Tradition and conspiracy. Alt-Right and conspiratory thinking in defense of the nation in the United States
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5380/cg.v11i1.83642Abstract
Conspiracy theories are often viewed with contempt and derision as a result of low schooling or individual paranoia, but they are frequent in different political systems. In the United States, from the founding of the Thirteen Colonies to Trumpism, there is no lack of examples of historical moments shrouded in conspiracy theories. In the late 2010s, the so-called Alt-Right used conspiracy theories to support Donald Trump's candidacy and presidency. Through a historical-political analysis, the article seeks to demonstrate how American identity marks, of Puritan origin, support a conspiratorial way of thinking about politics that is recovered by specific groups in times of crisis. The article concludes that Alt-Right, in a context of institutional crisis, used the Puritan colonial worldview crystallized in American Civil Religion to support the discourse for “Saving America”, seeing the political field as an explicit dispute between the “good and evil”.
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