its greatest crisis: its sudden and unexpected dissolution. Seven of the then 31 states had already voted to secede from the Union.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us our own well-being is intimately connected to other people and our natural environment.

People are frustrated and depressed, but have complied with what they’ve been asked to endure because they trust that state and local public health officials are telling the truth about the coronavirus pandemic.

While the increased isolation and spacing of the new drastic measures come as shock to many people, social distancing is not new if you take the long view – the very long view.

The immediate concerns of the coronavirus are clear: an unprecedented health crisis and economic devastation.

When infections sweep through human populations that have never experienced them before, the impacts are biological, social, psychological, economic – and all too often catastrophic.

As the world grapples with the coronavirus outbreak, “social distancing” has become a buzzword of these strange times.

At its core, the United States Declaration of Independence argues that all human beings have “unalienable rights.” These include right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

To be clear, and in the hope of heading off some trolls, I would like to make two observations. First, of course I don’t welcome the epidemic.

Plagues functioned as a setup for an even more crucial theme in ancient myth: a leader’s intelligence.

Bernie Sanders has emerged in the race for the presidential nomination. Yet even some left-leaning pundits and publications are concerned about what they see as Sanders’ potential lack of electability.

“Climate change is a hoax,” my cousin said during a family birthday party. “I saw on Twitter it’s just a way to get people to buy expensive electric cars.” I sighed while thinking, “How can he be so misinformed?”

Arab women, long relegated to the private sphere by law and social custom, are gaining new access to public life.

Research in medicine, psychology and neuroscience demonstrates the powerful effects of love on our physical and mental health.

This election in 2020 will undoubtedly come down to the turn out and the voting pattern of women.

The use of trigger warnings has since spread. The warnings have become another battlefield in the culture wars, with many seeing them as threatening free speech and the latest sign of ‘political correctness’ gone mad.

There are always two sides of a story. Unfortunately, when it comes to the history of Thanksgiving, generations of Americans have been taught a one-sided history in homes and schools.

The growth of the human population over the last 70 years has exploded from 2 billion to nearly 8 billion, with a compounding net growth of over 30,000 per day.

If President Donald Trump had gotten his way, the nation would have celebrated the centennial of the World War I armistice last year on Nov. 11 with a massive military parade in Washington, D.C.

As the country looks ahead to President Donald Trump’s possible impeachment proceedings, as social scientists, we anticipate that not only will the Americans’ opinions be polarized, but so will their emotions.

The longer immigrants live in the United States, the more likely they are to use prescription opioids, according to new research.

Political scientists have historically been bad at foreseeing the most important developments. Few of us guessed the end of the Cold War; almost no one saw the Arab Spring coming.

When the UK Conservative MP Nigel Evans was interrupted during a television interview in early September by an anti-Brexit protester, he criticised the “extremism” of Remainers.

In common with the American alt-right and many anti-migration nationalists throughout the West, Charles believes that it is only natural that an identity looks after its own kin at the expense of others. It is not hatred, Charles insists, just self-preservation.

“Witch hunt” – it’s a refrain used to deride everything from impeachment inquiries and sexual assault investigations to allegations of corruption.

During the 2016 US presidential campaign, people around the world were regularly reassured by election experts that Donald Trump was too outrageous to be elected president.

I lay on the mat of the open-air bungalow in Apia, Samoa, looking up at a gecko. As its tail quivered, I felt a sympathetic twitch in my leg. Su’a Sulu’ape Paulo III, the sixth-generation Samoan hand-tap tattoo master leaning over me, paused to see if my movement was due to pain.

More and more towns and cities across the country are electing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day as an alternative to – or in addition to – the day intended to honor Columbus’ voyages.

Western democracies are in a state of crisis. The liberal world order that was created after World War II is crumbling and we don’t quite understand what is going on or what to do about it.

Video games are often blamed for unemployment, violence in society and addiction – including by partisan politicians raising moral concerns.

Chances are that when you hear the words “medieval magic”, the image of a witch will spring to mind: wizened old crones huddled over a cauldron containing unspeakable ingredients such as eye of newt. 

When people try to explain why the United States is so politically polarized now, they frequently refer to the concept of “echo chambers.”

The conversation over Justin Trudeau’s blackface had widened to a conversation about anti-Blackness in Canada, and stereotypes of Muslims and anti-Arab racism.

Pick any of the big topics of the day – Brexit, climate change or Trump’s immigration policies – and wander online.

White nationalists around the world are appropriating the language of environmentalism.

One of the most powerful, searing renditions of the national anthem ever recorded, Jimi Hendrix’s iconic Woodstock anthem, almost never happened.

A sunny afternoon in Paris. An intrepid TV presenter is making his way through the streets asking passersby to smell a bottle he has in his hand.

The vicious ideology that allegedly drove a gunman to kill 22 people in El Paso, Texas could be traced back to a tiny island on the eastern fringe of the Caribbean Sea.

While “freedom songs” were key in giving motivation and comfort to those fighting for equal rights in the Civil Rights Movement, music may have also helped empower black women to lead

Conspiracy theories are popular and there is no doubt that the internet has fuelled them on.

Outside of American literature courses, it doesn’t seem likely that many Americans are reading Herman Melville these days.

People have always used fear for intimidation of the subordinates or enemies, and shepherding the tribe by the leaders.

Mad Magazine is on life support. In April 2018, it launched a reboot, jokingly calling it its “first issue.” Now the magazine announced it will stop publishing new content, aside from year-end special issues.

This is a long-standing tactic, based on sexist assumptions that women can be classified as either Madonna or whore, frigid or slut: something Australian feminist Anne Summers wrote about so powerfully in her book Damned Whores and God’s Police.

How will future generations remember our time? As the time when climate chaos, peak oil, and an unstable global economy unraveled society, or as the time of a Great Turning?

Americans are inherently a little crazy. But now the crazy is being enabled by politicians in the White House and by the internet. How exactly did it get so bad?

Since the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 and the start of the Colonial period, the U.S. has been predominantly white.

Ten years ago, on Oct. 3, 2008, United States President George W. Bush signed the “Troubled Assets Relief Program” (TARP) that promised $700 billion to support banks and companies that were hit by the global financial crisis.

Have you ever considered that what you type into Google, or the ironic memes you laugh at on Facebook, might be building a more dangerous online environment?

If one word can capture the sentiment of rural and small-town dwellers in recent years, it is “resentment.”

Statues – big statues, the largest in the world – are being built all across India. Like many public monuments, they attempt to convey history in a concrete form.

The torch-lit march by armed white supremacists recently in Charlottesville, Va., continues to generate debate about how hate groups should be regulated. 

Boosting workforce participation has been the gender catchcry for at least a decade.

“A mountain has given birth to a mouse. The ‘Russian affair’ falls to pieces before our eyes.”

Last month, the U.S. administration officially announced its intention to block federal family planning funds for organizations that provide abortion referrals.

The ancient understanding of the universe was as a unified whole. Parmenides described the universe as a single, unified block of being. Then Plato split apart this unity with his ontological distinction between Heaven and Earth. Descartes’s mind-body dualism further removed humanity from nature by excluding consciousness from the natural world.

No doubt thanks to Donald Trump, Brexit, and a string of anti-establishment leaders and parties in Europe, Latin America and Asia, everyone seems to be talking about populism

It is almost too easy to bash Facebook these days. Nearly a third of Americans feel the country’s most popular social media platform is bad for society.

The term “casual racism” has emerged over the last couple of years in media coverage reporting on more extreme forms of interpersonal racism, such as racist slang and racist diatribes on public transport.

Videos showing hostage beheadings by terrorists, a photograph of a model’s emaciated body to denounce anorexia in the fashion industry or, more recently, the image of a dying polar bear to call the attention to the consequences of climate change.

Today, what can be defined as racism and what cannot has become a matter for debate. Every racist caught in the act, whether it be wrongly accusing a black child of sexual assault or running over and killing a mosque-goer, claims not to be racist.

“For the first time media is the least trusted institution globally,” Edelman, the global PR and marketing firm concluded in its annual worldwide study on trust in institutions like the media, business and government.

I would like to put forward an argument that at the moment a cultural shift is occurring, and the metaphysical paradigm of materialism is fading away. I also want to emphasise how important it is - for the future of our own species and for our planet as a whole - that this shift comes to full fruition, and that the materialist paradigm is transcended by a spiritual worldview.

On either side of the Atlantic, groups of public intellectuals have issued a call to arms. The besieged citadel in need of defending, they say, is the one that safeguards science, facts and evidence-based policy.

The internet often gets a bad rap, and for good reason. Social media use can contribute to poorer mental health in teens. It can also be used to manipulate users’ emotions, and to disseminate misinformation and click bait to sway public opinion.

In my research, I have been studying the anti-Semitic images that were commonplace in Vienna early last century. These stereotyped images served to vilify Jewish people, culminating in the removal of most of the Jews from Vienna in 1938.

When it comes to migration trends, young people aged 15-24 are among the most itinerant in Australia. According to the 2016 census statistics, slightly more than half (50.5%) of people in this age bracket changed their residence in the five-year period from 2011-2016.

A new documentary shows how one state is confronting Native American child removal. We are left to ponder: Whom is this truth-telling for? Is it to educate White people on colonial violence and how it continues to harm indigenous communities in Maine, or is it for the Native participants to heal and be heard? Can it simultaneously be both?

Many Americans may be wondering what security measures are in place at their place of worship after 11 people were killed in Oct. 27 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Our survey found that synagogues and mosques were three times more likely than congregations overall to have received an explicit threat in the prior year.

Defenders of Donald Trump say his “shithole countries” remark regarding people from Africa, Haiti and other nations was just Trump being Trump — the president may have used salty language, but it’s really just his way of saying the United States should have a merit-based immigration system like Canada’s.

When Sly and the Family Stone released “Everyday People” at the end of 1968, it was a rallying cry after a tumultuous year of assassinations, civil unrest and a seemingly interminable war.

Fueled by virulent anti-Semitism, the Sabbath peace was shattered when 11 members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community were murdered in a synagogue where they had gathered to celebrate a birth, to pray and to study.

Leaders who value morality outperform their unethical peers, regardless of industry, company size, or role, according to new research. But because we all define a “moral leader” differently, leaders who try to do good may face unexpected difficulties.

Young men who conform to traditional definitions of manhood are more likely to suffer harm to themselves, and do harm to others, according to a new survey of Australian men aged 18 to 30