Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Radical Right : Scapegoating, Conspiracy Theories and New Narratives 9783838274881

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Dr. Tamir Bar-On is a Professor-Researcher at the Tec de Monterrey in Querétaro, Mexico. He is a member of Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI), the National System for Researchers. He completed his PhD at McGill University. He is the author of Where Have All The Fascists Gone? (Ashgate 2007; Routledge, 2016); Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to modernity (Routledge, 2013); The World through Soccer: The Cultural Impact of a Global Sport (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014); and Beyond Soccer: International Relations and Politics as Seen through the Beautiful Game (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017). Bàrbara Molas is a PhD candidate in History at York University (Toronto) and Head of Doctoral Fellows at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR). She studied World History (MA) at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Bàrbara has contributed to the study of transnational Francoism, neo-Francoism, and the history of far-right ideas on European and Canadian cultural integration. At York University, she studies far-right understandings of Canadian multiculturalism (1930s–1970s). She has published in Active History, the Globe and Mail, and Rantt Media, among others. ISBN: 978-3-8382-1488-7

ibidem

Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Radical Right

Numerous political commentators have noted the rise of the radical right worldwide. How has the radical right responded to the COVID-19 pandemic? Has the radical right been legitimized in a world of closed borders and greater securitization? Have radical right regimes in power cracked under the strains of the crisis and thus undermined their own political fortunes? Have radical right-wing responses to COVID-19 been uniform or diversified? These are some of the questions tackled in Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Radical Right. This volume gathers a collection of short pieces, which highlight the multi-faceted ways in which right-wing and radical right-wing political forces have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. It presents research by scholars from all around the world concentrating on the evolution of radical right-wing movements since the COVID-19 crisis began and their influence on mainstream and alternative narratives. The edited volume includes case studies as well as far-reaching reports on the radical right’s utilizing of the crisis to re-shape ideas about sovereignty, globalization, democracy, equality, diversity, and political legitimacy. Such studies comprise cases on gender and class, racism, religious hatred, scapegoating, anti-Semitism and Sinophobia, conspiracy theories, and online radicalization, focusing on locations as diverse as the US, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, France, Spain, Ukraine, Latvia, Israel, and India. All such studies are compiled in a total of six chapters and an epilogue, organized thematically and by country.

Tamir Bar-On, Bàrbara Molas (Eds.)

“This edited volume brings together some of the key writings on the topic, focusing on the relationship between the Coronavirus pandemic and the far right from both sides. Short and accessible, and written by true experts, they go beyond the often ill-informed and sensationalist ‘hot takes’ in the media and provide clear insights into a broad range of cases across the world.” —Cas Mudde, Professor of International Affairs, University of Georgia

Tamir Bar-On, Bàrbara Molas (Eds.)

Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Radical Right Scapegoating, Conspiracy Theories and New Narratives ibidem

Tamir Bar-On and Bàrbara Molas (Eds.)

Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Radical Right Scapegoating, Conspiracy Theories and New Narratives

Tamir Bar-On and Bàrbara Molas (Eds.)

RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY THE RADICAL RIGHT Scapegoating, Conspiracy Theories and New Narratives

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

ISBN-13: 978-3-8382-7488-1 © ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart 2020 Alle Rechte vorbehalten Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Dies gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und elektronische Speicherformen sowie die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Contents About the Authors .................................................................................. 9 Cas Mudde Foreword ............................................................................................... 15 Acknowledgments ................................................................................. 19 Tamir Bar-On and Bàrbara Molas Introduction .......................................................................................... 21 Chapter 1: COVID-19 and the Radical Right Ofra Klein How is the Far Right Capitalizing on COVID-19? ........................... 31 Cristina Ariza How COVID-19 Will Impact the Fight Against the Radical Right..... 35 Michael Colborne For the Far Right, The COVID-19 Crisis is a PR Opportunity ......... 41 Hans-Georg Betz COVID-19’s Victims: Populism ....................................................... 45 Chapter 2: Case Studies from Europe and North America Hans-Georg Betz Flanders First: How COVID-19 has Boosted the Flemish Radical Populist Right ................................................................................... 53 Sabine Volk Germany: Is the COVID-19 Pandemic Weakening the Far Right?..... 57 Michael Zeller COVID-19 and the Pause of Far-Right Demonstrations in Germany.... 61 Louie Dean Valencia-García Amid COVID-19, Trump Attempts to Rewrite History ................... 67 Hans-Georg Betz Will France’s Marine Le Pen be a Profiteer or Victim of the Pandemic? ......................................................................................... 73

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Hans-Georg Betz How the European Union Lost Italy to the Radical Right ................ 79 Hans-Georg Betz After COVID-19: Will Matteo Salvini Lead Europe’s Radical Right?................................................................................................ 85 Valerio Alfonso Bruno and James F. Downes COVID-19 & the (temporary) Fall of the Populist Radical Right in European Politics? ........................................................................ 89 Carmen Aguilera-Carnerero and Bàrbara Molas The Spanish Right, COVID-19 and ‘Socio-Communism’................ 95 Hans-Georg Betz Tilting at Windmills: The Spanish Radical Populist Right in Times of COVID-19 .................................................................................. 101 Chapter 3: COVID-19 and Radical-Right Conspiracy Theories Tamir Bar-On The Oldest Hatred, Conspiracy Theories and the COVID-19 Pandemic ........................................................................................ 111 Julia R. DeCook COVID-19 and the Radical Right: Conspiracy, Disinformation and Xenophobia .............................................................................. 119 Leonard Weinberg The Dangers of Right-Wing COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories ....... 123 Chamila Liyanage Apocalypse Now: The Conspiracy Theories of the Radical Right .... 129 Chapter 4: COVID-19 and the Rise of Racism and Religious Hatred Vasiliki Tsagkroni The ‘Other’ in a Time of Crisis: Europe’s Populist Radical-Right Response to COVID-19 .................................................................. 135 Mark Potok Anti-Asian Racism Amid COVID-19 Echoes US History of Blaming Immigrants for Disease .................................................... 139

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Bàrbara Molas Canada and the ‘Yellow Peril’ Conspiracy Amidst COVID-19 ..... 145 Eviane Leidig “#CORONAJIHAD”: How the Far Right in India is Responding to the Pandemic............................................................................... 151 Chapter 5: COVID-19 and the Radical Right’s Transition Online Julia DeCook Quarantined Radicals: Right-Wing Extremism in the Age of COVID-19 ...................................................................................... 157 Simon Purdue Zoom-Bombing and the Far Right’s Latest Assault on College Communities ................................................................................... 163 Cynthia Miller-Idriss The Risks of Online Radicalization in the COVID-19 Era ............ 167 Blyth Crawford The Influence of Memes on Far-Right Radicalisation .................... 171 Chapter 6: COVID-19, Class and Gender Ashley Mattheis Appropriating ‘Choice’: Uses of Gendered Discourse in ‘Re-Open’ Protests............................................................................................ 177 Mette Wiggen Gender and Mainstreaming in the Era of COVID-19: Swedish Exceptionalism & the Radical Right............................................... 183 Justin Gilmore Contesting Class in the Lockdown Protests .................................... 189 Epilogue ............................................................................................... 195 Valery Engel Will the World Be More Tolerant After the COVID-19 Pandemic? ....................................................................................... 197

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About the Authors Dr. Tamir Bar-On is a Professor-Researcher at Tec de Monterrey in Querétaro, Mexico. He is a member of Mexico’s National System for Researchers. Tamir is the Head of Events and Membership with the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. He completed his Ph.D. at McGill University. He is the author of Where Have All The Fascists Gone? (Ashgate 2007; Routledge, 2016); Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to modernity (Routledge, 2013); The World through Soccer: The Cultural Impact of a Global Sport (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014); and Beyond Soccer: International Relations and Politics as Seen through the Beautiful Game (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017). Bàrbara Molas is a Ph.D. candidate in History at York University (Toronto) and Head of Doctoral Fellows at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR). She studied World History (MA) at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Bàrbara has contributed to the study of transnational Francoism, neo-Francoism, and the history of far-right ideas on European and Canadian cultural integration. At York University, she studies far-right understandings of Canadian multiculturalism (1930s–1970s). She has published in Active History, the Globe and Mail, and Rantt Media, among others. Dr. Carmen Aguilera-Carnerero received her Ph.D. from the department of English and German Philology at the University of Granada (Spain), where she currently teaches. She is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right. Her post-doctoral research has focused on the study on extreme speech online, especially on CyberIslamophobia, online discourses of the post-war ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, cyber-rhetoric of the far right, the visual side of terrorism and the communicative force of graffiti. Cristina Ariza is a policy and practitioner fellow of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right and an analyst at the Extremism Policy Unit at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. She is also the research lead for extreme right-wing terrorism at the International Observatory for Terrorism Studies. Her work examines the spread of far right and Islamist ideologies with the aim of developing policy responses to tackle extremism.

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Dr. Hans-Georg Betz Adjunct Professor of Political Science, University of Zurich. Author of a number of major contributions to the study of contemporary radical-right-wing populism in advanced liberal democracies. His major works include: Radical right-wing populism in Western Europe (1994); La droite populiste en Europe. Extrême et démocrate? (2004); “The new politics of resentment: radical-right-wing populist parties in Western Europe” (Comparative Politics, 1993); “Globalization, the welfare state and right-wing populism in Western Europe” with D. Swank (Socio-Economic Review, 2003); “Against the current—stemming the tide: the nostalgic ideology of the contemporary radical populist right” with C. Johnson (Journal of Political Ideologies, 2004); and “Facets of nativism: a heuristic exploration” (Patterns of Prejudice, 2019). Betz regularly writes for Fair Observer and openDemocracy. Valerio Alfonso Bruno obtained a Ph.D. in Institutions and Polices from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Italy) and was Post-doctoral researcher at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. Bruno is currently Senior Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR) and cooperates with the Graduate School of Economics and International Relations (ASERI) at the Università Cattolica of Milan and the Observatoire de la Finance (Geneva). He is interested in the relations between populisms and expertise and the governance of international institutions. His online analyses have been published in Al Jazeera, Social Europe, openDemocracy and Fair Observer. Michael Colborne is a Canadian journalist who covers the radical right in central and eastern Europe. He is currently writing a book about Ukraine's Azov movement (ibidem Press, 2021). Blyth Crawford is a Ph.D. candidate at King’s College London, where she also works as a Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR). Before pursuing a Ph.D., she obtained her MA in Terrorism, Security and Society from King’s College London. Her research specializes in online radicalization and the Alt-Right. Dr. Julia DeCook is an Assistant Professor of Advocacy and Social Change in the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago. Her research focuses on how online extremist groups navigate the affordances and constraints of digital infrastructure in order to understand how they persist despite attempts to censor/ban them. She situates her

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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scholarship in digital culture, science and technology studies, disinformation and propaganda studies, and race and masculinity studies. Dr. James F. Downes is a Senior Fellow & Head of the Populism Research Unit at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. He is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics & Head (Chair) of Undergraduate Admissions & Public Relations, in the Department of Government & Public Administration at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also a Research Fellow (Honorary) in the Global Europe Centre, at the Brussels School of International Studies/University of Kent. He has also conducted recent media interviews for CNBC & CNN on Populism in European Politics. Dr. Valery Engel is Chairman of the Expert Board of the European International Tolerance Centre in Riga, President of the European Centre for Democracy Development (Latvia), Director of the Institute of Ethnic Policy and Inter-Ethnic Relations Studies (Moscow), and a Senior Fellow of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right Dr. Engel is an expert and analyst in comparative and motivational analysis of xenophobia and radicalism in Europe and human rights in international relations. Engel received his Ph.D. in History and is a Professor at the Moscow State Academy of Maimonides and Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the Department of Hebrew Studies at the University of Sorbonne II. Justin Gilmore is a Ph.D. candidate at UC Santa Cruz. His research is focused on the transformation of the US radical right since the 1970s. Looking at today’s radical right as arising from a conjunctural political situation, Justin’s work is focused on how the far right has been impacted by ‘neoliberal’ social forms whose hegemony has become increasingly unstable. Justin’s dissertation tracks how this destabilization of legitimacy has elicited new reactionary practices, subjectivities and affects. Ofra Klein is a Ph.D. researcher at the European University Institute (San Domenico di Fiesole), where she works on online political mobilization and the radical right. She previously worked as a research assistant at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. During her Ph.D., Ofra was a visiting scholar at the Weizenbaum Institut (Berlin) and Sciences Po (Paris). Her research interests are in the field of online mobilization, political internet memes and harmful speech.

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Dr. Eviane Leidig is an affiliate at the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo, and a postdoc on the Intersecting Flows of Islamophobia project at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society. Her research interests lie in the transnational connections between the far right in India and North America, with special focus on gender. She serves as Head of Publishing for the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. Ashley A. Mattheis is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Doctoral Fellow with the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. Her work explores the use of online platforms to promote and mainstream extremist ideologies and divisive practices, particularly through discourses predicated on gendered logics. Her research brings together Cultural and Media Studies, feminist theory, and rhetoric to approach topics such as masculinities and online misogyny, the linkages between the Manosphere and the Far/Alt-Right, and Alt-Right women’s discourses about negotiating submission and action in extremist groups. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is Professor of Education and Sociology and director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) in the Center for University Excellence (CUE) at the American University in Washington, DC. She is also Director of Strategy and Partnerships at the U.K.-based Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right and serves on the international advisory board of the Center for Research on Extremism (CREX) in Oslo, Norway. Her most recent book, Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right, will be published in fall 2020 by Princeton University Press. Mark Potok is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, and is a freelance writer, speaker, and consultant. Simon Purdue is a Ph.D. candidate at Northeastern University, where he is doing research on race, racism and violence, specifically looking at the gender politics of extremist right-wing movements between 1969 and 2009. He has worked on a number of other projects, including the history of police violence in Boston. Simon has lectured on topics such as the global far right and the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, and has both created and taught an undergraduate course entitled ‘The Global Far Right Since 1945: Politics, Culture and Violence’. Simon is a doctoral fellow with the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.

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Dr. Vasiliki Tsagkroni holds a Ph.D. in politics from Queen Mary University London (2015), and a BA and MA both from Panteion University of Athens. His main research and teaching interests include radical-right politics, populism, policy-making, comparative politics, political discourse, migration, political marketing and branding, political communication, and social media and research methods. His work has been published in journals such as Journal of Common Market Studies, Party Politics and British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Media and Communication, and numerous edited books. Louie Dean Valencia-García is Assistant Professor of Digital History at Texas State University. He studies the intersections of fascism, youth and queer culture, and technology. He is Senior Fellow and Head of the History Research Unit for the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. He has taught at Harvard University, and served on the Research Editorial Committee of EuropeNow, the monthly journal of the Council for European Studies. He is author of Antiauthoritarian Youth Culture in Francoist Spain: Clashing with Fascism (Bloomsbury, 2018) and editor of Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History: Alt/Histories (Routledge, 2020). He has held fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the United States Library of Congress, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, amongst others. Sabine Volk is a Ph.D. candidate at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and Early Stage Researcher in the EU Horizon2020 project “Delayed transformational fatigue in Central and Eastern Europe: Responding to the rise of illiberalism/populism (FATIGUE)”. Her research interests include populism, memory, and social movements. Sabine’s dissertation explores far-right memory politics and the ritualization of counterhegemonic protest in eastern Germany, relying on ethnographic fieldwork in the context of the Dresden-based “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident” (PEGIDA). She has published in journals such as German Politics and Politique européenne, and blogs, including openDemocracy, LSE Europp, populism-europe.com, amongst others. Leonard Weinberg is Foundation Professor Emeritus at the University of Nevada. Over the course of his career he has served as a Visiting Professor at King’s College (University of London) and the University of Haifa. Weinberg has also been a visiting scholar at the University of Florence (Italy) and UCLA. He has been the recipient of both Fulbright and Frank

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Guggenheim research awards. His most recent book is Fascism, Populism and American Democracy (2019). Michael Zeller is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Central European University (CEU). His dissertation research concerns the demobilization of far-right demonstration campaigns, and particularly how counter-mobilization against far-right movements affects this process. Michael is also an Associate Researcher at CEU’s Center for Policy Studies, working on the ‘Building Resilience against Violent Extremism and Polarisation’ (BRaVE) project. Michael earned master’s degrees in political science and in Russian, Central and Eastern European Studies, from Corvinus University of Budapest and the University of Glasgow, respectively.

Foreword Cas Mudde The Coronavirus pandemic is at least the fourth major ‘crisis’ of the still relatively young 21st century—after 9/11, the Great Recession and the socalled ‘refugee crisis’—but it is by far the most global and personal. The vast majority of the global population has been in some form of lockdown, from draconian in places like China to fairly loose in countries like Sweden, and most have seen their school or work situation change considerably. The pandemic has also led to an economic downturn that is expected to be even worse than the Great Recession, from which most of the world had only barely recovered. In the US, for example, unemployment numbers are now higher than during the Great Depression, with more than 30 million Americans having lost their job since March 2020, disproportionately minorities and women in low-income jobs. No wonder, then, that the possible political consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic are hotly debated, and, in a world dominated by populism, which has largely become shorthand for the far right, this has too often been reduced to the question: how will the Coronavirus pandemic impact populism? This edited volume brings together some of the key writings on the topic, focusing on the relationship between the Coronavirus pandemic and the far right from both sides; i.e., how did the Coronavirus pandemic affect the success of the far right and how has the far right responded to the Coronavirus pandemic? Short and accessible, and written by true experts, they go beyond the often ill-informed and sensationalist ‘hot takes’ in the media and provide clear insights into a broad range of cases across the world. These first takes are necessarily preliminary, however, and, as I will argue later, might have to be revised significantly in the case of a nearcertain second wave. In this short foreword, I will outline my own first take, linking the discussion to some of the key points from my recent book The Far Right Today (2019), while also looking ahead to what is yet to come. Media coverage of the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the electoral and political fortunes of the far right has often been determined by the specific (national) case they focused on. Those focusing on US 15

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president Donald Trump, or Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have emphasized their denial and incompetence with regard to the pandemic and have predicted an electoral backlash—partly backed up by recent polls. But media focusing on Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) in France or Matteo Salvini’s League in Italy have argued that the far right stands to profit from the upcoming electoral backlash—so far not supported by the polls. Who is right? Both could be, potentially, because the far right today is a heterogeneous political phenomenon. While it was mainly an outside political challenger in the third wave of post-war far right politics (1980–2000), the far right has mainstreamed and normalized in the current fourth wave. Today, three of the five biggest democracies have a far-right leader (Brazil, India, US), two EU member states have single-party far right governments (Hungary and Poland), and far right parties are part of government coalitions in several other countries (e.g., Bulgaria and Estonia). Given this diversity in political contexts, it makes little sense to expect one single effect of the Coronavirus pandemic on the far right. At this moment, most far right parties in power profit from the government bonus that national crises tend to create, just as is the case of nonfar right governments. There are two major exceptions to this general rule, however: Bolsonaro and Trump. Both stereotypical far right strongmen have largely denied or downplayed the threat of the pandemic, refused to wear facemasks (to showcase their ‘masculinity’) and fallen out with traditional supporters over their response. Nevertheless, the fall in popular support for the two leaders is also related to other issues, such as allegations of abuse of power (Bolsonaro) and institutional racism and police brutality (Trump). Most far right parties in opposition have been struggling, starved from their key issues and (therefore) media attention. Salvini’s Lega, which had been in a downfall since blowing up the Italian government in late 2019, is polling at its lowest in two years. Similarly, Sweden Democrats (SD) has lost all the gains it made in the second half of 2019, while Alternative for Germany (AFD) is polling in the single digits for the first time in years. However, there are exceptions. While Salvini’s League is losing, the pandemic has not stopped the rise of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FdI). Similarly, Belgium’s Flemish Interest (VB) is unaffected by the pandemic. Overall though, most shifts in voting preferences are small for all opposition parties, far right or otherwise.

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In terms of response to the Coronavirus pandemic, as the various chapters illustrate, far right organizations and parties have mainly used their traditional repertoire of authoritarianism, nativism and populism. Conspiracy theories and fake news campaigns have also been widespread, aided by anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as well as dubious online networks, some linked to Russia. While all far-right groups have emphasized the virus’ link to China, not all have used it for targeted anti-China campaigns like Salvini and Trump. They have also all linked it to immigration, playing on age-old racist tropes about ‘Others’ carrying and spreading disease. Obviously, covert and overt anti-Semites did not miss the opportunity to link the pandemic to their eternal enemy, ‘the Jews’, often through the familiar persona of US-Hungarian investor-philanthropist George Soros. While this nativism plays well among the base, and does resonate more broadly, it does not seem to pull in many new supporters. This is in part because practically all governments decided to close the national borders at the beginning of the pandemic, thereby taking away the far right’s main standard ‘solution’. Outside of a few countries, like India and the US, China is not among the common foreign enemies of nationalists, and Chinese immigrants are either ignored or seen as ‘model immigrants’ who work hard and don’t make claims on the majority. An important reminder that ‘positive’ stereotypes are still that—stereotypes—and can easily change into negative stereotypes—just as philo-Semitism is mostly based on anti-Semitic stereotypes. This leaves the opposition far right mainly with populism, accusing the government of corruption and incompetence, putting ‘the people’ at risk to appease big business, foreign countries, or international organizations. The content of the critique differs by country and is more determined by the government response than by far right ideology. For instance, while far right groups in Italy and the US have opposed the lockdown, their brethren in the Netherlands have criticized the Dutch government for being too lax in its response to the Coronavirus pandemic—before making a 180 turn and calling for a quicker reopening of the country. So far, the populist campaigns of far right groups have met with only modest success, but the real political struggle over ‘the right response’ is yet to come. And, in some countries, it might not even come as they have already moved on to new topics, like institutional racism and police brutality.

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In the end, the second wave of the pandemic might be so close to the end of the first, if it ever really ended in countries like the UK and the US, that the past few months were probably just foreplay for the real political debate. One thing is clear, many people will be much less supportive of a second lockdown—ironically, in part because the first lockdown kept the number of deaths much lower than early scenarios predicted—which will put enormous pressure on governments to enact and enforce an effective response. It will also create a huge opportunity for far right groups—in government and opposition—to become the voice of the dissenters, and present themselves as the defenders of individual freedoms and the national economy. Whatever the actual outcome, the various contributions in this volume will help us to better understand what is going on right now and what will happen in the future. It may not be a happy read, but it is an important one.

Acknowledgments This edited volume would not have been possible without the help of many people. We would like to acknowledge our debt of gratitude. Professionally, we would like to thank the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, the Steering Committee, and in particular Matthew Feldman and William Allchorn. Mariana Marín Villagrana (Tec de Monterrey) has been immensely helpful in working with the footnotes to meet the publication guidelines. David Muldrew assisted us with proofreading the manuscript. We are especially grateful to Cas Mudde, a major figure in the field of radical-right-wing studies, for contributing with the Foreword. It has been a pleasure to work with Valerie Lange and Jana Dävers at ibidemVerlag. Personally, we want to thank people who supported and inspired us along the way. The Bar-On family, including the late Meir Bar-On (may his name be a blessing), Annette Bar-On, and Saggy Bar-On. And Justin Mott, for his unconditional support. Finally, we dedicate this book to all the victims and survivors of COVID-19 around the world, in addition to healthcare workers, as they showed us the true meaning of heroism.

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Introduction Tamir Bar-On and Bàrbara Molas Since March 2020 the COVID-19 crisis has become the cause of a new worldwide wave of right-wing radicalism. The astute journalist Michael Colborne noted that right-wing political forces, from the Azov Regiment in the Ukraine to CasaPound in Italy, have used the crisis as a “branding and public relations opportunity.”1 In the United States of America (US), the Proud Boys, militia groups, and religious fundamentalists have featured at some of the anti-government lockdown protests in various states.2 Writing in The Nation, Benjamin Teitelbaum, the author of War for Eternity,3 points out that the Traditionalist Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin could see the COVID-19 pandemic as “a kind of punishment for globalization.”4 Steve Bannon, who was once a special advisor for US President Trump, could view in the crisis “the inability of states to erect meaningful borders regulating movement of people and the production of goods.”5 Matteo Salvini, the head of Italy’s League and a former Deputy Prime Minister, has used the crisis to call for the end of immigration. Alain de Benoist, the leader of the French New Right (nouvelle droite), penned a piece in Telos in which he argued that the “health crisis is ringing (provisionally?) the death knell of globalization and the hegemonic ideology of progress.”6 He also notes that closed borders are now being “applauded” by all political forces and that the liberal dream is that “collective identities would be progressively eradicated, and sovereignty would become obsolete.”7 He invokes the pro-Nazi legal theorist Carl Schmitt to tell us that in a state of exception “norms can no longer be applied.”8 Hungarian Prime 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Michael Colborne, “For the Far Right, the COVID-19 Crisis Is a PR Opportunity,” Fair Observer, April 13, 2020, https://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/michael-colb orne-far-right-COVID-19-pandemic-assistance-covid-19-crisis-pr-news-10109/. Jason Wilson, “The right-wing groups behind wave of protests against Covid-19 restrictions,” The Guardian, April 17, 2020. Benjamin R. Teitelbaum, War for Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far-Right Circle of Global Power Brokers (New York: HarperCollins, 2020) Benjamin Teitelbaum, “Covid-19 Is the Crisis Radical ‘Traditionalists’ Have Been Waiting For,” The Nation, April 8, 2020. Ibid. Alain de Benoist, “After COVID,” Telos, April 10, 2020, http://www.telospress.com/af ter-covid/. Ibid. Ibid.

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Minister Viktor Orbán has attempted to make the link between illegal immigration and the pandemic; indefinitely suspended migrants into Hungary’s two transit zones with Serbia, and (in a Schmittian vein) passed an act to extend his government’s emergency legislation and rule by decree. Hungary is a member of the European Union (EU) and thus it begs the following question: How does Hungary still remain part of the EU? Increasing fear and uncertainty generated by restrictive lockdowns and isolation have been used by the radical right globally to advance their political agendas in unprecedented ways. As the pieces in the volume make clear, the radical-right populists have been both successful and unsuccessful in pushing their narratives, depending on the political circumstances, countries in question, and whether they are in government or opposition. A multiplicity of actors with different strategies, tactics, and ideological convictions on the radical right have sought to benefit from the pandemic. A health crisis in its origins, COVID-19 has shaped new discourses on social, political, and economic decadence that have transformed it into a crisis of many layers. As the Yale University historian Frank M. Snowden noted in Epidemics and Society, governments were woefully unprepared for the current crisis; transparent public health strategies are needed; epidemics advance power to certain “strategically placed elites” within states; epidemics lead to “spontaneous public responses,” including “stigmatization and scapegoating,” mass hysteria, and riots; and strategies of warfare (or terrorism) are impacted because epidemics create “fertile conditions” for the spread of diseases.9 Some on the radical left used the opportunity to promote a new variant of communism,10 organize non-unionized essential workers, or even create anarchist autonomous zones like the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest zone in Seattle. Right-wing populist leaders have related the threat of contagion to the ‘dangers’ of globalization and open borders; the ills of unrestrained immigration; plots and conspiracies against the nation and West; neglectful management on the part of liberal political elites; and, overall, to the incapacity of democratic regimes to contain external as well as internal threats to borders, jobs, culture, identity, and the ‘health’ of the nation. Such narratives have allowed for the redefinition of parameters of exclusion, as well as new discourses of belonging, which have revived old racist tropes against ethnic minorities. Anti-Chinese, anti-Semitic, and 9 10

Frank M. Snowden, Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), p. 5. Slavoj Žižek, Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World (New York: Polity Press, 2020).

INTRODUCTION

23

anti-Muslim sentiments have proliferated. Ruth Wodak pointed out that the radical right has a “penchant for conspiracies, scapegoats, and ‘the politics of fear’ directed against ‘enemies’ whether internal (e.g., liberals, socialists, Muslims, Jews, Rom, etc.) or external (e.g., Zionists, the EU, the US, capitalism, etc.).”11 These conspiracies seek to unmask ‘plots’ against the nation by pro-globalization forces and elites. Even under quarantine, a widespread restriction that has deprived it from demonstrating as usual, the radical right has smoothly transitioned to online platforms and adapted their narratives accordingly. Or, they have even openly flouted government anti-lockdown measures. The trend is transnational, unparalleled and likely to have a significant impact on the struggle against the radical right. Despite nearly 40,000 deaths caused by COVID-19 in his country, the right-wing nationalist President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro held a rally by riding a horse, and he openly flouted the regulations of the capital city by not wearing a mask and even shaking hands with his supporters.12 Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Radical Right thus gathers a collection of short pieces, which highlight the multi-faceted ways in which radical-right-wing political forces have responded to the COVID19 pandemic. It presents research by scholars from all around the world concentrating on the evolution of radical-right-wing movements since the COVID-19 crisis began and their influence on mainstream and alternative narratives. The book includes case studies, as well as far-reaching reports on the radical right, utilizing the crisis to re-shape ideas about sovereignty, globalization, democracy, equality, diversity, and political legitimacy. Such studies comprise cases on gender and class, racism, religious hatred, scapegoating, anti-Semitism and Sinophobia, conspiracy theories, and online radicalization, focusing on locations as diverse as the US, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, France, Spain, Ukraine, Latvia, Israel, and India. All such studies are compiled in a total of six chapters and an Epilogue, which will be organized thematically and by country. We must underscore the definitional quagmire related to studies of the right and in particular the radical right. Thus, scholars disagree on basic 11

12

Ruth Wodak, The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean (London: Sage, 2015); Tamir Bar-On, “The Radical Right and Nationalism,” in Jens Rydgren (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 17–41. Al Jazeera, “Bolsonaro saddles up to join rally against Brazil’s top court,” May 31, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/bolsonaro-saddles-join-rally-brazil-to p-court-200601012746495.html.

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RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY THE RADICAL RIGHT

terms such as right, radical right, extreme right, fascism, and neo-fascism. What some scholars term as ‘radical right’ and even ‘fascism’ or ‘neofascism’ might be for other scholars merely ‘nationalism,’ ‘national populism,’ ‘conservatism,’ or even the ‘mainstream right.’ The Dutch scholar Cas Mudde mentions a whopping 58 different definitions of the radical right, and 23 different scholars use distinctive terms to describe these movements or parties.13 He suggests that nationalism, racism, xenophobia, anti-democracy and the strong state are characteristics that recur in over half the definitions and descriptions of the radical right.14 Yet, Roger Eatwell and Pierre Ignazi argue that a variety of styles of thought and ideological tendencies characterize the right, thus making it difficult to identify a right-wing core.15 In an attempt to use these diverse characteristics to establish right-wing subcategories, Vedran Obucina lists a dizzying catalogue of terms used to characterize the radical right: ‘extreme right,’ ‘far right,’ ‘right,’ ‘right populism,’ ‘exclusionist populism,’ ‘anti-immigrant parties,’ ‘racist extremism,’ ‘fascism,’ ‘neofascism,’ ‘postfascism,’ ‘reactionist tribalism,’ and numerous others.16 The German Constitution does make a helpful distinction between the ‘radical right’ (i.e., non-violent and critical of democracy) and ‘extreme right’ (i.e., violent and hostile to democracy). This approach is adopted by Jens Rydgren, who opines that the radical right is a subset of right-wing extremism, which is hostile to democratic governance or constitutions but not necessarily actively opposed to democracy per se.17 This volume includes both political players associated with the ‘radical right’ and ‘extreme right’. Similar definitional issues plague our ability as scholars to differentiate right from left. Yet, there is a general perception that right and left have different understandings of human nature, state and society relations, and visions of the future. Historically, right and left have often reacted to each other since the emergence of the right-left divide during the French 13 14 15

16 17

Elisabeth Carter, “Right-wing extremism/radicalism: reconstructing the concept,” Journal of Political Ideologies 23 (2) (2018), p. 161. Ibid. Roger Eatwell, “The nature of the Right, 2: the Right as a variety of ‘styles of thought’”, in Roger Eatwell and Noël O’Sullivan (eds.), The Nature of the right: American and European politics and political thought since 1789 (London: Continuum, 1992); Piero Ignazi, Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Vedran Obucina, “The Breivik Challenge: Why Norway Should Not Be (Too) Surprised,” Croatian International Relations Review, 17 (64/65) (July/December 2011), p. 8. Jens Rydgren, “Radical Right: An Introduction,” in Jens Rydgren (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 1–12.

INTRODUCTION

25

Revolution in the 18th century. Following the Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio, one possibility is to suggest that the ideal of equality is the “pole star” that guides that left and, by extension, the right is more in favor of inequality.18 Or, as Elisabeth Carter puts it, “In being more egalitarian, the left strives to reduce social inequalities and seeks to make natural ones less painful. By contrast, the right is more inegalitarian: it believes that most inequalities are natural and so cannot be eradicated, and it does not consider it the state’s responsibility to reduce social inequalities.”19 For Bobbio, the left also stands for liberty in contrast to what he claims is the right’s penchant for authority. Bobbio’s definition might be useful for many cases; that is, numerous radical rightists from Alain de Benoist to Paul Gottfried (the Paleoconservative thinker and co-inventor of the term ‘Alt-Right’ with Richard B. Spencer) have agreed with Bobbio’s assessment. De Benoist could see the “egalitarian ideology” inherited from the 1789 liberal republican French Revolution as “bad” because it produced the homogenization of the world and the “diversity” of the world and its relative inequalities as “good” for humanity.20 “If someone were to ask me what distinguishes the right from the left,” Gottfried insisted, “the difference that comes to mind most readily centers on equality. The left favors that principle, while the right regards it as an unhealthy obsession.”21 Bobbio’s conceptualization is useful, but it also has some flaws. After all, is China not a left-wing regime? And has it not engaged in some of the most authoritarian lockdown measures; silenced doctors and scientists; intensified its oppression of the Uighurs; undermined the autonomy of Hong Kong; and even threatened Taiwan with war? In the US, some of the anti-government lockdown protests have been supported by Republican governors, elements of the radical right (e.g., the Boogaloo movement, white nationalists, and various militia movements) and even President Trump. The right and radical right have called for greater individual liberties against the intrusion of the state compared to the more pro-lockdown 18 19 20

21

Norberto Bobbio, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction (trans. Allan Cameron) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 60–79. Elisabeth Carter, “Right-wing extremism/radicalism: reconstructing the concept,” p. 161. Alain de Benoist, “L’une des phrases de l’introduction de Vu de droite,” available at: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/alaindebenoist/pdf/preface_nouvelle_edition_vu _de_droite.pdf; Vu de droite: Anthologie critique des idées contemporaines (Paris: Broché, 2001). Jacob Siegel, “The Alt-Right’s Jewish Godfather,” Tablet, November 29, 2016, https:// www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/218712/spencer-gottfried-alt-right.

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RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY THE RADICAL RIGHT

Democratic Party governors. The same applies for the right to hold religious services, where in general the right has been more libertarian and constitutionalist than the more pro-lockdown left. We thus have the reinforcement of a more anti-statist right in the US because it is more individualist, pro-market and critical of state intervention in civil society; it does not trust the lockdown orders of liberal elites; and some radical elements also believe that governments and international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) have exaggerated the dangers of COVID-19 in order to weaken the power of the US. Nonetheless, far-right outfits such as the Boogaloo movement have attempted to take advantage of the COVID-19 crisis and the George Floyd protests to engage in violence, kill law enforcement officials and hasten the coming of a civil war.22 Given these conceptual difficulties, the volume under consideration has accepted a multiplicity of definitions and perspectives used by the authors. At minimum, all the political forces, movements, and parties we study in this volume have been identified with the ‘right,’ ‘radical populist right,’ ‘populist nationalist right,’ ‘radical right,’ ‘far right,’ or even ‘extreme right’. In addition, the COVID-19 crisis has led to a rise of authoritarian tendencies by both liberal and illiberal regimes and movements alike. As a matter of fact, all kinds of governments have used the COVID-19 crisis in order to engage in extraordinary measures akin to where the state of exception increasingly becomes the norm globally; a permanent reality of political life and the paradigm for governance.23 Authoritarian leftist, liberal, and right-wing governments have engaged in more repressive measures against their respective civil societies. The US has downgraded its relations with China as a result of new security laws in Hong Kong, which amount to the end of autonomy for the island. Domestically, the brutal murder of George Floyd by a white police officer has triggered antigovernment protests and riots throughout the country and protests even as far as Buenos Aires, Auckland and London. These events have led to further emergency orders to quell protests and looting and fears of the rise of COVID-19 cases. In the US, the pro-lockdown Democrats joined the wave 22 23

BBC News, “US Air Force sergeant charged in Boogaloo Bois murder,” June 17, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53076159. Giorgio Agamben, “The State of Emergency as a World Order: Conclusions after 11th of September,” Frankfurter Allgemeine (May 2003); The Conversation, “State of emergency: how different countries are invoking extra powers to stop the COVID-19,” March 30, 2020, https://theconversation.com/state-of-emergency-how-different-countries-are-invoking-extra-powers-to-stop-the-COVID-19-134495.

INTRODUCTION

27

of protests and minimized the lockdown mantra, while the Republicans have sought to navigate between sympathy for the protests and the tough ‘law and order’ approach under President Trump. Canada, Israel, Slovakia, Poland and other liberal democracies have increasingly used lockdown applications to potentially spy on the private information of their citizens. Lockdowns in liberal democracies have been extraordinary in hard-hit countries from Spain to Italy. Hungary’s democracy has now been eroded and President Orbán has finally attained his dream of an “illiberal democracy,” envisioned back in 2014.24 The main goal of Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Radical Right is to raise awareness of the impact of COVID-19 on global radicalization through original research produced by experts on the radical right. Furthermore, this book wishes to serve as a reference point in order to encourage transnational discussions on how to assess and counteract the rise of the radical right in the midst of this health crisis. Overall, this collection of studies hopes to contribute to a new research area that focuses on the contemporary radical right and their ability to profit from extraordinary circumstances in order to potentially weaken and destabilize democracies.

24

The Budapest Beacon, “Full text of Viktor Orbán’s speech at Băile Tuşnad (Tusnádfürdő) of 26 July 2014,” https://budapestbeacon.com/full-text-of-viktororbans-speech-at-baile-tusnad-tusnadfurdo-of-26-july-2014/.

Chapter 1: COVID-19 and the Radical Right

How is the Far Right Capitalizing on COVID-19? Ofra Klein “Despite COVID-19, leftists want open borders for migrants” is the caption in an image by popular right-wing outlet Voice of Europe showing a large group of male migrants on a rubber boat.25 The image is an example of how far-right politicians and news agencies are capitalizing on the virus to push forward their anti-immigrant and populist message. In the battle against COVID-19, far-right politicians have been at the forefront when it comes to arguing for a complete lockdown. In the days leading up to the Belgian lockdown, Dries van Langehove, a politician for Flemish Interest, had been giving advice on his social media insisting citizens not to organize parties or go to the supermarket during peak time, and not to hoard products. Instead he told people to be considerate to others when buying toilet paper, to eat healthily, move around the house, take up a productive routine, clean, read a good book and make more time for each other at home. In the Netherlands, the laid-back response of the government to the virus led to a collaboration between party leaders Geert Wilders (Party for Freedom) and Thierry Baudet (Forum for Democracy), who successfully lobbied for closing down schools.26 Both politicians have also urged the government to change its views on the herd immunity approach and instead go on full lockdown.27

25 26

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Voice of Europe (@voice.of.europe). 2020. “Despite COVID-19 outbreak, leftists want open borders for migrants.” Instagram photo, February 27, 2020. https://www.instagr am.com/p/B9E5dorgBYu/. Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv). 2020. “Inderdaad @thierrybaudet ze moeten zich kapot schamen. Maar we krijgen ons gelijk wel, die scholen die gaan dicht. Daar gaan wij voor zorgen. Zodat de kinderen, ouders, opa’s en oma’s leerkrachten hun leven niet op het spel hoeven zetten. #COVID-19 #corona.” Twitter, March 14, 2020, 3:28 p.m. https://twitter.com/geertwilderspvv/status/1238940083677540358. Antonio Regalado, “What is herd immunity and can it stop the COVID-19?,” MIT Technology Review, March 17, 2020, Biotechnology, https://www.technologyreview. com/2020/03/17/905244/what-is-herd-immunity-and-can-it-stop-the-COVID-19/; Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv). 2020. “Artsen verwachten dat het aantal van 177 corona patiënten op de Intensive Care nu, stijgt naar 500 tot 1000 vlg week. Er moet dus snel meer IC-capaciteit én meer beademingsapparatuur komen om iedereen te kunnen helpen. En er moet NU een lockdown komen! #COVID-19 #corona.” Twitter, March 19, 2020, 9:34 p.m. https://twitter.com/geertwilderspvv/status/1240662960516849664.

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RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY THE RADICAL RIGHT

The fixation on COVID-19 by right-wing populists is unsurprising as the virus fits well with the far-right discourse on immigration, community safety and government accountability. Xenophobia, or the fear towards a cultural other, plays a central role in the far right’s discourse about the emergence and containment of the virus. Where Matteo Salvini linked border control to difficulties of containing the virus, Victor Orbán used the first corona patient in the country, an Iranian student, as an opportunity to frame COVID as a consequence of migration.28 Similarly, Voice of Europe wrote several articles in an attempt to portray immigrant/minority groups as the ones largely ignoring the calls from the government to stay at home in Italy, Germany, and Belgium.29 In Belgium, Dries Van Langehoven took advantage of the current crisis to attack minorities by posting a suggestive video of youth plundering a warehouse on his Facebook page stating that “the strength of the multicultural society will show itself in all its splendor in the coming weeks …” Clearly, he was implying that minorities show little solidarity by means of hoarding products. The crisis also feeds into populist sentiment. Van Langehove tweeted “every extra cent in the budget should now go to the health and economic crisis. Our people must come first, more than ever before.” He posted this with an image of the Minister for Asylum and Migration Maggie De Block in front of a group of male ‘migrants’, with a statement that De Block asked for an additional €42 million for accommodating asylum seekers.30

28

29

30

Ciara Nugent, “Italy’s Far-Right Seeks to Gain from COVID-19 Outbreak,” TIME, February 24, 2020, COVID-19 Brief, http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-gay-marriagechildren-20150424-story.html; Edit Inotai, “How Hungary’s Orban blamed migrants for COVID-19,” Euobserver, March 20, 2020, COVID-19, https://euobserver.com/CO VID-19/147813. Severino Nappi (@severino_nappi). 2020. “Sono giorni che nel quartiere Vasto di #Napoli, i migranti affollano vicoletti e marciapiedi. Sfidano i divieti, noncuranti del rischio.Mentre noi viviamo barricati nelle nostre case, c’è chi si prende gioco della nostra salute. Le regole valgono per tutti! #IlNostroPosto.” Twitter, March 17, 2020, 1:58 a.m. https://twitter.com/severino_nappi/status/1239823334289874945; Michael Lord, “Immigrants violently defy COVID-19 quarantines in Germany,” Voice of Europe, March 18, 2020, European News, https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/03/immigrants-violentlydefy-COVID-19-quarantines-in-germany-hungary/; Michael Lord, “Belgium: Migrants resist, spit on police as they reject COVID-19 measures,” Voice of Europe, March 29, 2020, Western Europe, https://voiceofeurope.com/2020/03/belgium-migrants-resistspit-on-police-as-they-reject-COVID-19-measures/. Dries Van Langenhove (@DVanLangenhove). 2020. “Vandaag, in volle coronacrisis, trekt De Block nog eens €42 miljoen EXTRA uit voor opvang van asielzoekers. Elke extra cent in de begroting zou nu nochtans moeten gaan naar de gezondheids-en economische crisis. Onze mensen moeten op de eerste plaats komen, meer dan ooit tevoren!.” Twitter, March 19, 2020, 4:03 p.m. https://twitter.com/DVanLangenhove/sta tus/1240760837817720832.

HOW IS THE FAR RIGHT CAPITALIZING ON COVID-19?

33

This type of discourse is especially appealing in the current crisis, where the working-class sections of the society—the nurses, teachers, policemen, cleaners and supermarket personnel—keep society running when everything else seems to be falling apart. In their discourse, far-right leaders describe themselves as the protectors of these working-class people. Dutch politician Geert Wilders tweets frequently in outrage about the enormous cuts that have been made by the ruling elite against the sectors that are now needed the most.

Left: Rutte & Wilders, translation: he didn’t give me a handshake, so I decided to go for an elbow | Right: Bruins & Wilders, translation: elbow? Yes on your face. https://www.face book.com/Kabinet-Rutte-lll-weg-ermee-843234242376596/.

The virus has also given the far right the opportunity to criticize the way the political elite and experts deal with the crisis. In the Netherlands, Mark Rutte’s decision to stick to a herd immunity approach has created outrage on the far right. Rutte’s speech to introduce the measure of not ‘shaking hands’ anymore, but rather ‘touch elbows’ led to humorous memes that implicitly criticized the elite, by showing how Geert Wilders would use his elbow (instead of his hands) to hit Rutte or Bruno Bruins—the, now previous, Minister of Health.31 Rutte’s decision was based on information 31

Guardian News. “‘Sorry!’: Dutch PM breaks own ‘no handshake’ rule at COVID-19 conference.” YouTube, March 10, 2020. Video, 0:28. https://www.youtube.com/wat ch?v=WT0D5tkeY6s.

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RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY THE RADICAL RIGHT

by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM).32 Far-right news outlets such as Ongehoord Nederland, as well as far-right leaders Thierry Baudet and Geert Wilders, expressed distrust in the institute, which in an earlier stage of the COVID-19 crisis made incorrect statements—by arguing that it was unlikely for the disease to appear in the Netherlands and stating that the disease was not very contagious and that children were less likely to infect others.33 The idea of a complete lockdown fits well with the authoritarian tendency of the far right, which often express praise for strong leaders who can ensure socio-political isolation for the purposes of reducing external threats to their totalitarian power. As a matter of fact, a tough, total lockdown has proven successful, helping legitimize the discourse of the far right. An illustrative example is the harsh approach taken against the virus in China, which, after two months of lockdown, reported mid-March to have no new domestic cases.34 Another example is Hungary’s emergency law, which has allowed Viktor Orbán to rule without limits, a method that was praised by Salvini as the appropriate response to contain the virus.35 With countries locking down their borders as a necessary intervention to deal with the virus, European unity is under ever more pressure. The uncertainty about the virus makes for a perfect storm, which plays well into the hands of the far right.

32 33 34

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Bas Soetenhorst, “Critici herinneren RIVM aan sussende taal: ‘Ze zaten er constant naast’,” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2020, Achtergrond, https://www.parool.nl/neder land/critici-herinneren-rivm-aan-sussende-taal-ze-zaten-er-constant-naast~b648cc67/. Lucas Gasthuis, “De coronacrisis in tweets van het RIVM: een tijdlijn,” Elsevier Weekblad, March 16, 2020, COVID-19, https://www.elsevierweekblad.nl/neder land/achtergrond/2020/03/tijdlijn-coronacrisis-in-tweets-rivm-743404/. Scott Neuman, “China Reports No New Domestic Cases, But Battles COVID-19 Imported From Abroad,” National Public Radio, March 19, 2020, The COVID-19 Crisis, https://www.npr.org/sections/COVID-19-live-updates/2020/03/19/818155927/china-r eports-no-new-domestic-cases-but-battles-COVID-19-imported-from-abroad?t=15847 80544579. Jennifer Rankin, “Hungary’s emergency law ‘incompatible with being in EU’, say MEPs group,” The Guardian, March 31, 2020, Hungary, https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2020/mar/31/hungary-emergency-law-incompatible-with-being-in-eu-say-meps -group-viktor-orban; Salvini, Matteo (@matteosalvinimi). 2020. “Poteri speciali a Orban per combattere con forza il virus? Saluto con rispetto la libera scelta del parlamento ungherese (137 voti a favore e 53 contro), eletto democraticamente dai cittadini. Buon lavoro all’amico Viktor Orbán e buona fortuna a tutto il popolo di Ungheria.” Twitter, March 30, 2020, 10:20 a.m. https://twitter.com/matteosalvinimi/status/124466071498 5357313.

How COVID-19 Will Impact the Fight Against the Radical Right Cristina Ariza The world has been brought to a stop after COVID-19’s unprecedented expansion throughout the world, with many nations enforcing full lockdowns and quarantines in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.36 Aside from the most immediate and pressing health risks, COVID-19 will have a critical impact on the tourism, arts and entertainment sectors, among many others that will most likely need government bailouts to survive. In these critical times, all scrutiny will be on governments’ response to the crisis. It is to be expected that all available resources will be mobilized to cope with the effects of controlling COVID-19. Whether that is a temporal or more permanent status quo remains to be seen.

What radical-right groups have been saying about COVID-19 Yet, as with every destabilizing event, radical-right groups are already trying to capitalize on the COVID-19 crisis. A global pandemic of this scale is ripe ground for the spread of conspiracy theories. Notorious conspiracy theorists, such as Infowars’s Alex Jones—who among other things claims that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged—is now arguing that China has manufactured COVID-19 as a bioweapon to bring down the Trump presidency.37 In the US, the different takes range from Bill Gates creating the virus to claiming Democrats are promoting the COVID-19 hoax to hurt Trump’s chances at re-election.38

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Gareth Evans et al, “More restrictions as virus cases and deaths rise,” BBC News, March 20, 2015, World, https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-51969508; Jason Wilson, “Disinformation and blame: how America’s far right is capitalizing on COVID-19,” The Guardian, March 19, 2015, COVID-19 outbreak, https://www.theguard ian.com/world/2020/mar/19/america-far-right-COVID-19-outbreak-trump-alex-jones. Tucker Higgins, “Alex Jones’ 5 most disturbing and ridiculous conspiracy theories,” CNBC, September 14, 2018, Politics, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/alex-jones-5most-disturbing-ridiculous-conspiracy-theories.html. Julia DeCook, “COVID-19 and the radical right: conspiracy, disinformation, and xenophobia,” openDemocracy, March 13, 2020, Countering the Radical Right, https:// www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/alex-jones-5-most-disturbing-ridiculous-conspiracy-theories. html.

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RESPONSES TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC BY THE RADICAL RIGHT

Politicization is already having a clear effect on the development of these conspiracies. Other conspiracies have adopted more racial overtones. The AntiDefamation League has found several anti-Semitic and xenophobic posts claiming that virus is a Zionist creation and that Jews are profiting financially from the epidemic.39 Moreover, online chatter is encouraging people who have contracted COVID-19 to try to infect Jews and nonwhites.40 It is expected that given the circumstances, the levels of hate online will rise before it is replicated offline. As expected, COVID-19 has also served as an excuse for radicalright groups to promote their narratives. Paul Joseph Watson, a British radical-right ‘influencer’ with almost two million followers on his YouTube channel, has claimed that political correctness is to blame for the spread of the virus while condemning the mayor of Florence for launching an anti-racism campaign to protect Chinese people in light of the epidemic originating in Wuhan. In this crisis, the radical right can easily find fertile ground to promote its rhetoric because they will blame the Establishment for not closing borders to contain the virus—a measure that is obviously central to the radical right’s regular playbook. More worryingly, white supremacist forums already show how accelerationist groups are framing COVID-19 as the beginning of a series of events that will lead to civilizational collapse. The idea of committing acts of violence to accelerate a civil war is already well enshrined in these groups’ DNA, but COVID-19 might present an opportunity for some of these groups. While researchers have stressed that this type of chatter has not turned operational yet, it is no less worrying how the current crisis is already reinforcing the ideological mindset of some of these groups.

How will COVID-19 impact the fight against the (violent) radical right? On the one hand, COVID-19 seems to be restricting, if anything, the physical movements of radical-right groups. British journalist Lizzie Dearden has reported that several UK-based radical-right activist groups and figures, such as Britain First or Tommy Robinson, have cancelled

39 40

“COVID-19 Crisis Elevates Antisemitic, Racist Tropes,” ADL, March 17, 2020, Antisemitism Globally, https://www.adl.org/blog/COVID-19-crisis-elevates-antisemiticracist-tropes. Ibid.

FIGHT AGAINST THE RADICAL RIGHT

37

meetings and gatherings to protect their supporters from getting COVID19.41 On the Islamist side, even ISIS has reportedly told its members to “avoid Europe” in the coming weeks.42 On the other hand, some voices have already raised the alarm that a prolonged quarantine—and therefore more time to spare—could drive people already on the brink of extremism to engage more profoundly with online discussions on radical-right forums.43 Unfortunately, we still, however, do not have a clear picture as to how relevant online radicalization is to the radical right, how it works and particularly where it links with violent acts.44 Yet, if the traffic on these forums is expected to increase or intensify, security forces and tech companies will need to remain vigilant in monitoring developments on this front. Some of the knock-on effects of COVID-19 are that it might impact the sense of urgency in the global fight against the radical right. In the UK, trials that were due to start before April are effectively being halted if they are supposed to last more than three days, which would apply to most terrorism arrests.45 The measure does not affect trials already in course—in fact, four members of proscribed neo-Nazi group National Action were convicted on January 19, 2020.46 This stand-by goes hand-in-hand with the uptick in arrests connected to the radical right in recent months, including the foiling of a terror plot in Germany, the arrests of several members linked to The Base and Atomwaffen in the US and one arrest this month in Australia for planning an 41

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Lizzie Dearden (@lizziedearden). 2020. “COVID-19 is now affecting activities by the British far right. Britain First says it has ordered activists with underlying health conditions to self-isolate and “cancelled upcoming days of action and indoor meetings where our activists would mingle with the public” Twitter, April 19, 2020, 5:06 a.m. https:// twitter.com/Payal_Rohatgi/status/1246318715408273408. Tom Harper, “Isis issues COVID-19 travel advice: terrorists should avoid Europe,” The Times, March 15, 2020, COVID-19, https://twitter.com/lizziedearden/status/1240595 516314058752 EJ Dickson, “How Social Distancing Could Lead to a Spike in White Nationalism,” Rolling Stones, March 18, 2020, Culture News, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/ culture-news/covid-19-COVID-19-pandemic-extremism-white-nationalism-southernpoverty-law-center-969079/. Cristina Ariza, “5 Ways Policymakers Should Combat The Radical Right In 2020,” Rantt Media, January 10, 2020, Opinion, https://rantt.com/how-to-combat-the-radicalright-2020. Clive Coleman, “COVID-19: No jury trials longer than three days in England and Wales,” BBC News, March 18, 2020, UK, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51935320. Lizzie Dearden, “National Action: ‘Miss Hitler’ contestant and three fellow neo-Nazis convicted of terror offences,” Independent, March 19, 2020, Crime, https://www.indep endent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/national-action-neo-nazi-terrorist-miss-hitler-alice-cuttertrial-a9345291.html.

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attack in New South Wales.47 Indeed, the hearing of the Poway synagogue shooter has already been postponed—judiciary and security measures will need to be put in place to ensure that the situation is manageable.48

What will radical-right parties make of it? Perhaps the biggest impact of COVID-19 on the radical right will come through populist parties, who are already claiming victory as nations keep closing their borders to contain the spread of the virus. In Europe, Orbán has already blamed migrants for the crisis.49 Asked about why Hungary still has closed universities but not schools, Orbán said that “there are a lot of foreigners there and our experience is that primarily foreigners brought in the disease, and that it is spreading among foreigners.” While there has been a steady growth in populism from the radical right in recent years, a crisis of this magnitude can exacerbate the sense of legitimacy that these parties have in adopting nationalist measures. It is not unimaginable that this situation might give radical-right parties a precedent to further harden their policies on immigration. In a post COVID-19 scenario, this rhetoric could quickly turn racial. Indeed, some narratives in the radical right based on so-called ‘scientific racism’, for example, already rely on a dehumanizing language that portrays non-white people as being more prone to having ‘diseases’.50 We could very easily see extremist groups start adopting this language vis-avis the Chinese and thereby other non-white populations. 47

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Christopher F. Schuetze, “Germany Says It’s Broken Up a Far-Right Terrorism Network,” The New York Times, February 21, 2020, World, https://www.nytimes.com/ 2020/02/14/world/europe/germany-far-right-terrorism.html; Nick R. Martin, “Cracking open The Base,” The Informant, January 27, 2020, https://www.informant.news/p/crac king-open-the-base; Australian Associated Press, “Man charged after allegedly planning rightwing terrorism attack on NSW south coast,” The Guardian, March 16, 2020, Far right, https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/16/man-charged-aft er-allegedly-planning-rightwing-terrorism-attack-on-nsw-south-coast. Pauline Repard, “Federal hearing for Poway synagogue shooting suspect delayed,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, March 17, 2020, Courts, https://www.sandiegouniontribune. com/news/courts/story/2020-03-17/federal-hearing-for-poway-synagogue-shooting-su spect-delayed. News Wires, “Hungary’s Orban blames foreigners, migration for COVID-19 spread,” France 24, March 13, 2020, Europe, https://www.france24.com/en/20200313-hungarys-pm-orban-blames-foreign-students-migration-for-COVID-19-spread. Michael E. Ruane, “A brief history of the enduring phony science that perpetuates white supremacy,” The Washington Post, April 30, 2019, Local, https://www.washingtonpo st.com/local/a-brief-history-of-the-enduring-phony-science-that-perpetuates-white-sup remacy/2019/04/29/20e6aef0-5aeb-11e9-a00e-050dc7b82693_story.html.

FIGHT AGAINST THE RADICAL RIGHT

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Concluding remarks We are very much living in exceptional times, where countries have been forced to shut down their borders in a way that could not have been envisioned only a few weeks ago. Nationalist forces have been attempting to turn the tide of globalization for quite some time. COVID-19 might just be the perfect excuse for them to do so.

For the Far Right, The COVID-19 Crisis is a PR Opportunity Michael Colborne In photo after photo on their website, they show their volunteers doing everything from delivering food and supplies to people on low incomes to driving health-care professionals to work in the midst of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. They say they’ve already helped thousands of their fellow citizens, warning people about the country’s quarantine regulations and providing phone numbers and emails to anyone who wants to join their volunteer corps. Who are they? They are Ukraine’s far-right Azov Regiment and its political party, the National Corps.51 Well-organized far-right movements like Azov aren’t just lending a hand during the current COVID-19 crisis, they are taking advantage of the occasion as a clever branding and public relations opportunity.

Overcoming resistance Efforts like these are part of a broader strategy for the far right, and, ironically, it’s not a strategy that necessarily has their countries’ best interests at heart. As members of far-right organizations themselves will state, efforts to be active in the community are part of a means to overcome what one far-right representative once described to me as “resistance” to “nationalist, far-right ideas” among the general population. Of course, it’s hardly just Ukraine’s Azov movement that’s doing this. In Italy, a country that has already lost at least 20,000 lives to the pandemic to date, the neo-fascist CasaPound Italia (CPI) has been promoting its members’ activities on its social media feeds.52 CPI, with a claimed 10,000 in its ranks and with a presence in dozens of cities and towns across Italy, has been promoting how its members have been doing 51

52

Simon Purdue, “Foreign Fighters and the Global War for White Supremacy,” Fair Observer, February 18, 2020, https://www.fairobserver.com/more/international_security/ far-right-foreign-fighters-white-supremacy-history-azov-battalion-international-securi ty-news-88711/. “COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU),” Johns Hopkins University & Medicine COVID-19 Resource Center, last modified May 25, 2020, https://COVID-19.jhu.edu/map.html.

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everything from delivering groceries to the elderly and giving food to local orphanages. For them, this is literally a branding exercise as some of those groceries have been delivered in branded CPI bags—in case the recipients were to forget the affiliation of those “volontari militanti” who brought their food. In Germany, members of Die Rechte (The Right), described as a “right-wing extremist and neo-Nazi micro party” with a focus in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, has been busy playing up its COVID-19 community work.53 The Right—who had suggested that the German government should have long ago sealed off the border to all “non-Europeans” to stop the pandemic—has been doing grocery shopping for the elderly and delivering grocery packages to low-income residents in Dortmund, accompanied with branded notes calling low-income workers the ‘backbone’ of German society. Its supporters are even using these activities as a cudgel against their opponents: “Why didn’t the left-wing radicals come up with this idea?” noted one commenter on an article on The Right’s website. The Right isn’t the only German extremist micro-party hard at work. Der Dritte Weg (The Third Way), a group that “perceives itself as the elite action-oriented neo-Nazi group in Germany,” is also offering up its members as volunteers to help with grocery deliveries for those in need.54 True to form, The Third Way has speculated on its website that the pandemic is being manipulated by German authorities as a “diversionary tactic” to distract from a “flood” of migrants.

These guys are OK Why would far-right groups devote so much energy to volunteer work during the pandemic? Of course, leaders and members of these groups will likely tell you it’s because these folks are patriots, only interested in helping out their country and their fellow citizens during one of the most disruptive and destabilizing events in more than a generation. That may well be part of it, but work in the community like this, which has obviously been more heavily pushed and promoted during the pandemic, serves a much more basic purpose—self-promotion.

53 54

Arie W. Kruglanski, David Webber & Daniel Koehler, The Radical’s Journey: How German Neo-Nazis Voyaged to the Edge and Back (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020), p. 16. Ibid, p. 15.

FOR THE FAR RIGHT, THE CRISIS IS A PR OPPORTUNITY

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I’ve been reminded, watching far-right groups push out volunteers to help respond to the pandemic, of when I spoke to National Corps’ international secretary, Olena Semenyaka, in December 2018. She told me then in fairly forthright terms why her movement engages in so much community work—40 different initiatives, by her reckoning—and it applies well beyond Azov. “It’s a way to overcome this psychological resistance to nationalist, far-right ideas,” she told me. Our discussion in December 2018 was revealing: Semenyaka: “… not all of [Azov’s initiatives] are instantly recognized as nationalist, or associated with Azov or National Corps, but people just support our initiatives. For example, for young families, some social protection for families, some festivals for children, quite convenient facilities. People support it, then they announce that it’s also sponsored or supported by National Corps, then they, they support us eagerly. They don’t associate it with some far-right radicals who do some violence in the streets. Colborne: They see what you’re doing and think, Oh, these guys are OK … Semenyaka: Yes, ‘These guys are ok, they’re doing something for us, the government doesn’t have such programs for us … why wouldn’t we support them?’ One can say it’s like a cunning step, but in fact we just want to overcome this demonized image and want not only to show that we do something not only for state—we really do something and we want people to notice it. That was our biggest achievement [in 2018].”

As the weeks (and months) carry on, and as our societies continue to face a level of disruption and death most of us have never personally seen, we should also expect to see more far-right movements taking advantage of the opportunity. All of our health and social systems are under significant stress (some more than others) and all of our politicians have been the target of criticism—both unjustified and justified—for how they’ve responded to the pandemic. It’s the perfect opportunity for a far-right movement to step in and try to frame themselves as the “real” defenders of the people, the only ones who truly care and can save the country from ruin. How should we react when the far right comes bearing gifts during the COVID-19 crisis? As the peak of the pandemic has still to hit most countries, it’s hardly ethical to tell a group of people, even if we vehemently disagree with their views and how they’d like to transform our countries, that they can’t delivery groceries or arrange shopping trips for those in need. If anything, that could play right into their hands. As the pandemic goes on, it’s important that people know why these kinds of groups are doing what they’re doing—and to stress that, ironically, they’re not necessarily doing it because they have their countries’ bests interests at heart.

COVID-19’s Victims: Populism Hans-Georg Betz In late 2018, a majority of Brazilians elected Jair Bolsonaro president of the republic. By now, they probably wished they had never heard of him. In the current COVID-19 crisis, Bolsonaro has joined the gallery of toxic leaders, in line with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. Unlike the latter, Bolsonaro seems completely immune to any sense of reality. As late as March 29, Bolsonaro dismissed the crisis, exhorting Brazilians to continue doing business as usual. Twitter went so far as to erase two of his messages that raised doubts about the necessity for isolation. And one of the country’s courts ruled that the president had to stop opposing restrictions on people’s movements in the country.55 Unfortunately, the president is not the only Bolsonaro to significantly compromise the wellbeing of the Brazilian population. Two weeks ago, Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, went on record—in a sycophantic nod to Trump—blaming the Chinese Communist Party for the propagation of the COVID-19. Hardly surprising, the Chinese authorities were not amused.56 Unfortunately these days, the only country capable of supplying medical equipment vital to combat this crisis is China. Brazil is unlikely to be at the front of the line.

On the hollowness of populism The case of Bolsonaro is arguably the most egregious example of the utter hollowness of contemporary populist ‘politics’. Populism is defined as a political doctrine based on the notion that there is a fundamental conflict between ‘ordinary people’ and the elite. Populists claim that they will return power to the people and, in the process, restore genuine democracy. Populists also claim that they trust the ‘common sense’ of the people rather than the ideas of experts supposedly out of touch with the real every-day experiences of ordinary people. Unfortunately, in this situation, the 55

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“Twitter löscht zwei Nachrichten des brasilianischen Präsidenten,” Spiegel Netzwelt, March 30, 2020, Verharmlosende Corona-Botschaften, https://www.spiegel.de/netzwe lt/netzpolitik/jair-bolsonaro-twitter-loescht-zwei-nachrichten-des-brasilianischen-prae sidenten-a-60fbb870-f6dc-4585-a671-1dc3ccb4364e. Tom Phillips, “Bolsonaro’s son enrages Beijing by blaming China for COVID-19 crisis,” The Guardian, March 19, 2020, COVID-19 outbreak, https://www.theguardian.co m/world/2020/mar/19/COVID-19-bolsonaro-son-china-row.

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common sense of ordinary people has absolutely nothing to contribute to alleviating the crisis. On the contrary, those who have based their legitimacy on the common sense of ordinary people have been in the forefront of disseminating public denial, misinformation, and utter disregard for the wellbeing of their fellow citizens. It cannot be repeated enough that Donald Trump referred to the COVID-19 crisis as a ‘hoax’ fabricated by the ‘liberal media’ and the Democrats to subvert his re-election.57 Similarly in Britain, Boris Johnson dismissed the seriousness of the crisis, propagating the insane notion that if everybody got infected, everybody would get immune.58 Boris Johnson, of course, got elected because of Brexit. Unfortunately for him, in this situation, who cares about Brexit? In Australia, Pauline Hanson, a member of the country’s Senate, used the crisis—which she neither denied nor took lightly—to promote her agenda. First, she suggested that the crisis was hyped-up in a manner similar to climate change and global warming (she has dismissed the notion that humans bear responsibility), as if “the world is coming to an end.”59 Later on, she sought to reap political gain from the fact that Chinese students were allowed to ‘sneak back’ into Australia amid the crisis.60 Finally, she warned that Australia was facing the threat of a ‘mass buy up’ of the country by China and other countries, which, she vowed, she would not tolerate.61

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Kayla Epstein, “Trump, who previously called alarm over the COVID-19 ‘a hoax’ and compared it to the flu, now says he’s ‘always viewed it as very serious’,” Business Insider, March 17, 2020, https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-he-took-COVID-19-se riously-after-calling-it-a-hoax-2020-3?r=US&IR=T. Owen Matthews, “Britain Drops Its Go-It-Alone Approach to COVID-19,” Foreign Policy, March 17, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/17/britain-uk-COVID-19response-johnson-drops-go-it-alone. Charlie Moore, “Pauline Hanson slams ‘over-the-top’ panic-buying shoppers for their ‘bogan attitude’ as supermarket shelves are cleared due to COVID-19 outbreak,” Daily Mail, March 15, 2020, News, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8114917/CO VID-19-Pauline-Hanson-slams-panic-buying-shoppers.html. Alisha Rouse, “Pauline Hanson slams Chinese students for exploiting a loophole to beat the COVID-19 travel ban—and says it will be their Australian classmates who will pay the price,” Daily Mail, February 23, 2020, News, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art icle-8035767/Pauline-Hanson-slams-Chinese-students-exploiting-loophole-beat-COVI D-19-travel-ban.html. Tita Smith, “Pauline Hanson warns of mass Chinese buy up of Australia amid COVID19 recession sparked by soaring unemployment, plunging stocks and tumbling house prices,” Daily Mail, March 25, 2020, News, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article8153379/Pauline-Hanson-warns-mass-Chinese-buy-Australia-amid-COVID-19-recess ion.html.

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What about the Western European populist right? A few months ago, radical-right-wing populism was the talk of the town all over Europe. Parties, like the AfD in Germany, were seen as a fundamental threat to democracy in advanced liberal democracies in Western Europe. The dramatic gains of the AfD in Germany and VOX in Spain were seen as a fundamental watershed in European politics, putting to rest the legacy of Europe’s ignominious past. The COVID-19 crisis has been a fundamental ‘game changer’. It has exposed the inanity of slogans such as ‘[France/Austria/Hungary/Italy] first’. Nativist slogans go nowhere in a situation that requires nothing more than international solidarity and cooperation. ‘Making America Great Again’ loses all of its meaning when the immediate future of the wellbeing of the population crucially depends on the availability of face masks from China. Priorité nationale becomes meaningless when there is nothing to distribute to safeguard the safety of the population. Prima gli Italiani has become an empty phrase in a situation that pushes a country to the precipice of national disaster. This is not for nothing. In Western Europe, the radical populist right’s response to the crisis has been rather subdued. To repeat, populism derives its impetus from mobilizing resentment against ‘the elite’—defined as those who not only know things better but use their knowledge to further their own particular interests. This has been most pronounced in the populist right’s campaign against “climate change science” dismissed as the latest pet project of the ‘globalist’ liberal elite.62 In the current crisis, this kind of narrative lacks traction, if only because of the rising death toll, which cannot be dismissed as a hoax. To make things worse (for the radical populist right), the current crisis has met one of its central demands, namely to close national borders and, thus, close access to Europe for potential migrants from outside of the region. Under these circumstances, what has been the response of the Western European populist right to the COVID-19 crisis? In general, the radical populist right has kept a low profile, and for good reason. In general, the radical populist right has been as much caught off guard as all the other political parties—with at times drastic consequences. In France, Marine Le Pen subjected herself to self-quarantine after a meeting with a right-wing politician tested positive. In Spain, each one of VOX’s 52

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Nils Gilman, “Beware the Rise of Far-Right Environmentalism,” Berggruen Institute, last modified October 17, 2019, https://www.berggruen.org/the-worldpost/articles/bew are-the-rise-of-far-right-environmentalism/.

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members of parliament went into self-quarantine, together with their staff, after the party’s general secretary tested positive for the virus.63 In addition, the party publicly apologized for having held a party rally in midMarch, which might have contributed to spreading the infection. Against that, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) appears to have been one of the few parties to anticipate the seriousness of the situation. As early as January, the party called for measures to meet the potential threat posed by the virus. Unfortunately, the other major parties refused to take the threat seriously—only to adopt the demands advanced by the FPÖ.64 Similarly in Italy, Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega, was way ahead of all other parties to warn of the potential dangers the virus might pose to Italy, after two COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Rome.65 Ironically enough, it was their xenophobia, which informed these parties’ quick response to the crisis. In Switzerland, home of Western Europe’s arguably most successful radical-right-wing populist party—the Swiss People’s Party (SVP)—the radical populist right has been careful to cultivate its image as a reliable government partner (the SVP holds two seats in the Swiss federal government consisting of seven portfolios). Right from the start, the SVP acknowledged that COVID-19 represented a serious threat. In fact, Blocher’s daughter, Magdalena Martullo-Blocher, was the first—and only—MP to wear a face mask to protect herself against potential infection in the Swiss parliament. She was asked to leave by the president of the national assembly so she would “not disturb” the debates (she was allowed to return for voting). One of her colleagues went so far as to suggest that an MP wearing a face mask might create the impression that “the situation is worse than it really is.”66 This was at the beginning of March. Some three weeks later, Switzerland had turned into a major “hotspot” in Europe; schools, universities and stores were locked down and the population asked to stay home. 63 64 65 66

Cristina Gallardo, “All Spanish far-right lawmakers self-quarantine over COVID-19 fears,” POLITICO, March 11, 2020, Article, https://www.politico.eu/article/all-spanish -far-right-lawmakers-self-quarantine-over-COVID-19-fears-VOX/. Fabian Schmid, “Die FPÖ und das COVID-19: Einsamer Mahner oder Panikmacher?,” DERSTANDARD, March 24, 2020, Corona-krise, https://www.derstandard.at/story/200 0116073365/die-fpoe-und-das-COVID-19-einsamer-mahner-oder-panikmacher. “Aumentano i morti per il COVID-19, in Italia è bufera su Salvini,” Corriere del Ticino, January 31, 2020, Mondo, https://www.cdt.ch/mondo/aumentano-i-morti-per-il-COVI D-19-in-italia-e-bufera-su-salvini-AG2293736. “Das Tragen von Masken ist sowieso übertrieben,” 20 Minutem, March 3, 2020, Schweiz, https://www.20min.ch/story/das-tragen-von-masken-ist-sowieso-uebertriebe n-698556264924.

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In response to the worsening situation in neighboring countries, the SVP demanded in mid-March the immediate closing of Switzerland’s borders with its neighbors (especially Italy) in order to stop what it referred to as ‘health tourism’. At the same time, the party asked the federal government to immediately adopt stringent measures, i.e., a federation-wide lockdown, in order to slow the progress of infections and thus protect the Swiss health care system from collapsing. Not everybody in the party leadership agreed, however. Roger Köppel, the influential editor of the rightwing weekly Die Weltwoche, publicly dismissed drastic measures as ‘nonsense’ charging the ‘anti-liberal panic package’ would cause more damage than good.67 A few days later, Christoph Blocher, the SVP’s gris eminence, reaffirmed in an article in Die Weltwoche that the crisis once again demonstrated that Switzerland’s strength crucially depended on its determination to safeguard its independence and sovereignty, particularly with regard to the European Union.68 Obviously, it is too early to assess the impact of the current crisis on the future of populism. Cursory observation, however, suggests that populist ‘leaders’ are unlikely to come out of this crisis pristine. On the contrary, the crisis has been ruthless in exposing the vacuous nature of contemporary populism. Populism’s appeal crucially hinges on stirring up latent resentment against those who pretend to know better. In the current situation, those who pretend to know better actually do. This is why Dr. Anthony Fauci is trusted, while Donald Trump is not. This is also why Dr. Anthony Fauci has become the new target for the lunatic far right who still peddles the notion that the world is flat, that life started some 10,000 years ago and that Jesus rode a dinosaur.69 One might hope that the current crisis, once resolved, will once-and-for-all establish that there are some people who deserve to be listened to, their advice heeded—if for no other reason than self-preservation.

67 68 69

Beitrag von Lucas Orellano, “COVID-19: Roger Köppel fällt der SVP beim Lockdown in den Rücken,” NAU, March 16, 2020, Regional, https://www.nau.ch/politik/regional/ COVID-19-roger-koppel-fallt-der-svp-beim-lockdown-in-den-rucken-65679037. Christoph Blocher, “Globalisierung am Ende?,” Die Weltwoche, March 11, 2020, COVID-19, https://www.weltwoche.ch/ausgaben/2020-11/titelgeschichte/globalisieru ng-am-ende-die-weltwoche-ausgabe-11-2020.html. Davey Alba and Sheeera Frenkei, “Medical Expert Who Corrects Trump Is Now a Target of the Far Right,” The New York Times, March 28, 2020, COVID-19 Economic Impact, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/technology/COVID-19-fauci-trump-con spiracy-target.html.

Chapter 2: Case Studies from Europe and North America

Flanders First: How COVID-19 has Boosted the Flemish Radical Populist Right Hans-Georg Betz There are two things that hold Belgium together, or so the joke goes—the royal family and the national debt. For decades, supporters of the Belgian state have tried to convince skeptical outsiders that the animosities between the two parts of the country, between (kind-of) French-speaking Walloons and (kind of) Dutch-speaking Flemish are less serious than portrayed in the media. The political reality of the past years tells a different story. Belgium is a democracy. Democracies hold regular elections. Elections usually lead to functioning governments. Not so in Belgium. After the most recent election in 2019, Belgium has been ‘governed’ by a caretaker administration, headed by an ‘acting prime minister’—Sophie Wilmès from the center-right francophone Mouvement réformateur. It was not until the height of the COVID-19 crisis that Wilmès managed to put together a grand coalition of the most important Walloon and Flemish parties—except for the Vlaams Belang. The Vlaams Belang is the successor to the Vlaams Blok (VB), a Flemish ‘nationalist’ party that traces its roots back to the ignominious history of Flemish collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. The VB’s rise in the polls started in the late 1980s, when the party adopted a strident anti-immigrant agenda, which proved to be a winner. Under the leadership of Filip Dewinter, the VB steadily advanced in the polls, particularly after it made the fight against Islam and the ‘Islamization of Europe’ a central point of its political program. Ironically, the party’s focus on Islam proved disastrous for its electoral fortunes. It seemed that the Flemish were less worried about ‘Islamization’ (VB) than about regionalist concerns—i.e., the ‘burden’ the Walloon south imposed on the Flemish north. This was reflected in the electoral upsurge of the New Flemish Alliance (NV-A), which sapped much of the VB’s support base. In the federal election of 2014, the VB polled less than four percent of the vote. For all practical purposes, it was politically dead. Five years later, it came back with a bang; under its new, charismatic and dynamic leader, 31-year-old Tom van Grieken, the VB tripled its vote both nationally and in Flanders. Van Grieken has gone to great lengths to present a respectable image and render the VB salonfähig, with some success. After the election last year, van Grieken was received by King Philippe—the 53

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first time a Belgian monarch has met with the leader of the far right since the 1930s. At about the same time, according to a representative poll, about two-thirds of the Flemish respondents agreed that the ‘cordon sanitaire’— an agreement between Belgium’s major parties to exclude the VB from any political negotiations—should be eliminated.70 Yet when Sophie Wilmès put together the current grand coalition, she refused to invite the VB to join. In response, van Grieken wrote her an open and quite angry letter in which he reminded the prime minister that this was a time for ‘national unity’.71 At the same time, he accused Wilmès of preferring to “continue to play political games” rather than defeating the virus together. This was unacceptable—as was the fact that “even today,” the prime minister divided “citizens into first- and second-class citizens merely because they voted for the ‘wrong party’.” The COVID-19-crisis has done its part to further advance the VB’s electoral prospects, and for good reasons. COVID-19 has allowed the party to claim that the crisis confirmed what the VB had always maintained— particularly with regard to open borders, but also in terms of the relationship between the Flemish and Walloon regions, detrimental to the former.72 A representative poll from mid-March had the party at almost 30 percent in the Flemish part of the country, 10 percent more than the VB garnered in the 2019 federal election in Flanders.73 This suggests that the COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the chasm that separates the affluent Flemish north from the deindustrialized Wallonian south. One of the points of contention has been the distribution of health care resources between the two sides, deemed highly unfair by both the NV-A and the VB. This is a question that involves funds provided and distributed by the EU, which has allowed both parties to find new ways to mobilize public resentment in Flanders against the federal government, against Wallonia and against ‘Brussels’—i.e., the EU.74 70 71 72 73 74

“Elections 2019: pour une majorité de flamands, le cordon sanitaire peut disparaître,” SudInfoBe, May 27, 2019, Actualité, https://www.sudinfo.be/id121841/article/201905-27/elections-2019-pour-une-majorite-de-flamands-le-cordon-sanitaire-peut. Van Grieken, Tom. 2020. “Open Brief A/D Eerste Minster (Deel Als Je Het Eens Bent).” Facebook, March 21, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/tomvangrieken/posts/ 3645100152227986. Judith Sijstermans, “COVID-19 Shapes Belgium’s Government and Populist Opposition,” EAWorldview, March 30, 2020, https://eaworldview.com/2020/03/COVID-19-be lgium-government-populist-opposition/. Dries Bervoet, “Vlaams Belang piekt in nieuwe peiling,” DETIJD, March 14, 2020, Federaal, https://www.tijd.be/politiek-economie/belgie/federaal/vlaams-belang-piekt-i n-nieuwe-peiling/10214614.html. “COVID-19 en Belgique: la N-VA et le VB dressent la population contre l’Europe, accuse Kathleen Van Brempt (sp.a),” RTBF, March 31, 2020, Belgique, https://www.

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Public opinion polls suggest that the Flemish are particularly worried about the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis. In late March, four out of ten Flemish respondents indicated their apprehension with respect to the economy.75 Like everywhere else in Europe, the impact of the crisis has been disastrous to the Belgian economy. According to official estimation, the Belgian GDP is likely to decline by around 8 percent in 2020.76 Given the importance of Flanders for the Belgian economy, the impact is likely to be felt particularly strong in the Flemish part of the country. Under the circumstances, there are strong incentives to find somebody to blame. For the VB, the culprit is obvious—China. As the COVID-19 crisis escalated, VB representatives in the Belgian parliament raised the question to what degree the Chinese government should be held responsible for the spread of the pandemic. More importantly, they suggested that Belgium should rethink its relationship with the Chinese regime. The communist regime, a leading VB representative charged, was primarily “concerned with its reputation and its propaganda machine.” At the same time it was largely “indifferent to the dramatic consequences of the disease.”77 Ironically enough, while the VB launched its attacks on China, the Chinese government, in a telephone call with the Belgian king, expressed its willingness to supply desperately needed medical equipment to Belgium.78 The VB leadership was not impressed. In fact, in mid-April, van Grieken came out on Facebook with the demand that the “Chinese communist dictatorship” should pay for the damage it had caused.79 The case of the Vlaams Belang is arguably the most illustrative example that even in these somber times, a coherent, internally consistent

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rtbf.be/info/belgique/detail_COVID-19-en-belgique-la-n-va-et-le-vb-dressent-la-popul ation-contre-l-europe-accuse-kathleen-van-brempt-sp-a?id=10471690. “Le Belge a autant peur de perdre un proche du COVID-19 que d’être infecté,” 7SUR7, April 3, 2020, Belgique, https://www.7sur7.be/belgique/le-belge-a-autant-peur-de-perd re-un-proche-du-COVID-19-que-d-etre-infecte~a174a0a1/. “Impact économique du COVID-19,” FPS Economy, last modified May 19, 2020, https://economie.fgov.be/fr/themes/entreprises/COVID-19/impact-economique-du. “Vlaams Belang: Vanaf nu moeten we strenger omgaan met China,” Vlaams Belang, April 21, 2020, Gepubliceerd in Persberichten, https://www.vlaamsbelang.org/vlaamsbelang-vanaf-nu-moeten-we-strenger-omgaan-met-china/?utm_source=rss&utm_med ium=rss&utm_campaign=vlaams-belang-vanaf-nu-moeten-we-strenger-omgaan-metchina. “La Chine est prête à aider la Belgique avec des fournitures médicales dans le cadre de la lutte contre le COVID-19, déclare le président chinois,” Xinhuanet, April 3, 2020, http://french.xinhuanet.com/2020-04/03/c_138942284.htm. Van Grieken, Tom. 2020. “Doe de communistische dictatuur China de crisis betalen! Doe China de crisis betalen!.” Facebook, April 19, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/ watch/?v=1265563423647577.

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radical-right-wing populist politics of resentment is likely to pay political dividends. As far as the future of Belgium is concerned, the COVID-19 crisis has done little to restore and reaffirm the country’s unity. On the contrary, the fallout of the crisis is likely to further deepen the rift between the affluent north and the no longer affluent south, between two communities whose economic trajectories have gone in opposite directions. Under the circumstances, the fortunes of the VB have dramatically improved, to the detriment not only of its main regionalist competitors but also the Belgian state in general.

Germany: Is the COVID-19 Pandemic Weakening the Far Right? Sabine Volk As the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting public life across the globe, the far-right “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident” (PEGIDA), which emerged from the eastern German city of Dresden, has difficulties with abiding to the new safety and health regulations. Since autumn 2014, PEGIDA has regularly mobilized street protests against the alleged increasing influence of Islam in Europe, the German and European political establishment, and the media.80

Banner in Göttingen, Germany reads: “Corona solidarity must not end at national borders” | Fotostand/Harald Kuhl/DPA/PA Images. All rights reserved.

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Manès Weisskircher and Lars E. Berntzen, “Remaining on the Streets. Anti-Islamic PEGIDA Mobilization and its Relationship to Far-right Party Politics,” in Manuela Caiani and Ondřej Císař (eds.), Radical Right Movement Parties’ in Europe (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019), p. 1–28.

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Disruption of the ritual PEGIDA had announced one of its regular demonstrations for Monday, 16 March 2020. Nevertheless, when the government of the state of Saxony decided to cancel all events with more than 1,000 participants on 12 March, the city of Dresden tried to convince the PEGIDA organizers to suspend the protest.81 Unimpressed by the safety and health measures adopted all over Europe already at that point, PEGIDA insisted on going ahead with the demonstration anyway, supposedly applying additional safety measures. In light of the aggravating situation over the following days, the city administration finally forbade the demonstration.82 Again unimpressed, PEGIDA co-founder Lutz Bachmann defiantly announced a “patriotic week” full of “spontaneous appearances” in Dresden and neighboring cities in a YouTube video on March 13.83 Eventually, not a single protest event took place—neither on Monday 16 March, nor later that week. The key reason was that co-founder Bachmann got stuck on the island of Tenerife, where he has resided since 2016, when Spain decided to quarantine its entire population.84 After many civil society calls for banning PEGIDA from Dresden’s iconic squares over recent years, most recently with an on-going public petition by Banda Internationale, it seems that the COVID-19 pandemic caused what thorough implementation of the rule of law and civil rights such as the freedom of speech and association had so long prevented: to remove PEGIDA’s protest ritual from the streets.85 81

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Tino Moritz, “COVID-19: Sachsen sagt alle Veranstaltungen mit mehr als 1000 Menschen ab,” FreiePresse, March 12, 2020, Sachsen, https://www.freiepresse.de/na chrichten/sachsen/COVID-19-sachsen-sagt-alle-veranstaltungen-mit-mehr-als-1000menschen-ab-artikel10747382. Andreas Weller, “Mir ist wichtig, dass niemand in Panik verfällt,” Sächsische, March 13, 2020, Dresden, https://www.saechsische.de/plus/dresden-corona-interview-oberbu ergermeister-dirk-hilbert-5183070.html. Alexander Schneider, “Pegida-Chef kündigt weitere Aktionen an,” Sächsische, March 16, 2020, Sachsen, https://www.saechsische.de/plus/lutz-bachmann-rechtsextremist-pe gida-demos-coronakrise-5183988.html. “Pegida hat eigentlich keinen Zweck mehr,” Sächsische, April 9, 2020, Dresden, https://www.saechsische.de/plus/pegida-hat-eigentlich-keinen-zweck-mehr-alexanderschneider5111766-html-5111766.html; “Spain in absolute quarantine as COVID-19 cases rise to 7,700,” Euractiv, March 16, 2020, COVID-19, https://www.euractiv.com/ section/COVID-19/news/spain-in-absolute-quarantine-as-COVID-19-cases-rise-to-7700/. “Petition gegen Pegida: Dresdner Musiker wollen rechte Hetze aus der Innenstadt verbannen,” Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten, March 6, 2020, Lokales, https://www.dnn.de/ Dresden/Lokales/Petition-gegen-Pegida-Dresdner-Musiker-wollen-rechte-Hetze-aus-d er-Innenstadt-verbannen.

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PEGIDA’s populist response PEGIDA’s interpretation of the forced cancellation of the Monday demonstration bore starkly populist argumentation patterns. Indeed, the organizers condemned the city’s enforcement of the ban of public events as an attempt by ‘the elites’ to silence ‘the people’ in the context of the on-going ‘asylum crisis’ at the Greek-Turkish border.86 PEGIDA thus assumed the role of the victim of an alleged elitist conspiracy against unwanted street protest. This is a well-used image in farright discourses that far predates the outbreak of the pandemic. Since 2014, PEGIDA typically refers to the media as the ‘lying press’ and to politicians as ‘traitors’ in speeches and on social media. Most recently, co-founder Bachmann accused the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution of “premeditated libel”. The protectors of the German Constitution had called him a “farright extremist” in the context of their decision to ‘observe’ the extremist party wing Der Flügel (The Wing), associated with the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), on the grounds of anti-constitutional activity.87 Not even the German border closure placated PEGIDA. On 16 March 2020, the Merkel government decided to temporarily close the German borders in order to slow down the outbreak of COVID-19.88 Although Bachmann and his team have been campaigning for border closure since 2014, they harshly criticized this decision. In one of his daily YouTube videos, Bachmann explained that the temporary closure would not be able to prevent the ‘wave of refugees from Africa’—the only ‘crisis’ PEGIDA seems to be concerned about.

A shift of style PEGIDA’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic indicates a break with the organizers’ self-image as responsible and worthy representatives of ‘the Volk’ (the people). As I show in a recently published journal article,

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Alexander Schneider, “Pegida-Chef kündigt weitere Aktionen an,” Sächsische, March 16, 2020, Sachsen, https://www.saechsische.de/plus/lutz-bachmann-rechtsextremist-pe gida-demos-coronakrise-5183988.html. Konrad Litschko, “Noch mehr Ungemach für AfD?,” TAZ, March 6, 2020, Lokales, https://taz.de/Verfassungsschutz-vs-AfD/!5672100/. “COVID-19: Germany latest country to close borders,” BBC News, March 16, 2020, Europe, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51905129.

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the claim to truly represent the needs and concerns of ‘patriotic Europeans’ has typically been at the core of PEGIDA’s populist discourse and style.89 The demonstrators usually hold that the Merkel government does not sufficiently protect Germany’s citizens from threats to their security—specifically, from the alleged threat of non-European immigration. Against the backdrop of current events, it seems somewhat paradoxical that the protestors view non-European immigration as a more pressing menace than the spread of the COVID-19—not least as large segments of the PEGIDA supporters belong to the risk group due to their age. PEGIDA’s social irresponsibility for the sake of political activism mirrors the AfD’s approach in the Saxon parliament. The AfD was the only party faction to oppose a so-called emergency parliament, which is an assembly of drastically reduced size. As a consequence of the legal prescriptions, the Saxon parliament had to convene in its original size of 119 deputies on 18 March—when other public institutions such as schools and kindergartens were already closed.90 The AfD claimed that this step was necessary in order to declare a “state of catastrophe” which the other parties considered as “unnecessary panic mongering” at that stage.91 Calling for legal states of catastrophe or emergency is a core tactic of extremist actors across the West, writes the German sociologist and director of the “Institute for Democracy and Civil Society”, Matthias Quent, in a much-discussed piece for the online version of the newspaper Die Zeit.92 He argues that the far right takes advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to weaken liberal democracies by spreading dystopian fantasies of decline and pushing for states of emergency. PEGIDA’s approach to the pandemic has been to neglect it, but the goal—to weaken German democracy—stays the same.

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Sabine Volk, “’Wir sind das Volk!’ Representative Claim-Making and Populist Style in the PEGIDA Movement’s Discourse,” German Politics, (2020): 1–18. Alexander Schawe, “Eine erzwungene Versammlung,” Sächsische, March 18, 2020, Sachsen, https://www.saechsische.de/plus/eine-erzwungene-versammlung-5184933.html. “Kritik an AfD-Verhalten in Corona-Krise,” Sächsische, March 17, 2020, Sachsen, https://www.saechsische.de/kritik-an-afd-verhalten-in-corona-krise-5184533.html. “Aktuelle Publikation: Schriftenreihe “Wissen schafft Demokratie” zum Schwerpunkt “Rechtsterrorismus,” Institut Für Demokratie Und Zivilgesellschaft, https://www.idzjena.de/; Matthias Quent, “Der ultimative Niedergangsbeschleuniger,” Zeit Online, March 15, 2020, https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2020-03/afd-rechtsradikaleCOVID-19-verfassungsschutz-gefahr/komplettansicht.

COVID-19 and the Pause of Far-Right Demonstrations in Germany Michael Zeller In most European countries, protective measures against COVID-19 have dramatically reduced activities in public space. While these measures have a wide-ranging and diverse impact, a particular effect on far-right social movements is noteworthy. Large public gatherings are widely prohibited because of the pandemic. This deprives the far right of one of its core activities: demonstrations. Far-right movements in Germany are particularly wedded to this tactic—to the extent that Fabian Virchow refers to the central importance of Demonstrationspolitik (demonstration politics) for the German far right. Considering the many uses and advantages of demonstrations, this emphasis is unsurprising.93

A far-right demonstration in 2018. The banner reads ‘I regret nothing,’ quoting the epitaph of Rudolf Hess. Berlin, Germany, 8/16/2018 © Theo Schneider/MBR Berlin.

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Andreas Klärner and Michael Kohlstruck, “Gefälligkeitsübersetzung: Modern rightwing extremism in Germany,” in Moderner Rechtsextremismus in Deutschland, ed. Andreas Klärner. (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2006); Fabian Virchow, „Die, Demonstrationspolitik“ der extremen Rechten—eine Zwischenbilanz,“ „Dagegen!“ Und dann …?! Rechtsextreme Straßenpolitik und zivilgesellschaftliche Gegenstrategien in NRW, 14 (2011): 17–23.

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The importance of demonstrations Demonstrations are, as King and Soule assert, the “quintessential tactic” of social movements.94 Evidently, demonstrations serve several important purposes for movement organizations: raising awareness, attracting new members and keeping existing members connected, promoting group solidarity, and facilitating networking. Furthermore, demonstration participants bond over the experience, typically reinforcing movement solidarity.95 Individually or in some permutation, these potential benefits have long recommended demonstration as an appealing tactic. Notwithstanding the expanding interest in movements within digital media, the physical presence they can muster with demonstrations remains essential (the cases of youth radicalization in Belgium and of Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson exemplify this).96 Beyond such instrumental ends, demonstrations provide meaningful references to past events, preceding mobilizations within social movements, and can fulfil other symbolic objectives. Given these myriad purposes and benefits, mobilizing a large group to demonstrate is often a primary concern of movement organizers.97 They are exhibitions of strength and are the centerpiece of the contentious repertoire in modern society. Demonstrations are particularly common and especially important within the far-right movement field. Undoubtedly, demonstrations serve all or most of the instrumental purposes listed above, but for the far right symbolic motivations are perhaps even more significant. Processing down the main thoroughfare of a city or town, or convening a large rally harks back to the far right’s ‘glorious past’: the fascist regimes of the inter-war years and their mass displays of martial pomp. Nazima Kadir argues that nostalgia is an especially native element of radical social movements.

94 95 96

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Brayden G. King and Sarah A. Soule, “Social Movements as Extra-Institutional Entrepreneurs: The Effect of Protests on Stock Price Returns,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 52, no.3 (2007): 413–442. Alberto Melucci, Challenging Codes. Collective Action in the Information Age (Cambridge: University Press, 1996). Nele Schils and Antoinette Verhage, “Understanding How and Why Young People Enter Radical or Violent Extremist Groups,” International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 11, no.2 (2017): 1–17; Cristina Mislán, “The struggle for ‘our streets’: the digital and physical spatial politics of the Ferguson Movement,” Social Movement Studies, 17, no.6 (2018): 676–696. Marije Boekkooi, Bert Klandermans and Jacquelien van Stekelenburg, “Quarrelling and Protesting: How Organizers Shape a Demonstration,” Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 16, no.2 (2011): 221–239.

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She refers to the radical left, but the notion also holds for the far right.98 By demonstrating, far-right movements boldly claim their space in the public sphere, unwilling to accept—as most far-right movements had to after the Second World War—a more furtive existence. As a result, there is typically not much internal pressure to abandon demonstration campaigns. Far-right demonstration campaigns have a common property of inertia: not tending to stop or change unless acted on by an outside force. COVID-19 undoubtedly qualifies as such an outside force; it’s an exogenous shock, a critical event, and a unique demobilizing pressure.

German far-right demonstrations Proscriptions against large public gatherings have halted far-right demonstrations in Germany. Even PEGIDA, which has impressively sustained a campaign of weekly demonstrations in Dresden since late 2014, was forced to suspend its (offline) activity.99 PEGIDA has attempted to continue its campaign and adapt to COVID-19 restrictions by holding digital demonstrations—though something is plainly lost in this shift to virtual collective action.100 But the measures against COVID-19 will eventually abate. Looking at the past decade of the German far right’s demonstration activity suggests that far-right organizations will regroup and renew their mobilization. The figure below shows a fairly steady rate of demonstrations across quarterly periods of the year; apart from the spike of demonstrations during the refugee crisis of 2015–2016, German far-right movement organizations typically mobilize between 30 and 40 demonstrations per three-month period. The newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung created a cartographic visualization of this demonstration data, available at https://interaktiv.waz.de/rechte-demos/.101

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Nazima Kadir, The autonomous life? Paradoxes of hierarchy and authority in the squatters movement in Amsterdam (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), p. 232. 99 Sabine Volk, “Germany: is the COVID-19 pandemic weakening the far right?,” openDemocracy and Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, April 7, 2020, https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2020/04/07/germany-is-the-covid-19-pandemicweakening-the-far-right. 100 Simone Rafael, “Rechtsextreme Mobilisierung in COVID-19-Zeiten,” Bell Tower April 21, 2015, https://www.belltower.news/chemnitz-dresden-rechtsextreme-mobilisierungin-COVID-19-zeiten-98543. 101 Von Marie-Louise Timcke, André Pätzold, David Wendler, Christopher Möller und Simon Haas, “Wo Deutschlands Rechte aufmarschieren,” Waz, last modified August 2018, https://interaktiv.waz.de/rechte-demos/.

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Number of far-right demonstrations in Germany in annual quarters since 2008. Note that figures from 2015 onward include ‘anti-Islamification’ demonstrations by ‘GIDA’ groups. Source: Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior.

The level of mobilization, moreover, has endured through many shifts in opportunity structure. For instance, revelations in late 2011 about the terrorist activities of the so-called ‘National Socialist Underground’ spurred public outrage and state pressure against far-right entities. This plausibly explains a dip in the number of demonstrations in this period (i.e., 2011.4 and 2012.1 in the figure above). Yet Germany’s far right quickly regrouped and resumed its more typical frequency of demonstrations. Though it may be consequential for those who attend, participation in far-right demonstrations is generally low, not often numbering more than a few hundred; however, a handful of regular events, whether for the scale and development of the mobilization (i.e., high and/or rising participant numbers) or for their long continuity, have acquired a noteworthy significance.102 Through the 2000s and 2010s, these include annual commemorations of the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War (midFebruary), demonstrations on May Day, memorial marches to honor Rudolf Hess (mid-August), and processions to a Waffen-SS cemetery in Halbe (mid-November). These regular, major events stand out like milemarkers in the far-right activists’ calendar, moments to assemble, make or renew connections, and present the far-right movement in public. Among the many novelties imposed by measures against COVID-19 in Germany (and around Europe), the cessation of far-right demonstration activity is conspicuous. The cacophony of marches and rallies by far-right skinheads, football hooligans, and neo-Nazis has been silenced. But this is

102 “Das BfDT fördert und stärkt zivilgesellschaftliches, demokratieförderndes Engagement und ermöglicht Partizipation,” Bündnis Für Demokratie Und Toleranz, last modified July 28, 2014, https://www.buendnis-toleranz.de/service/publikationen/168437/sa mmelband-wunsiedel-ist-bunt-nicht-braun.

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certainly only temporary. The restoration of normal circumstances of public life and activity in public space will surely include renewed far-right demonstration activity. Though it may effect a pause, COVID-19 is not likely to deter the far right from their Demonstrationspolitik.

Amid COVID-19, Trump Attempts to Rewrite History Louie Dean Valencia-García In 2017, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to US President Donald Trump, coined the phrase ‘alternative facts’ to describe why the Trump administration had differing figures about the size of the audience at the newly elected president’s inauguration that seemed to defy photographic evidence—receiving much criticism and ridicule in the popular press. Facts are facts—how could it be clearer? As Trump’s presidency has taught us, facts can be falsified, omitted and invented for political gain. Whereas politicos have long tried to ‘shape the narrative,’ Trump’s Orwellian denial of facts and his penchant for inventing ‘truths’ wholesale have far passed the realm of credibility—he has made at least 16,000 false or misleading claims since assuming office.103 When Trump calls the news ‘fake’ he is attempting to delegitimize evidence in the hopes of creating what I call ‘alt-histories’ in my edited volume Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History: Alt/Histories.104 Alt-histories are not simple differences in interpretation, but instead invented realities made out of decontextualization, falsehoods, truthiness, and outright denial of actual historical facts and debates. In this global COVID-19 pandemic we are all enduring, Trump’s alternate reality will leave behind a staggering body count.105

A tenuous grip on reality or an attempt to remake it? Historians of the future will look back at our current moment and encounter the challenge of discerning what were indeed facts, and what were ‘alternative narratives’ used to create alt-histories, intended to mold reality around those ‘alt-facts.’ Last year, when describing a phone call between 103 Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly, “President Trump made 16,241 false or misleading claims in his first three years,” The New York Times, January 20, 2020, Analysis, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/01/20/president-trump-made -16241-false-or-misleading-claims-his-first-three-years/. 104 Louie Dean Valencia-García (ed.), Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History (New York: Routledge, 2020), 438 pp. 105 Kaz Weida, “What Is COVID-19: Cases, Symptoms, And How to Avoid It,” Rantt Media, March 14, 2020, https://rantt.com/COVID-19-explained.

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himself and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump claimed his call was ‘perfect’—without any attempt at influencing the American election or strong-arming a less-powerful country—despite all evidence to the contrary. Trump was not simply lying; he bent reality to his will.106 Through his surrogate, Fox News, many Americans have entered into Trump’s invented reality—a parallel dimension where Trump became the most persecuted man ever.107 Senate Republicans also entered Trump’s alternate reality at Trump’s impeachment trial by denying the admission of evidence. Trump was the victim of a ‘witch hunt.’ In fact, Trump’s evocation of ‘witch hunts’ decontextualized actual historical cases of women being falsely accused of being witches—often tortured and killed. Indeed, even before Trump became president he peddled accusations suggesting US President Barack Obama was not actually born in the US but rather in Kenya. Trump pushed this alt-history into the public sphere so much so that he developed a following of so-called ‘birthers’ who attempted to replace historical fact with Trump’s fiction. They demanded that the US president provide proof of a ‘long-form birth certificate’ as evidence. Even when that evidence was provided, it was rejected by the conspiracy theorists. These efforts both attempted to police who could be considered an American, an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of a black man as president, and foreshadowed what was to come. For the far right, the past is not something from which to learn, but rather, history should be salvaged to make deadly shrapnel-filled mines in the name of recreating a myth of the past.

Far-right revisionism Of course, the best-known examples of alt-histories are tied up with the history of fascism and nationalism. Most famously, Holocaust deniers are purveyors of this sort of rhetoric. Believing that the Holocaust was invented or somehow did not reach the numbers that it did is not actual historical revisionism; historical revisionism is what trained historians do through transparent evidence-based research and argument—usually involving lots of footnotes.

106 Ahmed Baba, “Trump Asks Ukraine To Investigate Biden On Call, Then on Camera,” Rantt Media, September 25, 2019, https://rantt.com/trump-zelensky-ukraine-transcript. 107 Ahmed Baba, “The Trump-Fox News Relationship Is A Threat To Our Democracy,” Rantt Media, March 4, 2020, https://rantt.com/the-trump-fox-news-relationship-is-athreat-to-our-democracy.

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Holocaust deniers patch together falsehoods and decontextualized evidence to create an alternate timeline that legitimates their anti-Semitism and racist, nationalistic ideologies. These types of deniers often proclaim a false narrative that ‘Hitler was a socialist’—an alt-history propagated by right-wing author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. Indeed, socialist and communist ideologies were considered degenerate to fascists like Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Francisco Franco. Leftists and liberals were often sent to labor camps, concentration camps or prison. As I recount in Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History, AltRight provocateur Richard Spencer, has attempted to propose what he calls ‘peaceful ethnic cleansing’ or ‘peaceful ethnic redistribution’ as a program to create a ‘white ethno-state.’108 In his despicable proposition, Spencer often cites the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 as an example of successful peaceful ethnic cleansing. Historian Mark Mazower, rightfully sets the record straight in Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century— EXTERMINATING MINORITIES … WAS NOT GENERALLY ACCEPTABLE TO INTERNATIONAL OPINION … THE VICTOR POWERS AT VERSAILLES TRIED A DIFFERENT APPROACH—KEEPING MINORITIES WHERE THEY WERE, AND GIVING THEM PROTECTION IN INTERNATIONAL LAW TO MAKE SURE THEY WERE PROPERLY TREATED SO THAT IN TIME THEY WOULD ACQUIRE A SENSE OF NATIONAL BELONGING.109

Spencer’s claim not only runs counter to historical fact, but replicates a fascistic tendency to turn to an imagined past in order to propose an alternate future.

Nationalism and illness As Susan Sontag argues in Illness as Metaphor, “[I]llness is not a metaphor, and that the most truthful way of regarding illness—and the healthiest way of being ill—is one most purified of, most resistant to, metaphorical thinking.”110 Later Sontag wrote another book about AIDS being used as a metaphor—emphasizing the dangers of associating identity with disease.

108 Louie Dean Valencia-García, “This Is What ‘Peaceful Ethnic Cleansing’ Looks Like,” Rantt Media, October 2, 2019, https://rantt.com/trump-immigration-policies-white-supremacy. 109 Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), p. 42. 110 Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978), p. 3.

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Indeed, describing disease metaphorically often perpetuates prejudice and leaves room for those metaphors and slippery slopes to solidify into alt-histories. In recent weeks, Trump has weaponized the novel COVID-19, calling it ‘the Chinese virus,’ falling into an old nationalist trope that attempts to leverage illness and prejudice to attack minority groups.111 In Nazi Germany, Jewish people were likened to a cancer in the German nation that needed to be removed. Today, encouraged by Trumpian rhetoric, Asians and Asian-Americans are being attacked by xenophobes, as if they themselves were the virus.112 Viruses do not have nationalities, however, the nationalistic tendency to scapegoat and blame a group of people for an illness has long been common in history—seen in the labeling of the ‘Russian Flu,’ the ‘Hong Kong Flu’ and the ‘Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-related COVID-19’ (MERS) are just some examples. Most infamously, another nationalistic example is the so-called ‘Spanish Flu of 1918’. As Mitchell Hammond describes in Epidemics and the Modern World, the cause of the pandemic was influenza A, a subtype of H1N1, potentially originating in horses or birds.113 Hammond cites multiple possible origins: the Fort Riley military base in Kansas; the town of Étaples, France; and the Shanxi province of China; however, he writes: ‘None of the waves originated in Spain; the moniker “Spanish flu” reflected the willingness of this nation’s newspapers to report the disease’s impact because it was not a combatant in World War I.’114 In popular memory in the US, this solidified into a false assumption that Spain was somehow responsible for the illness—a complete rewriting of history based on a nationalistic desire to use illness as a scapegoat. Simultaneous to this use of disease as a metaphor, Trump is livetweeting an alt-history amidst a global pandemic. He gives himself a “ten out of ten” for his administration’s performance and handling of the crisis—denying the fact that just in February he made light of the virus, 111 Mark Potok, “Anti-Asian Racism Amid COVID-19 Echoes US History of Blaming Immigrants for Disease,” Rantt Media, April 7, 2020, https://rantt.com/COVID-19-trigg ers-anti-asian-racism. 112 Matt Stevens, “How Asian-American Leaders Are Grappling With Xenophobia Amid COVID-19,” The New York Times, March 29, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/ 03/29/us/politics/COVID-19-asian-americans.html. 113 Mitchell L. Hammond, Epidemics and the Modern World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), p. 318. 114 Mitchell L. Hammond, Epidemics and the Modern World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), pp. 323–324.

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calling it a “hoax.” When reporters hold him accountable for his words, like PBS Newshour reporter Yamiche Alcindor frequently does, he viciously attacks them. He calls the legitimate journalists reporting facts “fake news.” Amid Trump’s #PressBriefing meltdown, CBS Reporter Paula Reid asked Trump: “Tens of thousands of Americans are dead … How is this rant supposed to make people feel confident in an unprecedented crisis?”115

Trump responds with more egomaniacal ramblings.

This isn’t because what they say is untrue, but rather because he is speaking to the future—attempting to create a new timeline that lauds his imagined greatness—not facts as they were. He is speaking to both voters in November 2020 who will remember him for promising things, despite the failure to deliver on those promises, altering the recent past as he goes.

115 Rantt Media (@RanttMedia). 2020. “Amid Trump’s #PressBriefing meltdown, CBS Reporter Paula Reid asked Trump: “Tens of thousands of Americans are dead … How is this rant supposed to make people feel confident in an unprecedented crisis?” Trump responds with more egomaniacal ramblings.” Twitter, April 13, 2020, 5:48 p.m. https:// twitter.com/geertwilderspvv/status/1238940083677540358.

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A disaster for the future Of course, Donald Trump is not the inventor of these far-right conspiracies that attempt to replace scientific fact with alt-histories. These types of propositions have long been part and parcel of attempts by right-wing ideologues to use history to legitimize racism and nationalism. Whether textbook battles claiming the American Civil War was about ‘states rights’ instead of slavery, or the use of historical figures for political purposes, such as is common in French nationalist Marine Le Pen’s use of the symbol of Joan of Arc, historians and the general public must fight the circulation of alt-histories which are attempting to replace history itself. More broadly, this sort of mentality has greater potential for danger as this mindset has led right-wingers to deny scientific fact and evidence in regard to climate change. Facts matter profoundly for our past and for our future.

Will France’s Marine Le Pen be a Profiteer or Victim of the Pandemic? Hans-Georg Betz For those of us who have been following the radical populist right over the past couple of decades, one of the central questions today is whether it is likely to capitalize on the COVID-19 crisis, or whether the crisis will relegate it to the margins of contemporary politics? At the moment, it appears that the dramatic socio-economic impact of the crisis has generally negatively affected these parties. In most countries, support for these parties—as measured in polls— has declined, in some cases, for instance in Norway, quite precipitously.116 Yet these results should be taken with caution. National crises tend to provoke a ‘rallying around the flag’ no matter what—how else could one explain the temporary rise in support for Donald Trump and the British Tories?117 Once the crisis is over, however, it is to be expected that the situation will change. It is likely to give way to a critical examination of the multiple failures of leadership, instrumental in turning a serious health threat into a national disaster of epic proportions. And with it, there will be a moment of reckoning that is likely to leave few governments untarnished. Under the circumstances, it is reasonable to expect that the radical populist right—given it was not in a position to make decisions during the times of COVID-19—is going to make somewhat of a comeback. Prominent radical-right-wing populist leaders are already gearing up their rhetoric for the day after. In what follows, the focus is on the arguably most influential current leaders, Marine Le Pen (Rassemblement National, RN, formerly Front National) and Matteo Salvini (Lega, formerly Lega Nord). Under Marine Le Pen’s predecessor, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the Front 116 Matthiass Diermeier, “Die politische Ökonomie in Zeiten von Corona,” Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft, April 5, 2015, Staat, https://www.iwkoeln.de/studien/iw-kurzberichte/beitrag/matthias-diermeier-die-politische-oekonomie-in-zeiten-von-corona465207.html. 117 Stephen Shepard, “Trump gets ratings bump amid COVID-19 crisis,” POLITICO, March 25, 2020, Morning Consult Poll, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/25/ trump-gets-ratings-bump-COVID-19-crisis-147141; Tony Barber, “Pandemic reshapes British and EU politics,” Financial Times, March 31, 2020, Brexit Briefing, https:// www.ft.com/content/f7be361d-3809-484c-bfe9-56481d2f4af6.

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National had the status of the primus inter pares (a first among equals) on the radical populist right, particularly with respect to programmatic innovations. Even if with Marine Le Pen, the Front National has lost some of its luster, it still serves as a point of reference for a number of like-minded parties. With Matteo Salvini, however, Marine Le Pen is confronted with a serious challenger. Under his leadership, the Lega soared in the polls, surpassing by far its competitors on the right, such as Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, relegated to the margins of the Italian party system.

La Marine Like other major politicians in France and beyond, Marine Le Pen was caught cold by the dramatic surge of the pandemic; worse still, after a meeting with a right-wing politician in mid-March who tested positive, she went into voluntary self-quarantine although she was asymptomatic.118 As the leader of one of France’s major political formations, she was consulted by the president of France. As a result, she could hardly claim that she had been sidelined. More significantly, the next presidential elections in France will be held two years from now, and Marine Le Pen is once again likely to be Macron’s main opponent. Under the circumstances, Marine Le Pen had to tread lightly and moderate her tone.119 In fact, in early March, Marine Le Pen had already noted positive signs that the president of the republic was taking leave of his “anti-national ideology,” being prepared to agree to closing the EU’s external borders.120 She also noted that she was not only seeing signs of “a total questioning of the ultraliberal model,” of outsourcing no matter the price, of privatization, but also of “an ode to public service.” All of this, she noted, suggested that the president had “understood his errors: with respect to these issues.”

118 “COVID-19: Marine Le Pen s’est auto-confinée chez elle “par précaution,” La Chaîne Info, March 16, 2020, Politique, hhttps://www.lci.fr/politique/COVID-19-marine-lepen-s-est-auto-confinee-chez-elle-par-precaution-rassemblement-national-rn-2148140. html. 119 Ivanne Trippenbach, “COVID-19: Marine Le Pen tente de jouer l’attaque tranquille,” L’Opinion, March 12, 2020, Coups de Canif, https://www.lopinion.fr/edition/politique/ COVID-19-marine-pen-tente-jouer-l-attaque-tranquille-214162. 120 “Marine Le Pen note “les revirements” de Macron sur les frontières,” L’Express, March 12, 2020, Idéologie anti-nationale, https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/fn/mari ne-le-pen-note-les-revirements-de-macron-sur-les-frontieres_2120760.html.

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This conciliatory tone did not last long, however; nor did moderation. By the end of the month, Marine Le Pen switched to full attack mode, ready to exploit the crisis for potential political gain. There was a simple reason for this reversal of strategy: unfavorable polling data. As the crisis progressed, Marine Le Pen’s public image deteriorated. By the beginning of April, only a bit more than a fifth of the French public had a positive impression of her.121 For Marine Le Pen, these numbers were more than disconcerting, given a political constellation that should have been favorable to the populist radical right: by the end of March, opinion polls registered widespread dissatisfaction with the government’s response to the crisis. Within a week, confidence in the government’s handling of the crisis fell by 10 percent, from 53 to 43 percent.122 At the same time, the crisis brutally exposed the prevalence of inequality and social injustice in French society. In the homeland of liberté, égalité, fraternité it was particularly the couches populaires (lower or working classes) that were hit hardest by the crisis.123 In response, Marine Le Pen abandoned any pretense of being part of a united political front in the face of the crisis. Instead she embarked on a full collision course with respect to the government. In an interview with Franceinfo at the end of March, she accused the government of having lied to the French people, of having left the French public in the dark with regard to the “weakness of the French state, of our stock [of protective gear], of the lack of preparedness of our country.”124 In a long interview at the end of March with Valeurs actuelles— France’s leading arch-conservative weekly magazine—Marine Le Pen charged that the government was the “biggest purveyor of fake news since

121 Guillaume de Calignon, “COVID-19: la stratégie agressive de Marine Le Pen ne porte pas ses fruits dans l’opinion,” LesEchos, April 2, 2020, Politique, https://www.lese chos.fr/politique-societe/politique/COVID-19-marine-le-pen-ne-tire-pas-profit-de-sa-s trategie-agressive-dans-lopinion-1191440. 122 Valérie Mazuir, “COVID-19: le sondage quotidien CoviDirect,” LesEchos, May 13, 2020, Politique, https://www.lesechos.fr/politique-societe/societe/covidirect-sondagequotidien-de-lopinion-en-france-pendant-la-crise-du-COVID-19-1187949. 123 Thibaut Le Gal, “COVID-19: Logement, télétravail, exposition au virus … Les Français pas tous égaux face à l’épidémie,” 20 Minutes, March 25, 2020, Société, https://www. 20minutes.fr/societe/2746831-20200325-COVID-19-logement-teletravail-expositionvirus-francais-tous-egaux-face-epidemie 124 “Confinement, Union européenne, libération de détenus, complotisme … Le “8h30 politique” de Marine Le Pen,” Franceinfo, March 30, 2020, COVID-19, https://www. francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/COVID-19/confinement-union-europeenne-liberation-de -detenus-complotisme-le-8h30-politique-de-marine-le-pen_3871095.html.

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the beginning of the crisis” and the most “responsible for the loss of confidence in public statements.”125 At the same time, she accorded more than a touch of legitimacy to conspiracy theories that claimed that the virus had “escaped” from some secret laboratory. This is hardly surprising, given the fact that four out of ten RN supporters believe that the virus had been “intentionally” bred in a lab.126

What about Islam? Over the past several years, the success of radical-right-wing populist parties in Germany, Spain, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and elsewhere was to a large extent owed to their alarmist rhetoric with respect to the “Islamization” of Europe. One might expect that in the face of the current crisis, the question of Islam to have become an ideational backburner. Not even close. In an open letter to the French interior ministry, Marine Le Pen claimed that in a number of French cities, mosques took advantage of the general lockdown to allow muezzins to call for public prayer, in this way using sound to “illegally occupy the public space.”127 For Marine Le Pen, this was just one more instance of Islam seizing every opportunity to “drive back the principle of laïcité of our republic and, in this way, openly flout the republican state.” It is anyone’s guess whether or not Marine Le Pen’s rhetoric will boost her political fortunes in the years to come. Much depends on the way the current crisis will be resolved. As of now, her invectives appear to have had little traction. This might change, as the crisis progresses. For the moment, Marine Le Pen is in an uncomfortable position, given the extent of the crisis, and her lack of opportunities to have a real impact on what is happening in the country. The crisis has, however, opened up opportunities for a populist mobilization provided Marine Le Pen is prepared to adopt a genuine populist program that goes beyond worn-out nativist tropes.

125 Par Tugdual Denis, “[Interview] Marine Le Pen: Le gouvernement est le plus gros pourvoyeur de fake news depuis le début de cette crise,” LesEchos, March 3, 2020, https:// www.valeursactuelles.com/clubvaleurs/politique/interview-marine-le-pen-le-gouverne ment-est-le-plus-gros-pourvoyeur-de-fake-news-depuis-le-debut-de-cette-crise-117518 126 Pierre Lepelletier, “COVID-19: Marine Le Pen trouve légitime de se demander si le virus ne s’est pas ‘échappé’ d’un laboratoire,” Le Figaro, March 30, 2020, Politique, https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/COVID-19-marine-le-pen-trouve-legitime-de-se-deman der-si-le-virus-ne-s-est-pas-echappe-d-un-laboratoire-20200330. 127 Marine Le Pen, “Lettre ouverte de Marine Le Pen à Christophe Castaner,” Rassemblement National, last modified April 4, 2020, https://rassemblementnational.fr/lettre-ouv erte/lettre-ouverte-de-marine-le-pen-a-christophe-castaner/.

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The results of a poll from early April offer suggestions as to what such a program might look like.128 Among other things, respondents were asked which measures might promote national solidarity and whether or not these measures would improve respondents’ image of a range of economic actors. Large majorities voted for top executives voluntarily halving their salaries; shareholders ‘exceptionally’ renouncing their dividends this year; and landlords freezing rent payments or lowering the rent by at least 20 to 30 percent. Against these positions, less than a third of respondents agreed that everybody should renounce one week of vacation. These reflect genuine populist concerns and demands. Today, it is largely forgotten that at one time, for instance in late 19th century America, populism was a progressive movement, fighting for genuine equality, more social justice, and for true democracy. This type of populism was against those ‘on top’ or as they say in French, les gros (fat cats), against the big corporate monopolies and banks, against all those who lived off the hard work of ordinary people and exploited them, against corrupt politicians colluding with the wealthy and mighty. Marine Le Pen’s future as a major relevant force in French politics will largely depend on both her ability and willingness to live up to the challenge that widespread demands for more equality, social justice, and solidarity will pose to all political formations in post-COVID-19 France.

128 “Le Covid-19 a un impact majeur sur les perceptions économiques, les attitudes et les comportements des Français,” Odoxa—L’Opinion tranchée—Institut d’études indépendant, last modified March 25, 2020, http://www.odoxa.fr/sondage/covid-19-a-impact-majeur-perceptions-economiques-attitudes-comportements-francais/.

How the European Union Lost Italy to the Radical Right Hans-Georg Betz In no country in Europe has COVID-19 claimed more victims than in Italy. Similarly, nowhere in Europe has the radical populist right benefitted more from the pandemic than in Italy. At the beginning of April, polls had Italy’s two major radical-right-wing populist parties—Matteo Salvini’s Lega (League) and Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy)—at more than 40 percent. In France, Marine Le Pen has largely been sidelined by the crisis, whereas in Germany, the radical right has engaged in an internal power struggle. In Italy, however, the leaders of the radical populist right have managed to get major exposure in the media, independent of political orientation, allowing them to propagate their take on current events. Italy was one of the founding members of the process of European integration. It is a core member of the EU and among the first countries to adopt the euro. And yet, Italy has never been a part of the exclusive club encompassing Germany and its allies—France and the Benelux countries. The recent controversy over the question of the euro bonds (aka ‘corona bonds’) demanded by the Italians but rejected by the Germans and Dutch, is a prominent case in point. The latter promised help, but only via the European stability mechanism, which is subject to stringent surveillance measures. As a result, tensions grew between Italy and its EU partners, poisoning the political climate and giving way to mutual recriminations. In the end, a compromise was found, but by then the damage had been done.129 Public opinion polls over the past few weeks have shown to what extent the COVID-19 crisis, and particularly the EU’s more than hesitant response to it, has soured Italians’ views of the EU. Already in mid-March, more than two-thirds of Italian respondents agreed with the statement that EU membership was a ‘disadvantage’ for Italy. Two weeks later, more than 75 percent thought that the EU had done

129 Daniel Bofffey, “EU strikes €500bn relief deal for countries hit hardest by pandemic,” The Guardian, April 9, 2020, Eurozone, https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/ apr/09/eu-risks-break-up-over-coronabonds-row-warns-italian-pm.

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nothing to confront the crisis.130 By the beginning of April, according to Eumetra, fewer than 30 percent of Italians expressed trust in the EU and its major institutions. At the same time, almost half of respondents said they were ready to see Italy leave the EU.131 Not for nothing did the Financial Times warn that Europe “risked losing Italy.”132

Divine intervention If this is bad, it might get even worse. While the EU has largely failed to provide the support Italy was entitled to expect from its partners, it has done a splendid job in boosting the fortunes of Italy’s radical right at a time when the latter was completely sidelined. Last year, the League was part of a coalition government; its leader, Matteo Salvini, was an important minister. In August 2019, Salvini called for a vote of non-confidence with the expectation that it would lead to new elections; instead, it resulted in a new coalition government, without the League. This was a major miscalculation that saw Salvini completely written off—until the epidemic hit Italy with full force. COVID-19 has allowed the Italian radical right to promote itself as the ultimate defender of Italy’s sovereignty in the face of the EU and, more importantly, as the defender of the country’s honor. Both the League and the Brothers of Italy (the name comes from the first line of the Italian national anthem) appeal to deep-seated emotions that appear to resonate among a large part of the Italian population. In the case of Salvini, this is religion, namely the appeal to the archaic roots of Italian Catholicism, where the lines between religion and superstition blur. In the case of the Brothers of Italy, it is the appeal to Italian nationalism, rooted in Italian fascism. Genealogically, the Brothers of Italy derive their roots from the Movimento sociale italiano (MSI—Italian Social Movement), the post-war political movement ‘inspired’ by fascism. The MSI was a neo-fascist party that was an intricate part of Italy’s post-war political system. In the mid1990s, the party’s leader, Gianfranco Fini, publicly renounced Italy’s 130 Roberto Vivaldelli, “COVID-19, italiani sempre più delusi dall’Unione europea,” il Giornale, April 6, 2020, https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/COVID-19-italianisempre-pi-delusi-dallunione-europea-1850578.html. 131 Roberto Vivaldelli, “Un sondaggio gela Bruxelles: il 50% degli italiani vuole l’Italexit,” il Giornale, April 13, 2020, https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/sondaggio-tecn-ital iano-su-due-vorrebbe-litalia-fuori-dallue-1853377.html. 132 Riccardo Liberatore, “COVID-19, l’avvertimento del Financial Times: Così l’Europa rischia di perdere l’Italia,” Open, April 7, 2020, https://www.open.online/2020/04/ 07/COVID-19-avvertimento-del-financial-times-cosi-europa-rischia-di-perdere-italia/.

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fascist history, reinventing the MSI as a new center-right party—Alleanza nazionale (National Alliance)—which, together with Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord (later rebranded as the League by Salvini), became part of the Berlusconi governing coalition. The Brothers of Italy are the successors of the National Alliance, and their new leader Giorgia Meloni’s ideological roots are in the MSI’s youth movement. With Meloni, the Brothers mark a return to the tortuous history of Italian fascism. In 2019, the party chose Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini as a candidate for the European elections.133 His bid failed. But media-wise, Meloni is omnipresent—as is Matteo Salvini. A divorcee and father of two children by two different women, to only one of whom he was married, Salvini is hardly a paragon of Catholic values. Yet he has no qualms promoting himself as a devoted Catholic. His detractors might see this as blatant hypocrisy; his numerous followers, however, don’t seem to mind. For a year now, Salvini has invoked the Virgin Mary as the guiding light for his political adventures. It all started at a League mass meeting in Milan in May 2019, a few days ahead of the European elections. Waving a rosary in his hand, Salvini invoked the Virgin Mary, whose immaculate heart would “carry us to victory” in the election.134 In the months that followed, Salvini has missed no opportunity to display his religious devotion, publicly kissing the cross attached to his rosary and calling upon the virgin to protect the country, promoting the Madonna of Medjugorje. (Medjugorje is a small town in Bosnia and Herzegovina where, in 1981, the madonna appeared to seven children—now a destination for hundreds of thousands of Catholics from all over the world every year despite the fact that the Vatican has never officially recognized the apparition as a miracle.) Salvini went on record stating that science was not enough “to defeat the monster” (the COVID-19).135 What was needed was divine intervention by il buon dio—the good Lord. Salvini’s public confounding of the spiritual and the secular has provoked considerable irritation, not least from the Italian Catholic Church and 133 Mattia Salvia, “The name’s Mussolini … Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini,” Popula, September 8, 2019, https://popula.com/2019/09/08/the-names-mussolini-caio-giulio-cesar e-mussolini/. 134 “Milano, Salvini invoca i patroni d’Europa e bacia il rosario: L’immacolato cuore di Maria ci porterà alla vittoria,” il Fatto Quotidiano, May 18, 2020, https://www.ilfattoq uotidiano.it/2019/05/18/milano-salvini-invoca-i-patroni-deuropa-e-bacia-il-rosario-lim macolato-cuore-di-maria-ci-portera-alla-vittoria/5190047/. 135 “COVID-19, Salvini vuole chiese aperte a Pasqua: La scienza da sola non basta: serve anche il buon Dio,” La Repubblica, April 4, 2020, https://www.repubblica.it/politica/ 2020/04/04/news/salvini_messe_pasqua-253158269/.

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the Vatican, which have repeatedly criticized his instrumentalization of faith for political ends.136 For the League, Salvini’s religious devotion, genuine or not, has proven to be a winning strategy. It has a strong appeal in the southern parts of the country where, unlike in the League’s northern strongholds of Lombardy and Veneto, Catholicism is still part of daily life. Also, it has allowed the League to reaffirm its image as a resolute defender of Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage in the face of Islam, an image that is perfectly in line with the League’s slogan, ‘Prima gli italiani’—‘Italians first’.

Defending Italy At the same time, Salvini’s strategy has also reinforced the League’s ties with the Brothers of Italy and Meloni. The latter have been the big winners of the COVID-19 crisis—in the European elections last year, the Brothers of Italy received a bit more than 6 percent of the vote. Just under a year later, the party stood at more than 12 percent in the polls, almost doubling its support base. The reason is simple: the Brothers are unabashedly nationalist. On their website the slogan ‘Difendiamo l’Italia’—‘Let’s Defend Italy’—is prominently displayed. The Brothers are as much “Italians first” as they are ‘proud to be Italian.’ It is arguably the latter, which explains the party’s appeal and thus making it the ideal complement for the League, given the latter’s political genealogy. The League started out as a northern movement, giving voice to widespread resentment in Italy’s most industrious and affluent regions against the country’s political class, charged with ‘robbing’ the north of the fruits of its labor in order to buy votes in the populous south. Underlying the Northern League’s rhetoric was a strong tinge of ethnocentrism directed against the southern half of the country and its inhabitants, dismissed as ‘terroni’ (southerners) who lived off assistenzialismo (state benefits).137 Central to the Northern League’s political program was federalism, which would lead to the transfer of major powers, particularly with regard to taxes, from the central government to the regions. Umberto Bossi went so far as to threaten secession and the formation of an independent state, Padania, if the party’s demands were not met. 136 Antonio Rizzolo, “ Salvini, il Rosario e la Vergine Maria: i lettori ci scrivono,” Famiglia Cristiana, June 7, 2019, https://www.famigliacristiana.it/articolo/salvini-il-rosario-ela-vergine-maria-i-lettori-ci-scrivono.aspx. 137 Silvio Buzzanca, “Lega, Salvini: Bossi sui meridionali sbaglia. Ho idee diverse,” La Repubblica, December 23, 2019, https://www.repubblica.it/politica/2019/12/23/news/ lega_salvini_bossi_sui_meridionali_sbaglia_-244200543/.

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They were not. The Northern League served in several government coalitions under Berlusconi, yet federalism never saw the light of day. And for good reason, which brings us back to the Brothers of Italy. Berlusconi’s center-right coalitions included not only the Northern League, but also the National Alliance. The latter derived much of its electoral strength from voters in the south, for whom the Alliance represented a kind of political insurance against the Northern League. In recent years, this role was taken over by the Five Star Movement (M5S), which became the new political representative of southern assistenzialismo.138 With M5S in decline, it is reasonable to expect that the Brothers of Italy will try to fill its shoes. The party’s political program is tailor-made for a country utterly disillusioned with the promises of European solidarity, which turned out to be little more than a meaningless phrase. As a leading Italian newspaper put it with respect to the euro bonds question, in this highly critical situation, the Germans and Dutch had made it known that national interests are more important than European solidarity.139 Even before the crisis, Meloni used graphic language to attack the Italian political establishment, which she charged with having sold out Italy’s interests and which she accused of getting down on its knees “to lick the feet of the French and Germans.”140 At the same time, she played the anti-Islamic card, promoting the Brothers of Italy as a shield against the “Islamization of Europe”, affirming that she had no interest in seeing Europe become “a Muslim continent.”141 On the contrary, she and her party stood for the defense of Italy’s identity, God, the fatherland, and family.

No empty threat Meloni’s discourse is largely in line with the ideas promoted by Salvini. In fact, Meloni and Salvini are, as the saying goes, a match made in heaven. Both espouse a profound aversion to the EU and its institutions, which only increased in the wake of the EU’s deplorable response to the

138 Luigi Di Maio, “Così il M5s è diventato il partito dell’assistenzialismo,” Il Foglio, May 27, 2019, Politica, https://www.ilfoglio.it/politica/2019/05/27/news/cosi-il-m5s-e-dive ntato-il-partito-dell-assistenzialismo-257242/ 139 Federico Giuliani, “Un sondaggio gela Bruxelles: il 50% degli italiani vuole l’Italexit,” il Giornale, April 13, 2020, https://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/sondaggio-tecn-itali ano-su-due-vorrebbe-litalia-fuori-dallue-1853377.html. 140 Giorgia Meloni, “Il discorso integrale di Giorgia Meloni in piazza San Giovanni a Roma,” Giorgia Meloni, last modified October 19, 2019, https://www.giorgiameloni .it/2019/10/19/il-discorso-integrale-di-giorgia-meloni-in-piazza-san-giovanni-a-roma/. 141 Ibid.

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COVID-19 crisis. As Salvini put it at the end of March, instead of presenting itself as a genuine community, the EU turned out to be nothing more than a “lair of serpents and jackals.” He also threatened that once the crisis is resolved, Italy might very well turn its back on the EU.142 These are hardly empty threats. The Brothers and the League say out loud what a large majority of Italians think. No future Italian government will be able to ignore the profound sense of disenchantment with the EU, the equally profound anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic sentiments festering among a large majority of Italian voters. The end of the crisis is very likely to engender further opportunities for the two parties to increase their support base. Expectations are that Italy’s economy will contract by about 9 percent this year, perhaps even more.143 Unemployment is likely to go up considerably, as will the number of Italians in absolute poverty.144 Under the circumstances, resentment against the EU is likely to remain high and with it the temptation of going it alone, of abandoning the idea of a common European destiny. Following in the footsteps of the British is a real possibility. Who would have thought so, just 12 months ago?

142 Cesare Zapperi, “Salvini: battiamo il COVID-19 e poi salutiamo l’Europa,” Corriere Della Sera, March 27, 2020, Politica, https://www.corriere.it/politica/20_marzo_27/sal vini-battiamo-virus-poi-salutiamo-l-europa-6525ece6-7022-11ea-82c1-be2d421e9f6b. shtml?refresh_ce-cp 143 Gianluca Di Donfrancesco, “Fmi: recessione globale nel 2020 (-3%) e per l’Italia Pil in calo del 9%,” Il Sole 24 Ore, April 14, 2020, Servizio, https://www.ilsole24ore.com/ art/fmi-recessione-globale-2020-3percento-e-l-italia-pil-calo-9percento-ADWExyJ. 144 “Dopo il COVID-19? Avremo un milione di bambini poveri in più,” Vita, April 9, 2020, Welfare, http://www.vita.it/it/article/2020/04/09/dopo-il-COVID-19-avremo-un-milio ne-di-bambini-poveri-in-piu/154952/.

After COVID-19: Will Matteo Salvini Lead Europe’s Radical Right? Hans-Georg Betz Unlike the Rassemblement National (RN), formerly Front National, in France, the radical populist right in Italy has largely managed to hold on to its electorate.145 In early April, Matteo Salvini’s Lega still polled a bit over 30 percent, significantly more than any other party. This is despite the fact that in Italy, unlike France, a significant majority of the public expressed confidence in the executive’s work (61 percent for Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s prime minister, 56 percent for his administration).146 Not to mention the ignominious end of the populist Lega/Cinque Stelle coalition government in August 2019, provoked by Salvini’s calling for a vote of no confidence. At the time, Salvini speculated the dissolution of the government would usher in new elections. New elections would put the Lega in a position to form a new government headed by Salvini. Things did not pan out as expected. Cinque Stelle found a new coalition partner in the socialist left. Giuseppe Conte regained his position, this time heading a center-left coalition, leaving the Lega in the proverbial rain. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, appears to have substantially reshuffled the political cards. To be sure, the botched no-confidence vote cost the Lega a few percentage points in the polls. But the losses have proved to be only temporary. A few weeks ago, Matteo Salvini was almost completely sidelined. With the crisis, he has returned to center stage. All things considered, the Lega has been one of the winners of the crisis, as has been the socialist left—and the far right. The far right, that’s Fratelli d’Italia, successor to Gianfranco Fini’s Alleanza Nazionale (AN), once a coalition partner, together with the Lega Nord, of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which, in turn, was the successor to Italy’s post-war 145 Hans-Georg Betz, “Will France’s Marine Le Pen be a profiteer or victim of the pandemic?,” openDemocracy, April 15, 2020, Countering the Radical Right, https:// www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/will-frances-marine-le-pen-be-pr ofiteer-or-victim-pandemic/ 146 Nando Pagnoncelli, “Sondaggio politico | Conte, sale il gradimento. Cresce Meloni, Lega al 31%, Pd e M5S in ripresa,” Corriere, March 29, 2020, Politica, https:// www.corriere.it/politica/20_marzo_29/COVID-19-sondaggio-piu-fiducia-conte-gover no-lega-31percento-pd-m5s-ripresa-bedecf12-712d-11ea-a7a6-80954b735fc3.shtml.

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neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI). Alleanza Nazionale was the result of a clean break with Italy’s fascist past. Fratelli d’Italia has no such qualms. The party is led by Giorgia Meloni, who started her political career in the youth organization of the MSI, joined AN and advanced to be appointed Minister of Youth under Berlusconi. Disenchanted with AN, she founded a new party, which attracted a range of right-wing politicians from both AN and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. In the European elections of 2019, Fratelli d’Italia received 6.5 percent of the vote; by the beginning of April 2020, polls had them at around 12 percent, closing in on Cinque Stelle.147 Politically, or so the polls suggest, the COVID-19 crisis has resulted in a profound polarization of the Italian political spectrum, reminiscent of what has been happening in the US. By now, there are two equally strong blocs confronting each other. In the past, the political heart of the right was Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI). Today, FI has lost much of its political luster, garnering hardly more than 5 percent in the polls. FI has been replaced by the Lega, and Silvio Berlusconi by Matteo Salvini, while Salvini’s Lega and Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia make up the ‘hard core’ of Italy’s opposition. At the height of his power, Berlusconi was largely dismissed by his fellow European colleagues as a caricature of a statesman— a Witzfigur [laughingstock] as they say in German, an amusing lightweight not to be taken too seriously.148 Today, in the face of Salvini/Melino, most of Italy’s partners in the EU are likely to feel a bit nostalgic looking back at the days when Berlusconi was the strong man on the Italian right. Salvini is no Berlusconi. The latter was known as Il cavaliere [the knight]. Against that, Salvini is a ‘man of the people’, or at least, that’s how he projects himself in the media. And the media, independent of political couleur (color), have been more than willing to offer him a platform. Salvini’s political ancestor, Umberto Bossi, the iconic founder of the Lega Nord, was known for his crude diction (Le Lega ce l’ha duro), outrageous statements (taking out the ‘Kalashnikov’ and ‘mitra’ i.e., submachine guns), and vacuous threats (most importantly, if no federalism then secession). With Salvini, the Lega has found a leader who easily matches his

147 Monica Rubino, “Sondaggi, il COVID-19 premia i partiti maggiori: Pd e Lega in rialzo. Italiani temono effetti sul lavoro,” La Repubblica, March 17, 2020, Politica, https:// www.repubblica.it/politica/2020/03/17/news/sondaggi_COVID-19_partiti_maggiori-2 51507985/. 148 Silvio Berlusconi, “Witzfigur” Berlusconi tritt ab. Lachen bleibt im Halse stecken,” NTV, November 8, 2011, https://www.n-tv.de/politik/pressestimmen/Lachen-bleibt-imHalse-stecken-article4722076.html.

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famous predecessor, particularly with respect to his strident, aggressive rhetoric, hyperbole and intentional fibs (bufale, in Italian). Under Umberto Bossi, the Lega Nord was a political movement that voiced and reflected the grievances and resentment of large parts of the northern most parts of the country, from Piemonte in the west to Veneto in the east. These are the most productive, industrialized, innovative and affluent regions in Italy. The Lega Nord mobilized widespread northern resentment against the political class in Rome charged with ‘stealing’ (Roma ladrona—Rome the big thief) part of the wealth generated in the north (via the tax system) in order to buy electoral support in the south. Under Salvini, the Lega abandoned its northern focus and turned into a pan-Italian party, extending its appeal across the whole of the national territory, including the center and south. If in the past, the party’s core nativist message had been northerners first, the new slogan is ‘Italians first’ (Prima gli italiani).

COVID-19 & the (temporary) Fall of the Populist Radical Right in European Politics? Valerio Alfonso Bruno and James F. Downes

The political effects of COVID-19 in Europe The political effects of COVID-19 in Europe have led to a ‘rally around the flag effect’ for a number of incumbent mainstream governing parties. At the same time, populist radical-right parties (PRR) have had their raison d’être taken away from them and have been left powerless politically, in the face of the pandemic. Socio-cultural issues such as immigration that PRR parties tend to claim ownership over arguably no longer remain dominant in the minds of voters in 2020. A recent article by Professor Hans-Georg Betz in openDemocracy has highlighted how PRR parties, such as Alternative for Germany in particular, alongside Lega in Italy and National Rally in France, have also seen their support substantially reduced in the polls of late. However, PRR parties such as the Law & Justice Party in Poland and Fidesz in Hungary have bucked this trend and continued their dominance of their respective political landscapes in Central-Eastern Europe.149

The case of Lega in Italy In Italy, the PRR has been gradually losing support since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that hit Italy in late February. According to recent polls, the Lega has seen its popularity decline considerably (by around 4 percentage points since January and around 9 percentage points since the latest EU Parliament elections held in May 2019).150 This same trend has emerged for a number of PRR parties in several European countries, including most notably in Germany, France, Austria

149 Hans Von Der Burchard, Hannah Roberts, Barbara Moens and Maïa De la Baume, “Europe’s far right knows how to waste a good crisis,” POLITICO, April 27, 2020, https:// www.politico.eu/article/europe-far-right-COVID-19-pandemic-struggles/. 150 “Sondaggi, la Lega scende ancora: ha perso 9 punti dalle Europee. Pd e M5s stabili. Tra i leader guida sempre Conte: fiducia al 60%,” il Fatto Quotidiano, April 29, 2020, https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2020/04/29/sondaggi-la-lega-scende-ancora-ha-perso9-punti-dalle-europee-pd-e-m5s-stabili-tra-i-leader-guida-sempre-conte-fiducia-al-60/ 5785630/

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and Spain. A recent article published by Politico has outlined the inability and weakness of PRR leaders such as Matteo Salvini (leader of Lega in Italy) and Marine Le Pen (leader of National Rally in France) to exploit the growing crisis.151

‘The rally around the flag effect’ According to the recent Politico article, this “wasted opportunity” is primarily related to the PRR “struggling to find a coherent message on the virus and, [with] mainstream parties in government [benefiting] from the ‘rally around the flag’ effect seen in times of crisis.”152 The ‘rally around the flag’ effect is a political phenomenon, whereby governments and its leaders often experience a short-tern increase in their popular support, during international crises, wars and natural disasters. To fully understand the electoral decline of the Lega party in Italy, two more factors must be examined. Firstly, Lega’s disregard of scientific expertise and secondly, the Italian Northern regions were hit the hardest by COVID-19. The first factor is common to other liberal democracies in Europe and in global politics, whereas the second factor is a more unique one, one that is specific to Italian politics. We focus on both factors in more detail in the next section.

Lega’s northern regions hit the hardest Italy was hit unevenly by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Northern regions hit the hardest. In contrast, the regions in Central and Southern Italy were touched only partially by the virus. The area between Lombardy and Emilia Romagna is where the outbreak officially started on February 22, 2020. Two months later (as of the April 25, 2020) of the 26,400 Italian deaths, 23,600 deaths were in Northern Italy, with Lombardy alone accounting for 13,269 deaths.153 The majority of the Northern regions of Italy belong politically to the Italian Center-Right, with Lombardy, Veneto and Friuli Venezia-Giulia governed by Lega; Liguria and Piemonte having governors related to 151 Hans Von Der Burchard, Hannah Roberts, Barbara Moens and Maïa De la Baume, “Europe’s far right knows how to waste a good crisis,” POLITICO, April 27, 2020, https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-far-right-COVID-19-pandemic-struggles/. 152 Jon Henley, “Democratic leaders win surge of approval during Covid-19 crisis,” The Guardian, April 2, 2020, COVID-19 outbreak, https://www.theguardian.com/world/20 20/apr/02/democratic-leaders-win-surge-of-approval-during-covid-19-crisis. 153 “Italy COVID-19 Cases,” Worldometer, last updated May 27, 2020, https://www.worl dometers.info/COVID-19/country/italy/.

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Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. Emilia Romagna remains the outlier, in being governed by Bonaccini of the Center-Left, who won the local election in late January 2020.154 Furthermore, other areas such as Valle d’Aosta and Trentino Alto Adige are governed by autonomous parties. It is important to note that the primary aim of this article is not to blame the local governors of the Lega, for responsibility of the catastrophic pandemic in northern Italy. However, it is incontrovertible that the Italian Northern Regions have become the battleground of a harsh conflict between local governors, in particular Lombardy and Veneto governed by Attilio Fontana and Luca Zaia, against Italy’s central government. According to some reports, the COVID-19 outbreak may have been in the area between Lombardy and Emilia Romagna before the 22nd February, with local hospitals reporting a massive number of atypical pneumonias by January.155 Nonetheless, local public health authorities and policymakers did not report the anomaly. Policy responses by local governments in Italy varied greatly towards COVID-19. Most significantly, the local governors of Lega appeared to openly challenge the measures adopted by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.156 The Leader of Lega, Matteo Salvini himself has repeatedly shown confusion towards easing the lockdown measures.157 This has even put his party in contrast with others farright parties in Italy, such as Fratelli d’Italia.158

154 Valerio A. Bruno, “Salvini May Have Lost Emilia Romagna, But the League Is Still on the Rise,” Fair Observer, January 30, 2020, https://www.fairobserver.com/region/eur ope/matteo-salvini-league-elections-italy-politics-news-14212/. 155 “COVID-19 in Italy may have started unnoticed in January: Study,” Aljazeera, April 24, 2020, Italy, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/COVID-19-italy-started-unn oticed-january-study-200424214841332.html. 156 “Far-right governor defies Rome, lifts Venice lockdown early,” Aljazeera, April 27, 2020, Europe, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/governor-defies-rome-lifts-ve nice-lockdown-early-200427171844336.html. 157 Laura Mari, ““Chiudere tutto, anzi no”. Salvini e il Covid 19, la confusione del leader leghista sulla gestione dell’epidemia,” La Repubblica, April 16, 2020, Politica, https:// www.repubblica.it/politica/2020/04/16/news/salvini_e_i_cambi_di_rotta_sulle_apertu re_attivita_-254162048/. 158 Amedeo La Mattina, “Anche Meloni sconfessa Salvini su apertura chiese per Pasqua. Berlusconi: “Sarebbe irresponsabile,” La Stampa, April 7, 2020, Politica, https://www. lastampa.it/politica/2020/04/07/news/anche-meloni-sconfessa-salvini-su-apertura-chie se-per-pasqua-berlusconi-sarebbe-irresponsabile-1.38689779.

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Lega’s disregard for scientific and technical expertise PRR parties have often tended to be deeply skeptical towards political experts and technocratic elites.159 Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the situation has changed considerably, with the attention of public opinion shifting dramatically towards science and technical expertise in combatting the pandemic. The visibility of public health experts such as virologists, epidemiologists and other medical doctors has sharply increased. These experts were suddenly tasked to inform citizens and provide policy-makers with science-backed evidence to combat COVIID-19. Arguably, Lega and to a lesser extent, Fratelli d’Italia have lost political ground and capital, with the shift towards technical expertise and the ‘rally around the flag effect’.160 Furthermore, on April 27, during the first visit to Northern Italy by the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, he largely opposed the people pleasing rhetoric of Salvini. Conte affirmed the decision that the lockdown in Italy will be lifted gradually and only when the public health task force of experts (‘comitato tecnico-scientifico’) will support the decision, and at the same time, did not seek to gain electoral support.161

The post-crisis (COVID-19) political landscape in Europe: fragmentation & volatility Generalizing from the Italian case to the comparative European level, our main argument is that (a) PRR parties will continue to lose out as the pandemic continues. We will most likely see more of a ‘rally around the flag effect’ for incumbent governing parties. However, we argue that there is likely to be (b) an important ‘caveat’ to this electoral ‘decline.’

159 Sheri Berman, “Populism and the embrace of complexity,” Social Europe, April 23, 2019, https://www.socialeurope.eu/populism-and-complexity. 160 Valerio A. Bruno and James F. Downes, “The case of Fratelli d’Italia: how radical-right populists in Italy and beyond are building global networks,” Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, March 5, 2020, https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2020/03/05/the-ca se-of-fratelli-ditalia-how-radical-right-populists-in-italy-and-beyond-are-building-glob al-networks/. 161 “Conte defends ‘slowly-slowly’ lifting of Italy’s lockdown,” Aljazeera, April 28, 2020, Europe, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/conte-defends-slowly-slowly-lifting -italy-lockdown-200428160319730.html; “Cosa fa e da chi è composto il comitato tecnico-scientifico per l’emergenza,” Agenzia Italia, March 5, 2020, Cronaca, https:// www.agi.it/cronaca/news/2020-03-05/COVID-19-iss-comitato-7339017/.

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Once the COVID-19 crisis is over, this is when mainstream parties may lose their perceived competence in how they handled COVID-19 and doubts about trust may resurface amongst voters, particularly towards the resulting economic impact. In turn, voters in Europe may be likely to hold incumbent mainstream parties to account and PRR parties will likely be the main beneficiaries from protest politics, alongside a ‘rise’ in Euroscepticism, renewed anti-immigrant sentiment and increased salience of this key issue. Therefore, we argue that the ‘end’ of COVID-19 may lead to a resurgence in support for the PRR electorally. Other ‘populist’ parties are also likely to flourish. Declining economic conditions across Europe may also lead to increased support for populist radical left parties. Linked to this, a more volatile political landscape across Europe for ‘new’ entrant parties may also take place, with previous fragmentation in European politics and party competition continuing.

The Spanish Right, COVID-19 and ‘Socio-Communism’ Carmen Aguilera-Carnerero and Bàrbara Molas

Introduction On March 8, 2020, thousands of Spaniards were summoned to join two radically different mass gatherings in Madrid: a demonstration to celebrate International Women’s Day, and a VOX meeting in which Santiago Abascal was going to be re-elected as the president of the radical-right political force for the next few years. The party’s choice of March 8 was not a coincidence. As a matter of fact, it was thought of as a virtual ‘counter protest’ to one of VOX’s main hobbyhorses—what they call ‘gender ideology’ or ‘feminist supremacism’.162 Just two days after their meeting, VOX’s general secretary Javier Ortega Smith announced that he was infected with the virus, which later also affected other members of his political party—including VOX’s spokesperson in the Spanish Congress, Macarena Olona, and even their leader, Santiago Abascal, as well as other members of the current government like the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, or the Vice-President Carmen Calvo. On March 14, 2020, the government declared a state of emergency for 14 days—later extending it for 14 more days. In a humiliating public climb-down, VOX apologized publicly for holding a public meeting at a time when the pandemic was just about rearing its head in Spain, whilst also at the same time blaming the government, a leftist coalition, for having authorized it, as well as the 8M demonstration.163

162 Carmen Aguilera-Carnerero, “VOX and the rhetoric of gender violence,” openDemocracy, November 18, 2019, Countering the Radical Right, https://www.opendemo cracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/VOX-and-rhetoric-gender-violence/ 163 Álvaro Carvajal, “Javier Ortega Smith da positivo por COVID-19 y VOX pide perdón por celebrar Vistalegre,” El Mundo, March 10, 2020, Política, https://www.elmundo.es/ espana/2020/03/10/5e6778e7fdddff851e8b4611.html; “Estado de alarma. Medidas crisis sanitaria COVID-19,” Gobierno de España, last updated May 26, 2020, https://ad ministracion.gob.es/pag_Home/atencionCiudadana/Estado-de-alarma-crisis-sanitaria.h tml#.Xs3E5sZ7lQK; Manuel V. Gómez, “Women’s Day marches in Spain attract mass numbers despite COVID-19 fears,” El País, March 9, 2020, International Women’s Day, https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-03-09/womens-day-marches-in-spain-attr act-mass-numbers-despite-COVID-19-fears.html

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How has VOX responded to the COVID-19 pandemic so far? During the on-going COVID-19 crisis, VOX policy has been focusing on the same issues that built its political identity, although this time they have done so by directly associating the pandemic with these issues—namely gender, migration, separatism, and what VOX calls the “socio-communist government.”164 On March 19, 2020, VOX accused Podemos on Twitter of allegedly deleting all “graphic material” related to the International Women’s Day demonstration, which took place in several Spanish cities only a few days before Spain entered quarantine.165 In fact, the radical-right group described the demonstration as the ground zero event that ‘triggered’ the pandemic in Spain. And even though the very same day VOX had organized a mass meeting too, the demonization of the feminist mass demonstrations came days before the party’s apologies. Clearly, rather than being concerned about mass gatherings as a key vector in the spread of the virus, VOX was mainly preoccupied with condemning the political assumptions that underpinned the demonstration, namely, a feminist call for women’s empowerment, and therefore posing a challenge to their inherently chauvinistic politics. In one of their many accounts on social media, VOX followers posted the photo below that uses a pun between the name of their political antagonist ‘Unidos Podemos’ (United We Can) and the word ‘pandemia’ (pandemic), establishing a biologized symmetry between Podemos and their own imagined political virus of left-wing politics:

Source: @VOXjovenes

164 “VOX contra la connivencia del gobierno social-comunista con la dictadura venezolana,” VOX, February 28, 2020, https://www.VOXespana.es/actualidad/VOX-contrala-connivencia-del-gobierno-social-comunista-con-la-dictadura-venezolana-20200228. 165 “Nueva mentira de VOX: difunden que Podemos ha borrado el rastro del 8M en sus redes sociales,” el Plural, March 19, 2020, España, https://www.elplural.com/polit ica/espana/mentira-VOX-difunden-borrado-rastro-8m-redes-sociales_235804102.

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Party General Secretary Ortega Smith was harshly criticized because he posted a tweet, which he quickly deleted, in which he informed his followers in a video that his “Spanish antibodies” were going to win over the “damn Chinese virus” until he defeated it.166 His choice of qualifiers was particularly unfortunate not only because it framed the illness as an intercultural battle, but also because it reinforced the stigmatization of the Chinese community in Spain, particularly worsened since the outbreak of the epidemic. The situation has even caused the reaction of the Chinese embassy with calls to stop Sinophobic racism.167 Besides directly blaming the Chinese for the virus, VOX has also taken advantage of the crisis and the demands for more restrictive lockdowns to talk about migration in general. Party leader, Santiago Abascal, demanded that “irregular immigrants” pay to be medically attended during the current virus crisis.168 Blinded by their own ideology, it is impossible not to see the counter-productivity of such suggestions: If listened to, for example, this proposal could cause immigrants to not visit the doctor if experiencing symptoms for fear of having to pay high fees, which would jeopardize attempts to successfully tackle the crisis. VOX’s demands are, therefore, without a doubt a product of the party’s inherently racist views and fears of immigration rather than its caring for the safety of Spaniards— as they are trying to frame it.

The COVID-19 pandemic & VOX’s ideology of a united Spain VOX has strongly criticized the Spanish government regarding the implementation of the measures adopted to solve the crisis, particularly the alleged lack of national coordination or uniformity. In order to unify Spain’s measures against COVID-19, VOX claims that ‘real’ national unity must take place. The party suggested that all of Catalonia’s ‘provincial powers’ (competencias) must be centralized under the government of Madrid against any “separatist privileges”, thus undermining the province’s force 166 “Ortega Smith muestra su día a día luchando contra ‘los virus chinos’ con sus ‘anticuerpos españoles’,” República de las Ideas, March 3, 2020, En cuarenta, https://www.rep ublica.com/2020/03/14/ortega-smith-muestra-su-dia-a-dia-luchando-contra-los-virus-c hinos-con-sus-anticuerpos-espanoles/. 167 “La Embajada de China responde a Ortega Smith: Stop racismo,” El Diario, March 14, 2020, https://www.eldiario.es/rastreador/Embajada-China-Ortega-Smith-expresion_6_ 1005859414.html. 168 “VOX propone que los inmigrantes irregulares paguen por la atención médica durante la alarma,” La Vanguardia, March 25, 2020, Política, https://www.lavanguardia. com/politica/20200325/4890147593/VOX-inmigrantes-irregulares-paguen-atencionmedica-COVID-19.html

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and, most importantly, its nationalist government—a threat to VOX’s much desired uniformity of Spain.169 VOX accused the government, specifically the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, of trying to impose a “communist agenda” with their neglectful approach in relation to COVID-19.170 To be precise, party leader, Santiago Abascal, said that “Chavist” Iglesias is “taking advantage” of the crisis by putting forward communist-like policies—such as “centralizing all power” in the hands of the Socialist-led government—to effectively deal with the crisis, an accusation which contradicts VOX’s own demands in regards to Catalonia. Another of VOX’s secretaries, Macarena Olona, even went further—saying that, by quickly accumulating power, the government has led “the greatest coup in the history of [Spanish] democracy” and allegedly “suppressed” (amordazado) the Opposition.171 Such calls for unity are part of a longer-term strategy for VOX. VOX, for example, has clearly illustrated this idealization of Spain as a united nation by ending its tweets with #ForceSpain (#FuerzaEspaña) since the outbreak of COVID-19. Further reinforcing the idea of what the party might consider to be natural unity, along with the motto #fuerzaEspaña VOX has been promoting images of a ‘standard’ Spanish family—a white heterosexual couple with two small kids. In the image (below), we see such a family gazing at the flag of Spain in the horizon as their hope for progress. The poster reads: “With unity and responsibility, we will get over this,” a message clearly directed against the Spanish government and what VOX considers its lack of accountability.

169 “VOX plantea quitar todas las competencias a Cataluña mientras dure el estado de alarma por el COVID-19,” EuropaPresss, March 24, 2020, España, https://www.eu ropapress.es/nacional/noticia-VOX-plantea-quitar-todas-competencias-cataluna-mien tras-dure-estado-alarma-COVID-19-20200324181811.html 170 Álvaro Carvajal, “VOX pide levantar las restricciones a los comercios: ¿Por qué no puede abrir una mercería?,” El Mundo, March 16, 2020, España, https://www.elmundo. es/espana/2020/03/16/5e6fab36fc6c83ad3d8b4624.html. 171 Javier Torres, “VOX cree que hay un golpe en marcha,” SER, March 19, 2020, Madrid, https://cadenaser.com/ser/2020/03/19/politica/1584651633_464733.html.

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Source: VOX’s official account @VOX_es

Conclusion Ironically, unity is precisely what VOX is putting at risk through its irresponsible use of hate speech. VOX’s accusations against the 8M feminist demonstration has demonized an on-going struggle for gender rights and equality. Moreover, the Catalonian government has reacted to VOX’s suggestions for strict centralization with resentment, associating them with (neo-)Francoism, thereby strengthening support for Catalan nationalism. Finally, the party’s racist rhetoric has also gone so far as forcing Spain’s ethnic communities to demand tolerance towards them, thus demonstrating the level of intolerance VOX holds for them. As the minds and hearts of many Spaniards become more alienated amidst the pandemic, the radical right achieves nothing but discord, hate, and conflict, and preys on physical isolation to create a disunited nation, i.e., the exact opposite of their political aims.

Tilting at Windmills: The Spanish Radical Populist Right in Times of COVID-19 Hans-Georg Betz Spain is among the Western European countries hardest hit by COVID19. By late April, the country had more than 200,000 COVID-19 infections, more than 22,000 had died from the disease. Madrid metropolitan area accounted for a third of all deaths, Catalonia for a further fifth. Against that, Andalusia, Spain’s most populous autonomous community, accounted for a mere five percent of all deaths. Estimates are, however, that the toll COVID-19 has inflicted on the Spanish population could be much higher than official figures suggest. Spain only recently saw the emergence of a radical-right-wing populist party. Conventional wisdom was that given Spain’s long history of right-wing dictatorship under Generalísimo Franco, the country was largely immune to radical-right-wing populist temptations. And for a long time—with a few short-lived exceptions, most notably the populist adventure of the former president of Club Atlético de Madrid, the late Jesús Gil y Gil, who in 1991 was elected mayor of Marbella and founded his very own political party, named G.I.L. (Grupo Independiente Liberal)—this largely held true.172 Until the spectacular rise of VOX that started in the regional election in Andalusia, where the party won 12 seats, propelling it into the national limelight. A few months later, VOX garnered 10 percent of the vote in the first of 2019’s two general elections; in the year’s second election—following the collapse of negotiations on the left in November 2019, VOX become the third largest party, more than doubling its seats in parliament. What differentiates populist parties in general, and radical-rightwing populist parties in particular, is that they appeal primarily to a range of emotions—anger, indignation, nostalgia and especially resentment. Radical-right-wing populist parties derive their appeal to a large extent from their ability to mobilize resentment against ‘the left’. There is a universal radical-right-wing populist narrative that charges, as the prominent

172 Federico Giustini, “Jesús Gil, calcio e populismo,” Rivista Undici, March 14, 2020, En cuarentena, https://www.republica.com/2020/03/14/ortega-smith-muestra-su-dia-a-dia -luchando-contra-los-virus-chinos-con-sus-anticuerpos-espanoles/

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Dutch leader of the Forum for Democracy, Thierry Baudet, has insisted, that the left—intellectual, cultural, political—since as far back as the 1960s has consistently pursued a strategy aimed at destroying “bourgeois society, bourgeois traditions, the bourgeois way of life of ordinary people” and thus finally establish the egalitarian utopia which informed all selfproclaimed progressive movements since the French Revolution.173 The case of VOX is exemplary, given the composition of the current Spanish government—a coalition between Spain’s traditional socialists (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos. Unidas Podemos is a left-wing populist party, whose association with Spanish communism and Latin American populism—and particularly chavismo—makes it the epitome of everything the right, and here particularly VOX, detests. VOX’s rhetoric is entirely focused on evoking diffuse feelings of resentment among parts of Spain’s population with respect to immigration and particularly the growing presence of Muslims; the question of ‘gender’ in its different manifestations; and, last but not least, the question of Catalan independence from Spain. To this one might add the question of whether or not human activities have been decisive with respect to climate change and global warming. All of these are issues championed by Unidas Podemos. Add to this the fact that the deputy prime minister is a woman (María del Carmen Calvo Poyato) with a long record of fighting for gender equality and against sexism and gender violence, VOX’s disdain for the current Spanish government is comprehensible. It is quite logical that VOX has appealed to those nostalgic for the days of Franco when “work, family, and the fatherland”—as the official motto of Vichy France went—still dictated life in Spain, when men were still men, and women knew their place in the family and in society.174 These were the days when Catalans and Basques knew they better speak castellano (Spanish) if they did not want to get into trouble. These were the days when Spain was one country under God, led by Western Europe’s most reactionary Catholic Church, which supported Franco’s clerical authoritarian regime, with el Generalisimo (General Franco) as His faithful servant. 173 Thierry Baudet, “There’s a proper reawakening across Europe going on,” Die Weltwoche, March 28, 2020, https://www.weltwoche.ch/ausgaben/2019-13/weltwoche-international/edito-thierry-baudet-die-weltwoche-ausgabe-13-2019.html. 174 Diego Rodríguez Veiga, “La conexión de dirigentes de VOX con Franco más allá de la amistad de Abascal y el bisnieto Luis Alfonso,” El Español, Novemeber 14, 2020, https: //www.elespanol.com/reportajes/20191114/conexion-dirigentes-VOX-franco-abascalluis-alfonso/444206553_0.html.

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Today, this is no longer the case. As elsewhere in Western Europe, religion has lost much of its grip on society; women are no longer content playing a subordinate role in society; and the relatively affluent Catalans and Basques are no longer prepared to foot the bill for the corruption and mismanagement that has prevailed during most of the past decades when the conservative Partido Popular led by Mariano Rajoy was in power.175 In this situation, VOX has promoted itself as the advocate of Spain’s relatively backward regions, such as Andalusia, which depend on the transfers that come from Spain’s most productive and affluent regions, such as Catalonia. Just as important, VOX promoted itself as the party that was most adamant to stop the flow of migrants from the other side of the Mediterranean. Among other measures, the party advocated building a wall around Spain’s North African enclaves, Melilla and Ceuta, which had become a magnet for African migrants seeking to reach Europe.176 At the same time, Abascal declared that he would restore the constitutional order in Catalonia and ban all “separatist parties”.177 Abascal’s avowed goal, heavily influenced by Trump’s former advisor, Steve Bannon: Hacer a España Grande Otra Vez (Make Spain Great Again), which prominently figured on Abascal’s Facebook account. Charging that the “oligarquías políticas” (the political elite) no longer believed in “our country;” that, in fact, the separatist politicians (i.e. the Catalan independence parties) and the left in general “hate the idea of Spain,” Abascal vowed as early as 2016, way before VOX exploded onto the national stage, that he would do everything to restore “our national pride and our national self-esteem.”178 This was not only directed against what Abascal considered Spain’s internal enemies and detractors, but also against the

175 Mariano Rajoy, “Mariano Rajoy se confiesa: La corrupción en el PP ha sido nuestro talón de Aquiles,” El País, December 1, 2019, https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/11/29/die as/1575043430_854468.html. 176 Chris Tomlinson, “Build a Wall: Spanish Populists Pledge ‘Impassable’ Barrier to Stop African Illegals,” Breitbart, November 10, 2019, https://www.breitbart.com/europe/20 19/11/10/build-a-wall-spanish-populists-pledge-impassable-barrier-to-stop-african-ille gals/. 177 Chris Tomlinson, “Exclusive: Populist Spanish VOX Leader Abascal Says Party Will Ban Separatist Parties,” Breitbart, October 17, 2019, https://www.breitbart.com/euro pe/2019/10/17/exclusive-VOX-leader-abascal-says-party-ban-separatist-parties/. 178 VOX España. 2016. “Santiago Abascal.—Hacer a España Grande Otra Vez. En España pasa algo que no tiene parangón en el resto de países de nuestro entorno: las oligarquías políticas no creen en nuestro país, desdeñan la Patria y creen que los españoles no tienen remedio. Los políticos separatistas y la izquierda odian la idea de España.” Facebook, June 6, 2016. https://www.facebook.com/VOX.espana/posts/835494583222631/.

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EU, which he charged, in its current form, posed a fundamental threat to Spain’s sovereignty.179 Until recently, inciting anti-Catalan and, by extension, anti-left animosities was VOX’s ideational stock-in-trade. With the COVID-19 crisis, with hundreds of deaths throughout the country, the traditional politics of resentment has lost much of its traction—particularly when Catalonia mourns significantly more deaths than Andalusia. Under the circumstances, the notion that the (relatively) poor south (i.e. Andalusia) is being short-changed as a result of Catalan egoism is largely reduced ad absurdum. With the closing of Europe’s internal borders, migration has become a moot question. And with Muslims forced to forego all of the rituals traditionally associated with Ramadan, Islamophobia is hardly a winning issue either. At the same time, however, the COVID-19 crisis has provided a number of opportunities for the populist radical right to exploit. One of the central issues these days is how governments cope with the crisis. Here Spain does not appear to have done particularly well. In early April, a poll commissioned by ABC, Spain’s leading conservative daily, revealed that more than two thirds of the Spanish population had the impression that the government was not up to the challenge. Even more thought that the country’s main opposition party, the Partido Popular, was even worse.180 By mid-April, public confidence in the way the government handled the crisis had somewhat improved, but it was a far cry from the approval ratings some leaders, such as Angela Merkel in Germany or Sebastian Kurz in Austria, boast elsewhere in Western Europe. In a special COVID-19 investigation, the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS—Centre for Sociological Research) found fewer than half of respondents expressing confidence in the government’s handling of the crisis; and less than 20 percent thought that the main opposition party would do a better job. At the same time, however, almost 90 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that the opposition parties and their leaders should cooperate with the government as much as possible and leave their differences to a later date.181 A poll from the end of the month reconfirmed 179 Santiago Abascal, “Hacer a España grande otra vez,” Libertad Digital, June 5, 2016, https://www.libertaddigital.com/opinion/santiago-abascal/hacer-a-espana-grande-otravez-79175/. 180 Mariano Calleja, “Solo uno de cada cuatro españoles apoya la gestión del Gobierno frente al COVID-19,” ABC España, June 4, 2020, https://www.abc.es/espana/abci-solocada-cuatro-espanoles-apoya-gestion-gobierno-frente-COVID-19-202004052012_noti cia.html. 181 José Marcos, “El 87,8% de los españoles cree que los partidos deben apoyar al Gobierno y dejar las críticas para más adelante, según el CIS,” El País, April 15, 2020, Avance,

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the public’s strong longing for national political unity as well as the largely negative view of the government’s handling of the crisis: more than two thirds of respondents thought that the government would come out weakened from the crisis.182 There is a second major issue associated with COVID-19 that promised to boost VOX’s political fortunes—the question of how to dampen its disastrous economic impact. The question exposed deep divisions in the Eurozone, leading to acrimonious mutual recriminations among member states. In the debate, Spain joined Italy in strongly supporting the issuing of ‘Coronabonds’ as a vehicle for debt mutualization. The idea was rejected by Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland—fiscally ‘responsible’ member states vehemently opposed to pooling liabilities with their ‘profligate’ southern neighbors. This left the latter humiliated and embittered and considerably soured public support for the EU, particularly in Italy, but also in Spain.183 In late April, in a representative poll, roughly half of respondents said they felt ‘less European’ than before the crisis; 90 percent agreed that the EU was doing little or nothing to help afflicted countries; and about 90 percent thought that the EU was now weaker than before the pandemic.184 Curiously enough, neither widespread popular disaffection with the government nor equally widespread disenchantment with the EU has helped VOX to advance in the polls. Nor has the fact that, at the onset of the crisis, the party was quick to advance a 10-point plan supposed to meet the threat posed by the virus. Among the proposed measures—and consistent with the party’s ‘skeptical’ position on climate change: that Brussels uses the money destined for ‘climate emergency’ to meet the looming

https://elpais.com/espana/2020-04-15/el-878-de-los-espanoles-creen-que-los-partidosdeben-apoyar-al-gobierno-y-dejar-las-criticas-para-mas-adelante-segun-el-cis.html. 182 Mariano Calleja, “Siete de cada diez españoles creen que la crisis pasará factura al Gobierno de Sánchez,” ABC España, April 27, 2020, https://www.abc.es/espana/abci-siete -cada-diez-espanoles-creen-crisis-pasara-factura-gobierno-sanchez-202004262258_no ticia.html. 183 Hans-Georg Betz, “After COVID-19: will Matteo Salvini lead Europe’s radical right?,” openDemocracy, April 20, 2020, Countering the Radical Right, https://www.opendem ocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/after-covid-19-will-matteo-salvini-lead-europes -radical-right/ 184 Juan Sanhermelando, “La mitad de los españoles se sienten menos europeos que antes de la crisis del COVID-19,” El Español, April 23, 2020, https://www.elespanol.com/ mundo/europa/20200423/mitad-espanoles-sienten-europeos-crisis-COVID-19/484452 378_0.html.

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health and economic emergency instead,185 and the fact that the party publicly apologized for having held a mass meeting in early March, which potentially exposed the participants to the virus. In fact, a few days after the meeting, the party’s Secretary General, Javier Ortega Smith, was tested positive, forcing the party’s whole parliamentary group to self-quarantine.186 On the contrary, in the most recent poll, support for VOX actually declined noticeably, abruptly reversing precious trends.187 Aware of these trends, the party’s leadership has pulled out all the stops to mobilize popular resentment and gain political traction. During the Coronabond controversy, the party ratcheted up its EU-critical rhetoric. Charging that the EU continued to be subservient to a ‘globalist ideology’ (mundialismo), the party called for a fundamental reform of the EU and its institutions.188 In response to the government’s obvious failure to deal with the crisis— which took a particularly heavy toll in Spain’s homes for senior citizens— VOX charged that this was nothing short of a policy of ‘euthanasia’ and notified that it would sue the government for criminal malfeasance.189 At the same time, leading VOX representatives tried to stir up antiChinese resentment. As early as March, a VOX official from Madrid had sent off several highly offensive tweets, which directly blamed the Chinese for the pandemic and Chinese tourists for disseminating them in Spain.190 At about the same time, Ortega Smith, from his self-quarantine, posted a

185 Paloma Cervilla, “Las diez medidas de VOX para salvar la economía del COVID-19,” ABC España, April 1, 2020, España, https://www.abc.es/espana/abci-diez-medidaspara-salvar-economia-COVID-19-202004010223_noticia.html. 186 “COVID-19 en VOX: Abascal anuncia que Ortega Smith ha dado positivo en las pruebas,” El Economista, March 10, 2020, Política, https://www.eleconomista.es/poli ica/noticias/10405437/03/20/Abascal-anuncia-que-Ortga-Smith-ha-dado-positivo-enCOVID-19-y-se-disculpa-por-no-haber-suspendido-el-acto-de-VOX-en-Vistalegre. html 187 Carlos E. Bayo, “Sondeos: La pandemia frena a VOX en favor del PP y afianza la mayoría progresista,” Pública, April 20, 2020, https://www.publico.es/polit ica/sondeos-pandemia-frena-VOX-favor-pp-afianza-mayoria-progresista.html 188 “Buxadé: ‘Los partidos del consenso progre están sometido al mundialismo en la UE,” VOX, April 24, 2020, https://www.VOXespana.es/actualidad/buxade-los-partidos-delconsenso-progre-estan-sometido-al-mundialismo-en-la-ue-20200424. 189 Miguel González, “VOX acusa al Gobierno de aplicar una “eutanasia feroz” con el COVID-19,” El País, April 13, 2020, https://elpais.com/espana/2020-04-13/VOXacusa-al-gobierno-de-aplicar-una-eutanasia-feroz-con-el-COVID-19.html 190 “Intolerables mensajes racistas de un edil de VOX contra ciudadanos chinos,” el Plural, February 8, 2020, https://www.elplural.com/politica/espana/intolerables-mensajes-raci stas-edil-VOX-ciudadanos-chinos_232850102.

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tweet in which he assured his followers that his “Spanish antibodies” would fight and defeat the “wretched Chinese viruses.”191 A month later, at the height of the Coronabonds controversy, the party once again tried to play the anti-Chinese card. A leading party representative alleged that the Europeans were kowtowing to China, “which had exported the pandemic and which dominated her (i.e. Europe) economically.”192 A second official posted American right-wing news sources (i.e., The Washington Times and Fox News) claiming that the virus had originated in a secret lab in Wuhan where it had been designed to level the global economic playing field and allow China to compete with the US.193 The author was VOX’s spokesman, a lawyer who in the past had distinguished himself claiming that funds designed to go to the victims of gender violence, in reality, were used by feminist organizations “to map the clitoris.”194 Again, the author’s recourse to a conspiracy theory was a quite rational strategy, given the fact that, according to a poll from late April, almost half of the Spanish population believed that the COVID-19 had been created intentionally.195 None of these strategies proved particularly effective in enhancing VOX’s political fortunes. In fact, the party’s attempts to discredit the government’s efforts to deal with the crisis quite likely backfired. In the representative poll cited above, two thirds of respondents agreed that the diffusion of ‘bulos’ (fabrications, hoaxes) in social media should be .

191 “La embajada china critica por racista a Ortega Smith tras hablar de “malditos virus chinos,” La Vanguardia, March 14, 2020, https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/2020 0314/474130186160/embajada-china-ortega-smith-racista-malditos-virus-chinos-COV ID-19.html. 192 Marina Alías, “La división en la UE por el COVID-19 saca la versión más euroescéptica de VOX,” VozPópuli, April 10, 2020, Política, https://www.vozpopuli.com/politica/VOX-aprovecha-UE-COVID-19-euroesceptica_0_1344466076.html. 193 Buxadé, Jorge (@Jorgebuxade). 2020. “Washington Post, Fox News confirman que el paciente cero del COVID-19 era empleado del famoso laboratorio de virología de la ciudad china de Wuhan.” Twitter, April 17, 2020, 11:55 a.m. https://twitter.com/Jorgeb uxade/status/1251192567431147522. 194 Isabel Morillo, “Las ayudas no acaban en las maltratadas sino en programas para el mapa del clítoris,” El Confidencial, January 1, 2019, Andalucía, https://www.elconfi dencial.com/espana/andalucia/2019-01-12/las-ayudas-no-acaban-en-las-maltratadas-si no-en-programas-para-el-mapa-del-clitoris_1754086/. 195 Mariano Calleja, “La mitad de los ciudadanos se apuntan a la teoría de la conspiración sobre el origen del virus,” ABC España, April 27, 2020, España, https://www.abc.es/esp ana/abci-mitad-ciudadanos-apuntan-teoria-conspiracion-sobre-origen-virus-20200427 0220_noticia.html#vca=mod-lo-mas-p5&vmc=leido&vso=espana&vli=noticia.foto.es pana&vtm_loMas=si.

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prohibited.196 The assertion that the virus was intentionally created certainly belongs in the category of fake news—as does the notion that the government was intent on letting elderly citizens die from the pandemic.197 This type of ‘policy’ might have a certain appeal in Texas, but in Spain decidedly not. Any serious Western European political party, which claims that there might be such a policy, deserves the public opprobrium it will receive. To be sure, at the end of this crisis, Spain’s coalition government is hardly going to emerge unblemished. Particularly Unidas Podemos will have to do a lot of explaining. As will VOX. Neither of them is in a particularly strong position. Those who have promoted populism as a panacea for the very genuine ills affecting liberal democracy might want to study the Spanish case. Their enthusiasm might take a significant dent.

196 José Marcos, “El CIS pregunta si hay que mantener la “libertad total” de información sobre el COVID-19,” El País, April 15, 2020, Barómetro CIS, https://elpais.com/esp ana/2020-04-15/el-cis-pregunta-si-hay-que-mantener-la-libertad-total-de-informacionsobre-el-COVID-19.html. 197 Bess Levin, “Texas Lt. Governor: Old People Should Volunteer to Die to Save the Economy,” Vanity Fair, March 24, 2020, COVID-19, https://www.vanity fair.com/news/2020/03/dan-patrick-COVID-19-grandparents.

Chapter 3: COVID-19 and Radical-Right Conspiracy Theories

The Oldest Hatred,198 Conspiracy Theories and the COVID-19 Pandemic Tamir Bar-On Conspiracy theories believe in an ‘occult force’, which operates behind the veil of supposedly ‘real’ social and political life.199 Moreover, “visible reality is no more than an illusion, a smokescreen that conceals the sinister machinations of some powerful, secretive and menacing cabal.”200 AntiSemitic conspiracy theorists believe that Jews lead a drive for world government that would subjugate and even kill the nations of the world through a staged pandemic. They used the COVID-19 crisis to peddle online hashtags such as #SorosVirus, #IsraelVirus, and #NWOVirus, which are references to the state of Israel and George Soros, the Jewish philanthropist who allegedly promotes a ‘globalist’ New World Order.201 In Germany, anti-lockdown protests led by the radical right have mockingly worn the Nazi-era Star of David (the symbol of Holocaust concentration camp victims), thereby leading to its ban in Munich.202 Few people are aware that anti-Semitism has reached its highest levels in the US since 1979, and, both in the US and globally, anti-Semitic incidents have surpassed anti-Muslim hate crimes.203 In this article, I focus on anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that proliferated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is my argument that anti-Semitism is a latent force in various societies around the world and that it increases in periods of historical crises. I use a five-fold typology of the most common anti-Semitic conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 and apply it to radical-right-wing and Islamist conspiracy theories that have emerged 198 John Mann, Anti-Semitism: The Oldest Hatred—Essays, Speeches and Other Writings (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 199 Jovan Byford, Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction (Basingstoke: PalgraveMacmillan, 2011), p. 2. 200 Ibid. 201 Lee Harpin, “Covid-19 pandemic sees Jewish and Chinese communities targeted,” The Jewish Chronicle, April 29, 2020, https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/covid-19-pan demic-sees-jewish-and-chinese-communities-targeted-1.499315. 202 Deutsche Welle, “Munich bans use of Nazi ‘Jewish star’ at COVID-19 protests,” May 31, 2020, https://www.dw.com/en/munich-bans-use-of-nazi-jewish-star-at-COVID-19protests/a-53644792. 203 Abigail R. Esman, “Is Ignorance About the Holocaust Connected to Soaring Anti-Semitism?,” IPT News, June 4, 2020, https://www.investigativeproject.org/8422/is-ignor ance-about-the-holocaust-connected-to.

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with the worldwide pandemic. The paper is split into three parts. First, I provide a number of definitions of anti-Semitism. Secondly, I highlight and classify the various anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that emerged after the rise of COVID-19. Lastly, I relate the current wave of anti-Semitism to its historical antecedents. This article also suggests that anti-Semitism and racism are related social phenomena in that they both target specific ‘others’ for political and social purposes related to the maintenance of power relations. Yet, anti-Semitism is also distinctive from racism because it has arguably tended towards more genocidal manifestations in various countries today, including with far right and Islamist forces. Bernard Lewis insists that anti-Semitism is a special case of prejudice or persecution.204 For Lewis, anti-Semitism is connected to two central features: Jews are judged by different standards compared to other groups and they embody a cosmic evil that requires their eradication.205 So, for example, sometimes so-called ‘anti-racists’ can engage in extreme forms of anti-Zionism and legitimize it by claiming that the ‘Zionists’ are ‘racists’, ‘imperialists’ or ‘Nazis’. This was the case at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, where copies of the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion were sold on the conference grounds.206 Moreover, generic denunciations against ‘racism’ fail to see how Jew-hatred has a long, distinctive, and genocidal history; how it holds Israel and Jews to different moral standards compared to other states and peoples; how it increasingly targets the ‘collective Jew’ (i.e., the state of Israel); and the uniqueness of continuing forms of genocidal anti-Semitism (or religiocide— the destruction of a religion) as there are movements and regimes that refuse to even recognize Israel and would like to “drive the Jews into the sea.”207

Origins and definitions of anti-Semitism The Austrian Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816–1907) was likely the first to use the term anti-Semitism. He responded to the antiSemitism of French philosopher Ernest Renan: “The compound anti204 Bernard Lewis Lewis, “The New Anti-Semitism,” The American Scholar, 75 (1) (Winter 2006): pp. 25–36. 205 Ibid. 206 Elihai Braun, “United Nations: UN World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance—Durban, South Africa,” Jewish Virtual Library, August 31-September 8, 2001, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/U N/durban1.html. 207 Ahmed Shukairy (former head of the Palestine Liberation Organization), quoted in Richard L.Rubinstein, Jihad and Genocide (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010), p. 4.

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Semitism appears to have been used first by Steinschneider, who challenged Renan on account of his ‘anti-Semitic prejudices’ [i.e., his idea that the ‘Semites’ are a race].”208 Wilhelm Marr, a German journalist, published a pamphlet in 1879 entitled Der Sieg des Judenthums über das Germanenthum. Vom nicht confessionellen Standpunkt aus betrachtet (The Victory of the Jewish Spirit over the Germanic Spirit: Observed from a non-religious perspective). In this pamphlet, Marr used the word Semitismus interchangeably with the word Judentum to denote both ‘Jewry’ (the Jews as a collective) and ‘Jewishness’ (Jewish being or spirit).209 In addition, Marr coined the term Antisemitismus, which connoted opposition to Jews as a people because they supposedly sullied German culture.210 “Anti-Semitism is unique as a global hatred,” stated the “5th Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism.”211 It is prevalent in all regions of the world and there is even a phenomenon that is dubbed “anti-Semitism without Jews.”212 Some scholars such as Hannah Arendt date the origins of antiSemitism to the 19th century, while others like Léon Poliakov see it as an ‘older’ or ‘ancient’ hatred.213 Anti-Semitism is “a persisting latent structure of hostile beliefs towards Jews as a collective manifested in individuals as attitudes, and in culture as myth, ideology, folklore and imagery, and in actions—social or legal discrimination, political mobilization against the Jews, and collective or state violence—which results in and/or is designed to distance, displace or destroy Jews as Jews.”214 Simply put, anti-Semitism “is hatred of Jews and Judaism. Jews are perceived as an enemy by anti-

208 Alex Bein, The Jewish Question: Biography of a World Problem (Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990), p. 594. 209 Rusi Jaspal, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism: Representation, Cognition and Everyday Talk (New York: Routledge, 2016), pp. 20–21. 210 Ibid. 211 Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “5th Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism,” 2015, https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutTheMinistry/Conferences-Seminars/Pages/5th-Gl obal-Forum-for-Combating-Antisemitism.aspx. 212 Paul Lendvai, Anti-Semitism without Jews: Communist Eastern Europe (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971); Manfred Böcker, Antisemitismus ohne Juden. Die zweite Republik, die antirepublikanische Rechte und die Juden (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2000). 213 Hannah Arendt, Antisemitism: Part One of The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968), pp. vii–xii; Léon Poliakov, The History of AntiSemitism: From the Time of Christ to the Court Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003); The History of Anti-Semitism: From Mohammed to the Marranos (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). 214 Helen Fein, “Dimensions of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes, Collective Accusations, and Actions,” in Helen Fein (ed.), The Persisting Question: Sociological Perspectives and Social Contexts of Modern Antisemitism (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987), p. 67.

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Semites.”215 Today anti-Semitism is increasingly masked as anti-Zionism with the target usually the state of Israel, which is viewed as a Jewish collectivity. Criticism of Israel is acceptable, but the failure to accept Jewish statehood amongst all the nations in the world can lapse into anti-Semitism.

Classifying COVID-19 conspiracy theories Jeffrey M. Bale has suggested that we might think of a distinction between bogus conspiracy theories and genuine (real) conspiratorial politics.216 This distinction is useful as Bale argues that in reality governments frequently conspire behind the backs of their citizens. For genuine conspiratorial politics, one must find real political, economic, and cultural institutions, specific political players, and evidence. Bogus conspiracies, including anti-Semitic conspiracies, are often based on a hatred for the Jews; preconceived ideas of a Jewish drive for world domination; and they offer little evidence for their claims. The Community Security Trust in the United Kingdom has highlighted five of those bogus conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 and Jews: 1) The virus is fake and no more than a Jewish conspiracy for global political, cultural (including mass media), and economic control (i.e., the official story is untrue because the media is largely Jewish-owned); 2) The virus is real, but caused by a Jewish conspiracy (i.e., the plot might be led by ‘Zionists’, rich financiers such as George Soros, Jews wanting to attain financial gain by blaming the virus on China and wanting to start a world war, or the US, China, and Israel); 3) Jews are the primary spreaders of the virus (i.e., it is a ‘Jew-flu’); 4) Celebrating Jewish death (i.e., the large number of Jewish deaths in New York have been celebrated, with some falsely claiming that Jews are more likely to get COVID-19 due to larger nasal cavities); and 5) Let’s spread it to the Jews (i.e., using the COVID19 pandemic as an opportunity to kill Jews and promote genocide).217

215 Rita J. Simon and Jeffrey A. Schaler, “Anti-Semitism the World Over in the Twentyfirst Century,” Current Psychology 26 (2007): 154. 216 Jeffrey M. Bale, “Political paranoia v. political realism: On distinguishing between bogus conspiracy theories and genuine conspiratorial politics,” Patterns of Prejudice 41 (1): 45–60. 217 The Community Security Trust (United Kingdom), “Coronovirus and the Plague of Antisemitism,” Research Briefing, 2020, pp. 1–10, file:///C:/Users/L01324228/Desktop/ COVID-19RadicalRight/COVID-19%20and%20the%20plague%20of%20antisemitis m.1586276450.pdf.

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COVID-19 conspiracy theories and Jews On both sides of the Atlantic, violent anti-Semitic incidents have been on the rise, as highlighted by the murder of 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; the 2017 Charlottesville March and the chants of “Jews will not replace us”; the Islamic State attack on a kosher store in Paris in 2015; and the terrorist attack against the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014. Attacks against Jews have risen 13 percent in Germany recently, including the terrorist shooting near a synagogue in Halle in 2019, which left two dead.218 In France, Jews have been permanently leaving to Israel for many years and this has prompted the following question: Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe?219 In both Europe and North America, radicalright-wing nationalists, left-wing anti-Zionists, and Islamists share a hatred for Jews and the state of Israel. According to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, COVID19 has created a “tsunami of hate,” including a surge in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.220 Those anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are “promoted mainly by extreme rightists, ultra-conservative Christian circles, Islamists, and to a minor extent by the far-left, each group according to its narrative and beliefs—such as different conspiracy theories as well as the image of the Jew as a producer of diseases.”221 Recall that the Community Security Trust noted that the second type of anti-Semitic conspiracy was related to the idea that the virus is real but a Jewish conspiracy. White supremacists played on stereotypes of Jewish wealth and claimed that “Jews Control Chinese Labs That Created COVID-19.”222 The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) noted that far right-wing extremists blamed Jews for the pandemic and held them responsible for the state-wide shutdown measures. Moreover, the FBI also 218 Hugh Williamson, “In Germany, Anti-Semitism Creeps into Covid-19 Protests,” Human Rights Watch, May 19, 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/19/germany-an ti-semitism-creeps-covid-19-protests. 219 Jeffrey Goldberg, “Is It Time for the Jews to Leave Europe?,” The Atlantic, April 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/is-it-time-for-the-jews-to-leav e-europe/386279/. 220 United Nations, “UN chief appeals for global action against COVID-19-fueled hate speech,” UN News, May 8, 2020, https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1063542. 221 Tel Aviv University, “Antisemitic manifestations worldwide—2019 and the beginning of 2020,” Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, April 20, 2020, https://english.m.tau.ac.il/news/antisemitism-report-2019. 222 Flora Cassen, “‘Jews Control Chinese Labs That Created COVID-19’: White Supremacists’ Dangerous New Conspiracy Theory,” Haaretz, May 3, 2020, https://www.haar etz.com/jewish/.premium-the-jews-control-the-chinese-labs-that-created-COVID-19-1 .8809635.

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pointed out that neo-Nazis and white supremacists encourage those that contracted COVID-19 to spread the disease to Jews and the police.223 This is related to the Community Security Trust’s fifth point that the virus could be used as an opportunity to spread it among the Jews. Also, some on the far right have dubbed the pandemic “a hoax and floated the falsehood that the crisis is being orchestrated by Jews or China.”224 This is connected to the Community Security Trust’s first conspiracy, where the virus is seen as fake but also an opportunity for greater Jewish political and economic control worldwide. The Anti-Defamation League was particularly harsh on Facebook, arguing that its platform allowed for the spread of conspiracy theories, lies and hate speech.225 Islamists from Hamas to al-Qaeda and the Taliban are anti-Semitic to the core. Not surprisingly, Islamists dubbed COVID-19 “a ZionistAmerican conspiracy.”226 One of Chicago’s most notorious anti-Semites has responded to the COVID-19 outbreak in a despicable manner: He blamed Jews and encouraged Muslims to arm themselves against their Jewish neighbors.227 In a moment of surreal fantasy, a guest on Turkish television claimed that Jews and Zionists had created COVID-19, avian flu, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in order to “design the world, seize countries, [and] neuter the world’s population.”228 Iran’s Press TV insists that “Zionist elements developed a deadlier strain of COVID-19 against Iran.”229 When there were still very few COVID-19 cases in Israel 223 Josh Margolin, “White supremacists encouraging their members to spread COVID-19 to cops, Jews, FBI says,” ABC News, March 23, 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/US/white -supremacists-encouraging-members-spread-COVID-19-cops-jews/story?id=69737522. 224 Souad Mekhennet, “Far-right and radical Islamist groups are exploiting COVID-19 turmoil,” Washington Post, April 10, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/far-right-wing-and-radical-islamist-groups-are-exploiting-COVID-19-turmoil /2020/04/10/0ae0494e-79c7-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html. 225 Anti-Defamation League, “Extremists Use COVID-19 to Advance Racist, Conspiratorial Agendas,” March 10, 2010, https://www.adl.org/blog/extremists-use-COVID-19to-advance-racist-conspiratorial-agendas. 226 Hany Ghoraby, “Islamists Call COVID-19 a Zionist-American Conspiracy,” Algemeiner, March 17, 2020, https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/04/20/anti-semitism-inciden ts-worldwide-rose-18-in-2019-study-finds/. 227 Hasheam Shehab, “Top Islamist preacher urges Muslims to arm themselves amid COVID-19 threats,” IsraelHayom, April 28, 2020, https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/04/ 28/top-islamist-preacher-urges-muslims-to-arm-themselves-amid-COVID-19-threats/. 228 Eric Cortellessa, “Conspiracy theory that Jews created virus spreads on social media, ADL says,” The Times of Israel, March 14, 2020, https://www.timesofisrael.com/consp iracy-theory-that-jews-created-virus-spreads-on-social-media-adl-says/. 229 Seth J. Frantzman, “Iran’s regime pushes antisemitic conspiracies about COVID-19,” Jerusalem Post, March 8, 2020, https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-News/Iransregime-pushes-antisemitic-conspiracies-about-COVID-19-620212.

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and the US, Arab media outlets insisted that Israel and the US were conspiring against China and spreading a deadly cocktail consisting of COVID-19, avian flu, and SARS.230 These aforementioned Islamist conspiracy theories are related to the idea that the virus is real, but in effect a Jewish or American conspiracy against Muslims.

Conclusion In conclusion, radical-right-wing nationalists and Islamists have attempted to use the COVID-19 pandemic in order to push their anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Anti-Semitism is a human problem, not merely a ‘Jewish problem’. Yet, it is often perceived as a ‘Jewish problem’ and anti-Semites even blame Jews for anti-Semitism, arguing that Jews have too many ‘privileges’ in the societies they live in. If we think of Holocaust education, Euro-American societies have made tremendous progress in fighting antiSemitism. Unlike other dark chapters in history, the EU countries or North American governments are not openly anti-Semitic. As memory of the horrors of the Holocaust fade, civil society initiatives and legal mechanisms to fight anti-Semitic hate crimes are necessary. If anti-Semitism rises to extreme levels, the state of Israel acts as a safety mechanism and guarantee for Jewish survival. Unfortunately, the Islamic Republic of Iran regularly calls for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people, but there are muted reactions from the international community. The ‘oldest hatred’ never really goes away and seems to rear its ugly head in times of unprecedented crises. Even the notion of a resurgent anti-Semitism can be turned into a conspiracy theory in which powerful Jewish elites use the cudgel of anti-Semitism in order to supposedly enhance sympathy for Jews. Moreover, when a vaccine against COVID-19 is discovered, people might die because they distrust their governments and could believe that it would be another Jewish conspiracy to kill the peoples and nations of the world.

230 Jerusalem Post, “Arab media accuse US, Israel of COVID-19 conspiracy against China,” February 9, 2020, https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Arab-media-accuseUS-Israel-of-COVID-19-conspiracy-against-China-617021.

COVID-19 and the Radical Right: Conspiracy, Disinformation and Xenophobia Julia R. DeCook On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic.231 Originally identified in Wuhan, China, in late December, COVID-19 is a novel virus that causes flu and pneumonia-like symptoms. As of March 12, 2020, the number of infected persons worldwide had surpassed 100,000, with nearly 100 countries reporting cases of the virus. In the US, response to the crisis has been slow—initial reports of the virus’s presence were reported in the Pacific Northwest region in the Seattle area, and it has since spread to nearly every single US state. Notably, the response to the crisis by the right-wing media establishment may be contributing to this lack of response by the government to control the growing number of cases. In particular, the Fox News media machine, right-wing social media pages and accounts, and right-wing ‘celebrities’ have been spreading considerable amounts of misinformation, xenophobia, and conspiracy theories about the virus. The conspiracy theories about the virus vary, from it being a biological weapon created by the Chinese government, a conspiracy created by US Democrats to prevent Trump’s re-election or a virus created by the CIA in order to lessen China’s power.232 Another conspiracy theory that has been circulating, due to a QAnon conspiracy theorist on YouTube, is that the COVID-19 pandemic was created by the Pirbright Institute in England and

231 Bill Chappell, “COVID-19: COVID-19 Is Now Officially A Pandemic, WHO Says,” National Public Radio, March 11, 2020, The COVID-19 Crisis, https://www.npr. org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/11/814474930/COVID-19-covid-19-is-now-offici ally-a-pandemic-who-says. 232 “China COVID-19: Misinformation spreads online about origin and scale,” BBC News, January 30, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-51271037; Ryan Broderick, “Trump’s Biggest Supporters Think The COVID-19 Is A Deep State Plot,” BuzzFeed, February 26, 2020, COVID-19, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/ trump-supporters-COVID-19-deep-state-qanon; “China’s rulers see the COVID-19 as a chance to tighten their grip,” The Economist, February 8, 2020, China, https://www. economist.com/china/2020/02/08/chinas-rulers-see-the-COVID-19-as-a-chance-to-tig hten-their-grip.

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Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft.233 The themes that emerge from these conspiracy theories point to fears and anxieties typical of the right-wing surrounding globalization, multiculturalism and government cover-ups on the level of the belief of a ‘New World Order.’ Additionally, Twitter analysis found that there are a number of bots that are intentionally spreading disinformation about the virus and the pandemic itself, further strengthening beliefs among conspiracy theorists and the radical right that the media is ‘overblowing’ the significance of the virus.234 Donald Trump, the president of the US, has actively been retweeting and sharing information that is blatantly false about COVID-19, specifically that the US has contained the virus, as well as false information about the fatality rate.235 Conspiracy theories, misinformation and propaganda have spread during all pandemics since the beginning of time. Desperate to understand and give meaning to the chaos that seems to be ensuing around them, people have always tried to find the ‘cause’ or someone/something to blame for outbreaks of disease. What we are seeing today is similar to how people have historically responded to outbreaks of disease; however, what has changed since the last officially declared pandemic in 2009 of H1N1 (swine flu) is not only the number of cases and countries the virus has impacted, but also the technological evolution of social media and the farright online ecosystem. Thus, understanding the role that social media and networks of connectivity have in using pandemics discursively for the radical right is crucial in examining how this discourse will evolve in the coming months.

‘The medical deep state’ COVID-19, like other pandemics, has been politicized among the far right in the US and worldwide to stoke the fire of Sinophobia, hatred toward the

233 Kyle Mantyla, “Josh Bernstein: The COVID-19 Outbreak Is a Democratic and Chinese Conspiracy Against Trump,” Right Wing Watch, March 11, 2020, https://www. rightwingwatch.org/post/josh-bernstein-the-COVID-19-outbreak-is-a-democratic-andchinese-conspiracy-against-trump/ 234 Jessica Glenza, “COVID-19: US says Russia behind disinformation campaign,” The Guardian, February 22, 2020, COVID-19 outbreak, https://www.theguardian.com/wo rld/2020/feb/22/COVID-19-russia-disinformation-campaign-us-officials. 235 Miriam Elder, “Fox News And Donald Trump Are Embracing Xenophobia To Defend Against The COVID-19,” BuzzFeed, March 10, 2020, COVID-19, https://www.buzz feednews.com/article/miriamelder/COVID-19-fox-news-trump-china.

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left, and xenophobia toward immigrants in general.236 The stark differences between the ways that right-wing media and official sources (like WHO) refer to the virus highlight the ways that the pandemic is being politicized. For instance, Fox News personalities like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham repeatedly refer to COVID-19 as the “Chinese COVID19” or even “the Wuhan flu.”237 These intentional choices in how news media are naming the virus also point to the ways that outbreaks are used to stigmatize entire groups of people. Right-wing media figures have also used the outbreak to justify the building of the border wall, halt immigration, and disparage the US’s dependence on the Chinese economy. From a scholarly standpoint, research on conspiracy theories as well as rumors can highlight the mechanisms by which these beliefs are not only cultivated but also spread. Research has shown that conspiracy theories often emerge during times of crises as a means of trying to take back control over a chaotic world.238 In particular, groups that feel the most powerless and helpless in general are the ones most likely to embrace conspiracy theories.239 Disinformation campaigns during this time, then, are used to not only take advantage of a situation to reduce uncertainty, but also to make people embrace this version of truth for nefarious purposes, and correcting disinformation is a difficult if not almost impossible task. The 24-hour news cycle and a click-based model of engagement for consumers is further confounding the information environment, making attempts to correct false information often futile or it sometimes even backfires.240 Rumor and disinformation, then, find a fertile breeding ground for their creation and spread during times of distress and uncertainty. Particularly, rumor researchers point to the need for humans to make sense of 236 Tom Mockaitis, “What we can learn from past pandemics,” The Hill, March 11, 2020, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/487111-what-we-can-learn-from-past-pandem ics; Miriam Elder, “Fox News And Donald Trump Are Embracing Xenophobia To Defend Against The COVID-19,” BuzzFeed, March 10, 2020, Politics, https://www.buzzf eednews.com/article/miriamelder/COVID-19-fox-news-trump-china. 237 Inae Oh, “Fox News Can’t Decide if COVID-19 Is a Real Threat or an Impeachment Scam,” Mother Jones, March 10, 2020, https://www.motherjones.com/media/2020/03/ fox-news-COVID-19-impeachment/. 238 Robert H. Knapp, “A Psychology of Rumor,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 8, no.1 (1944): 22–37. 239 Monika Grzesiak-Feldman, “The Effect of High-Anxiety Situations on Conspiracy Thinking,” Current Psychology, 32, (2013): 100–118. 240 Emily Thorson, “Belief Echoes: The Persistent Effects of Corrected Misinformation,” Political Communication, 33, no.6 (2016): 460–480; Brendan Nyhan, “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions,” Political Behaviour, 32, (2010): 303–330.

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their world for an explanation as to why rumor persists in communities.241 During a pandemic, powerlessness and helplessness are exacerbated further because people are actively guarding themselves against something that they cannot see. In lieu of being able to fight a ‘physical’ virus, they then turn their blame towards things that are more tangible: in the context of the US, these tangible figures of blame (and subsequent attack) are Asians and Democrats. The term ‘attack’ is literal here—reports of physical attacks and other acts of discrimination targeted towards Asians and Asian Americans in the US has gone up since news broke of COVID-19, and has only increased as the virus spreads across the country.242 For some, the virus is being used as a justification to act out already held racist beliefs and attitudes towards Asians, who historically have been treated as a form of ‘yellow peril’ that would invade and destroy.243 Rumors, hoaxes and conspiracy theories that have been spread during this time not only reify historical beliefs about Asians in the West, but also present information in a causal structure that makes them easy to remember, repeat and share with others. The politicization of COVID-19 by the far right, then, points to the ways in which these modes of discourse serve as narratives that reinforce a group identity and worldview that has a historical basis. Currently, we are seeing the immediate impact of these disinformation campaigns by witnessing not only the disinformation being repeated by reporters, but also by the lack of response from the highest levels of government in the US.244 Although these rumors and conspiracy theories may serve a function for collective sense-making on the right, only time will tell how the COVID-19 pandemic will be used for political means moving forward.

241 Ralph L. Rosnow, “Inside rumor: A personal journey,” American Psychologist, 46, no.5 (1991): 484–496. 242 Matthew Lee, “COVID-19 fears show how ‘model minority’ Asian Americans become the ‘yellow peril’,” NBC News, March 9, 2020, Self Explanatory, https://www.nbc news.com/think/opinion/COVID-19-fears-show-how-model-minority-asian-americans -become-yellow-ncna1151671?fbclid=IwAR0i2F8I6jYVxRYiB1j1cYCo9VsrQgjr1V k6whp3lk4dJCumk_WnPsYVJkU 243 Ibid. 244 Gilad Edelman, “Can Political Reporters Handle the Covid-19 Disinformation Machine?,” Wired, March 10, 2020, Ideas, https://www.wired.com/story/should-politicalreporters-be-quarantined-from-covering-covid-19/.

The Dangers of Right-Wing COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories Leonard Weinberg At first, it seems hard to believe that reactions to the now worldwide COVID-19 pandemic would divide American political leaders and ordinary citizens along ideological lines.245 But, in fact, it has.

Artwork By Rantt Media Production Designer Madison Anderson.

It began with President Trump’s initial take that the disease was a political ‘hoax’ along the lines of other unfounded efforts to discredit him and his administration.246 When COVID-19 reached the US, Trump initially told reporters there were only a few cases and whatever danger the disease posed would go away quickly, leaving the country no worse for wear. Here are some remarks President Trump made and the dates he made them: January 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

245 Kaz Weida, “What Is COVID-19: Cases, Symptoms, And How To Avoid It,” Rantt Media, March 14, 2020, https://rantt.com/COVID-19-explained. 246 Ahmed Baba, “A Complete Analysis Of Trump’s 162nd Unpresidented Week As POTUS,” Rantt Media, March 2, 2020, https://rantt.com/trump-unpresidented-week162-COVID-19.

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Other figures in the ‘conservative’ movement were quick to follow Trump’s lead. Fox News (e.g., Sean Hannity) and Rush Limbaugh, the influential talk-radio personality, mocked the threat.247 It was all a product of the liberal imagination. To quote Washington Post journalist Robert Costa: Inside the Republican Party and the conservative movement Trump commands, there is now a deep divide as the nation confronts the COVID-19. For weeks many on the right … minimized the virus, if they considered it at all. Even in recent days, as much of the world shuts down to try to stop its spread, some Republicans mocked what they saw as a media-driven frenzy.248

Fox Business host Trish Regan went as far as to accuse Democrats of using COVID-19 as “another attempt to impeach the President.” Her show has since been suspended. You can’t make this up. @FoxBusiness is claiming that #COVID19 is being used by Dems as ‘another attempt to impeach the President.’ This comes as 5 @GOP congressmen are self-quarantining due to the virus, including Trump’s own future Chief of Staff.249

247 Ibid. 248 Robert Costa, “As much of America takes drastic action, some Republicans remain skeptical of the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic,” The Washington Post, March 17, 2020, Politics, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-much-of-america-takes-dr astic-action-some-republicans-remain-skeptical-of-the-severity-of-the-COVID-19-pan demic/2020/03/17/f8b199c8-6786-11ea-b313-df458622c2cc_story.html. 249 Baba, Ahmed (@AhmedBaba). 2020. “You can’t make this up. @FoxBusinessis claiming that #COVID19 is being used by Dems as “another attempt to impeach the President.” This comes as 5 @GOPcongressmen are self-quarantining due to the virus, including Trump’s own future Chief of Staff.” Twitter, March 9, 2020, 7:07 p.m. https:// twitter.com/ahmedbaba_/status/1237183270086942720?lang=es.

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Accordingly, Republican Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida donned a large-sized gas mask and wore it in the halls of Congress to show his contempt for the whole COVID-19 ‘hoax’. This proved ironic as he later had to self-quarantine after being exposed to someone with COVID-19. One day you’re trolling people worried about #COVID2019, the next you’re selfquarantined. Life comes at you fast @RepMattGaetz. In all seriousness, I hope he’s well and learns a valuable lesson about integrity from this.250

250 Baba, Ahmed (@AhmedBaba_). 2020. “One day you’re trolling people worried about #COVID2019, the next you’re self-quarantined. Life comes at you fast @RepMattGaetz. In all seriousness, I hope he’s well and learns a valuable lesson about integrity from this.” Twitter, March 9, 2020, 2:28 p.m. https://twitter.com/AhmedBaba_/status/1237112954505646082.

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Then there is the devil-may-care reaction. Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Kevin Stitt, the GOP governor of Oklahoma, urged citizens to go to bars and restaurants over the weekend of March 13–15 (when the impact of the COVID19 had become apparent) and have a good time. ICYMI @SundayFutures with @MariaBartiromo important COVID-19 info| -Don’t Panic there’s no food shortage/stay home if you’re sick/Elderly folks with health issues are vulnerable/If healthy, support local workers and economy-shop and eat local!251

Some on the right who came to take the threat more seriously explained the disease in conspiratorial terms. For example, Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas claimed the COVID-19 was a bio-weapon, engineered by a bio-chemical warfare unit in Wuhan to weaken China’s American adversaries. Other conspiracy theories were not long in appearing on social media. These efforts seem to have been intended to personalize the threat. Thus Bill Gates, the enormously wealthy founder of Microsoft, was claimed to be behind the whole thing because his philanthropy had invested, evidently, in a program of biological research on livestock diseases. Then, of course, there was the old standby George Soros, to add a touch of anti-Semitism to the conspiracy. Soros, a liberal-minded 251 Nunes, Devin (@DevinNunes). 2020. “ICYMI @SundayFutures with @MariaBartiromo important COVID-19 info—Don’t Panic there’s no food shortage/stay home if you’re sick/Elderly folks with health issues are vulnerable/If healthy, support local workers and economy-shop and eat local!” Twitter, March 15, 2020, 1:38 p.m. https://twitter.com/devinnunes/status/1239274682320207873.

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billionaire investor of Hungarian origins, has become a target for rightwing abuse in both Europe (Viktor Orbán’s Hungary especially) and America (through his sponsorship of the New America Foundation).252 Other conspiratorially-minded tweeters asserted that the country’s major pharmaceutical manufacturers had conspired to spread COVID-19 in order to sell more anti-viral drugs. The initial dismissal of the threat posed by COVID-19 by President Trump and other GOP leaders had consequences for the Party’s voters and supporters. A USA Today poll, taken some weeks ago, found that Republicans were substantially less likely to regard the virus as a serious health risk than other Americans.253 The same difference also applied in the case of frequent hand-washing, the first precaution mentioned and repeated by public health officials. GOP supporters were significantly less likely to heed this warning than citizens in general. A similar difference seems to fit state practices as well. Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC television commentator, reported that seven states had not yet adopted state-wide public health directives to fight the infection. After checking with the National Governors’ Conference, she listed Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho, and Wyoming as behind the curve.254 What these states have in common is that they all have Republican governors. A handful of GOP leaders, though, were quick to react to the pandemic. Take the case of Senator Richard Burr, Chair of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee. In his capacity, Burr receives almost daily briefings on national security problems facing the US. After being warned by intelligence officials of the threat posed by COVID-19, Burr informed a private meeting of wealthy constituents more than a month ago (February 2020) about the severe threat of the emerging pandemic—at a time when President Trump was downplaying the danger. As reported by the BBC, Burr and his wife took advantage of this ‘insider’ knowledge by selling $1.7 million worth of stocks before the market crashed. Another GOP senator and Intelligence Committee member, 252 Archie Henderson, “George Soros Targeted By Anti-Semitic Meme That Predates The Nazis,” Rantt Media, April 27, 2019, https://rantt.com/george-soros-targeted-by-antisemitic-meme-which-predates-the-nazis. 253 Likhitha Butchireddygari, “How Concerned Are Americans About COVID-19 So Far?,” Five Thirty Eight, March 13, 2020, Pollapalooza, https://fivethirtyeight.com/feat ures/how-concerned-are-americans-about-COVID-19-so-far/. 254 Lee Moran, “Rachel Maddow Names And Shames The 7 States Not ‘Doing Much At All’ About COVID-19,” Huffpost, March 19, 2020, Politics, https://www.huffpost. com/entry/rachel-maddow-7-states-COVID-19_n_5e733ce5c5b63c3b648adff2.

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Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, sold assets worth approximately $3 million immediately following the committee briefing. The BBC account goes on to point out that US law makes it a crime for members of Congress to trade based on ‘insider information’.255 Will the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr choose to bring charges? One cannot help but be skeptical.

255 “COVID-19: US Senators face calls to resign over ‘insider trading’,” BBC News, March 20, 2020, US & Canada, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51976484.

Apocalypse Now: The Conspiracy Theories of the Radical Right Chamila Liyanage Conspiracy theories create insecurity. If malevolent forces are said to manipulate everything on earth—the economy, politics, society, vaccination, agriculture, education, media and life itself—it affects the sense of security and normalcy that people need to feel in order to live ordinary lives. If such a threat is said to be against culture and the identity of a group of people, threat perceptions can become personal. If governments are said to be puppets in the hands of such malevolent forces, it affects public trust in the democratic political system. Public servants who were once trusted and elected by the people could suddenly be seen as strangers—members of a secret cabal who plot against their citizens. Conspiracy theories create beliefs that teeter on the edges of a real world and a fictitious one. If the difference between the real world and an imaginary one can no longer be recognized (due to the shadowy forces that are said to be at work), then it’s no longer a normal state of affairs; reality has become alien. Such a strange place can justify extreme reactions that are simply not necessary in an ordinary world. The breakdown of a normal state of affairs, real or imaginary, is crucial to making people wary and letting them develop threat perceptions to the point where they justify and even resort to extreme reactions. What are the ideas behind the key conspiracy storylines that help create beliefs framing and justifying the cause of the radical right? Why does the radical right have to embrace radical traditionalism, achieve ethno-nations for the ‘master races’ (or majority ethnic groups), and defend ethno-cultural identities in the first place? It’s due to a perceived threat: the potential elimination of ethno-cultural identities of the European people and then the ethno-cultural identities of the rest of the world. In fact, ethno-cultural identities are part of individual and group identities. In the real world, there is no arbitrary threat that tries to strip a person of his or her ethno-cultural heritage, made up of one’s ancestral customs, beliefs, and traditions. In fact, racial and ethnic identity development is an effortless process similar to language

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acquisition that runs through children’s infancy to adolescence and is considered a major cognitive milestone.256 Though it’s understandable that in the current complex world of heightened global interactions and the resulting increased intercultural exposure, the social construct of ethno-culture may not stay the same, in the long run it might evolve into better, stronger and more adapted forms specific to its environment. Accepting the evolving nature of any social construct, such as ethnicity, is not the same as claiming that there is a sinister plot to wipe out ethno-cultural identities.257 The radical-right storyline of defending ethnocultures is based on an imaginary scenario—the doomsday of ethno-cultural heritage. The conspiracy landscape is the only place that provides complete (dis) information on this cultural doomsday scenario. How do conspiracy theories put together a story on so-called cultural annihilation, using a series of dominant and supplementary conspiracy narratives? The main plot begins with a backstory: the Illuminati, an 18th-century Bavarian secret society, determined the future of humanity and came up with a plan to establish a new world order, bringing all of humanity under one world government. Ever since, the storyline says, the elite secret societies manipulate the course of history with the aim of achieving this cardinal goal. With this background established, countless supplementary stories provide evidence. If one wants to eradicate human cultures and morph them into one, it’s necessary to abolish cultural differences. This task is said to be underway through several phenomena: cultural Marxism, set against traditional Western culture; homosexuality, which is said to deface traditional culture; abortion, to get the global population at manageable levels; radical feminism, which is said to destroy traditional Western family values; vaccinations and the opioid epidemic to create easily controllable masses; immigration, to mix and eradicate cultures; and globalization and climate change agenda, which are said to aim at creating global hierarchies on the economic, political and societal levels.

256 Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor et al., “Ethnic and Racial Identity During Adolescence and Into Young Adulthood: An Integrated Conceptualization,” Child Dev, 85, no.1 (2019): 21–39; Kate C. McLean and Moin Syed, The Oxford Handbook of Identity Development (New York: Oxford University Press 2015), p. 519. 257 “Race and Ethnicity,” Asanet, last accessed May 27, 2020, https://www.asanet.org/top ics/race-and-ethnicity.

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Despite YouTube’s efforts to remove millions of videos as part of its fight against the conspiracy boom, plenty of content still exists on these topics.258 The most outlandish theory in January 2020 appears to claim that NBA star Kobe Bryant was ritually sacrificed despite the obvious fact that he died in a helicopter crash.259 Conspiracy beliefs can influence narratives to conform to those underlying beliefs; the belief in a secret cabal of elites working to usher the New World Order (NWO) can become so entrenched in a person that everything from a helicopter crash to climate change action may be seen as evidence. This is how beliefs work: beliefs become one’s reality and when that false reality sets in, everything that happens in the world becomes part of that reality. The depth to which one can fall in this conspiracy rabbit hole—of their own choice—is mind-boggling; the mind can create dangerous realities. How do false realities create opportunity for the radical right? It’s the false reasoning that arises from these distorted realities that does the real harm. That’s how climate change can be interpreted as a ‘new globalist religion’; it would not be possible without having belief in a wider globalist conspiracy.260 At Davos, US President Donald Trump harangued radical socialists for trying to use climate change as a means to dominate every aspect of life.261 Such an idea isn’t possible without believing in a climate conspiracy. The conspiracy mindset promotes distorted realities, which in turn works for the radical right. Most conspiracy theories lead to the promised land of the radical right. As more people distrust democracies, the radical right grows in prominence as defenders of traditional culture, a role only made possible by the made-up threat: the malign globalist agenda to eradicate cultures. 258 Jesselyn Cook, “YouTube’s Plan To Rein In Conspiracy Theories Is Failing,” Huffpost, July 21, 2019, Tech, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/youtube-conspiracy-theories_n_ 5d320f69e4b004b6adafbb99. 259 DJRedX. “Kobe Bryant Conspiracy Theory “Freemason Illuminati Puppet” Nobody Died?.” YouTube, January 28, 2020. Video, 39:09. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=7qf-Kgip2Vo; TheDiamondLife. “Lebron James knew Kobe Bryant was Going to be Sacrificed and The Truth Behind His Last Moments.” YouTube, January 28, 2020. Video, 20:40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2Ttc59ZjgI. 260 Sky News Australia. “Climate change is ‘a new globalist religion’.” YouTube, October 3, 2019. Video, 6:07. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqUgjaQ0E3o. 261 Robin Pomeroy, “At Davos, Trump urges the world to ignore the ‘prophets of doom’,” World Economic Forum, January 21, 2020, Climate Change, https://www.weforum.org/ agenda/2020/01/trump-davos-apocalypse-greta-climate/.

Chapter 4: COVID-19 and the Rise of Racism and Religious Hatred

The ‘Other’ in a Time of Crisis: Europe’s Populist Radical Right Response to COVID-19 Vasiliki Tsagkroni Almost four months after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in China, we can state with confidence that the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to radically change the world and society that we live in. Part of mainstream narratives on the consequences of the pandemic has been the idea that globalization will be reversed, and that populism will decline, a prediction that empirically appears to be relatively hopeful at best and complacent at worst. On the contrary, events so far suggest that populism is just as resilient with the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Populist radical-right representatives, such as Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV—Party for Freedom) in the Netherlands, have been arguing and criticizing the government for not responding instantly to the emergence of the virus and delaying the appropriate measures to minimize the spread and threat.262 In the meantime in Hungary, Viktor Orbán, known for his anti-immigration stance (e.g. the introduction of the legislation that criminalizes helping undocumented migrants), managed to get a two-thirds parliamentary majority that allows him to rule by decree indefinitely and without any parliamentary oversight, as a necessary response against COVID-19.263 Populist leaders across the globe, from Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico, and from US President Donald Trump to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, initially ignored the threat and aggressiveness of COVID-19, engaged in conspiracy theories that challenged the existence of the virus, and failed to respond effectively in times of crisis. However, as Thomas Haldenwang, President of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution argued in an interview, the radical right is tooling up COVID-19 as part of their discourse, as a reason 262 Bas Paternotte, “Video—Geert Wilders (PVV) vat in 6 minuten de zorgen over het COVID-19 samen,” The Post Online, March 12, 2020, Video, https://tpo.nl/2020/03/12/ video-geert-wilders-pvv-vat-in-6-minuten-de-zorgen-over-het-COVID-19-samen/. 263 Michael Bociurkiw, “Hungarian leader’s outrageous power grab,” CNN, April 3, 2020, Opinion, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/opinions/hungary-autocrat-covid-19-pow er-grab-bociurkiw/index.html.

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to undermine confidence in the federal government, spread conspiracy theories and stigmatize and brand migrants as carriers of the virus.264 Even from the first days of the virus, an emerging xenophobic rhetoric started to gain ground worldwide. From France, and Le Courrier Picard (with headlines like “Alerte jaune” [Yellow alert] and “Le péril jaune?” [The yellow peril?], accompanied by a photo of a Chinese woman wearing a protective mask), to President Donald Trump’s frequent references to COVID-19 as the ‘Chinese virus’ and Japan’s #ChineseDont ComeToJapan on Twitter, the number of incidents and cases of xenophobia and racism related to the COVID-19 pandemic are increasing by the day.265 The ‘other’ is once more the center of the discourse, however, this time in a form of a foreign, unseen and mobile disease. For example, when responding to the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy, Matteo Salvini, former Deputy Prime Minister and leader of Lega, politicized COVID-19 and attacked the Italian government for not defending the country’s borders.266 Similarly, several representatives of the radical right have blamed migrants, argued against loosening borders and railed against cosmopolitan globalization for the spread of COVID-19. They used the crisis to force the debate on general border closings, connecting the COVID-19 pandemic with the refugee crisis and refusing to accept refugees in emergency situations. In addition, another argument revolves around the exploitation of the welfare state by foreigners. These urgent conditions and the need for support and healthcare fuels popular fears. Following a pattern where, in times of crisis, in this case of the healthcare, welfare and economic systems, the radical right places the ‘others’/migrants at the center of its

264 “Verfassungsschutz warnt vor Instrumentalisierung der Coronakrise durch Rechtsextreme,” Spiegel Politik, April 1, 2020, Fake News, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deuts chland/COVID-19-verfassungsschutz-warnt-vor-instrumentalisierung-durch-rechtsext reme-a-230dcdc4-2c51-47bf-bdce-522115b40f99. 265 “À propos de notre une du 26 janvier,” Courrier Picard, January 26, 2020, Á Nos Lecteurs, https://www.courrier-picard.fr/id64729/article/2020-01-26/propos-de-notre-unedu-26-janvier; Katie Rogers, Lara Jakes and Ana Swanson, “Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism,” The New York Times, March 18, 2020, The COVID-19 Outbreak, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/ch ina-virus.html; Sarah Kim, “As The COVID-19 Spreads, So Does Racism—Both Against And Within Asian Communities,” The New York Times, January 30, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahkim/2020/01/30/COVID-19-racism-asian-commun ities/#10d5bcc02865. 266 Giovanni Drogo, “Tutte le vergognose giravolte di Salvini sul COVID-19,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2020, Politica, https://www.nextquotidiano.it/giravolte-di-salvini-sul -COVID-19/.

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discourse. That is, the ‘other’ or migrant supposedly limits the ability of ‘native’ citizens to get the help they need. Although the number of violent and xenophobic incidents appear to be decreasing, as a result of rising information and enforcement surrounding COVID-19, what is quite clear is that despite the expectation of decreasing populism, or drowning out of radical-right arguments during the crisis, the signs point to a fertile ground for new opportunities of an exclusionary discourse developed by the radical right. This is likely to become increasingly salient as we exit the pandemic—with economic dislocation and lingering fears about a second wave of infections fueling xenophobic anxieties and sentiments going forward.

Anti-Asian Racism Amid COVID-19 Echoes US History of Blaming Immigrants for Disease Mark Potok The Center for Immigration Studies bills itself as an “independent, nonpartisan, non-profit, research organization.” Its executive director, Mark Krikorian, has consistently denied accusations of racism, saying his organization’s opposition to most immigration has nothing to do with race, religion or national origin. But Krikorian recently updated his Twitter icon with something new: a digitally manipulated version of the Chinese flag in which its five yellow stars, set against a red background, have been replaced by five COVID-19 particles. That was only the latest evidence that China is increasingly being blamed for the COVID-19 pandemic that has sickened enormous numbers of people around the world.267 Republican politicians and pundits in the US have taken to calling the disease the ‘Chinese COVID-19’ and ‘Wuhan flu.’ And at the same time, reports have been rising of verbal and physical attacks on people perceived to be Chinese.268 It’s hard to say precisely what Krikorian meant with his new icon (which he’s since changed), but it seems obvious that he is suggesting that foreigners are people who harbor terrifying diseases. Of course, the Chinese government clearly lied and covered up information about the emergence of the COVID-19 in November and December, and that helped ensure the failure to contain it. Chinese leaders do deserve blame for this. But that does not mean Chinese people or its culture in general are responsible.

267 Kaz Weida, “What Is COVID-19: Cases, Symptoms, And How To Avoid It,” Rantt Media, March 14, 2020, https://rantt.com/COVID-19-explained. 268 Sabrina Tavernise and Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Spit On, Yelled At, Attacked: ChineseAmericans Fear for Their Safety,” The New York Times, April 10, 2020, The COVID19 Outbreak, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/chinese-COVID-19-racist-attacks.html; Doha Madani, “Woman needed stitches after anti-Asian hate crime attack on city bus, NYPD says,” NBC News, April 5, 2020, COVID-19, https://www.nbcnews. com/news/asian-america/woman-needs-stitches-after-anti-asian-hate-crime-attack-city -n1177146.

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Krikorian is not alone in casting blame. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) recently warned that the US “will hold accountable those who inflicted” COVID-19 on the world, adding without any evidence at all that he thought that “Wuhan virus” may have originated inside a bioweapons laboratory in that city. Former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke Jr. suggested Hungarian-born Jewish financier George Soros may have been involved in what he described as “an orchestrated attempt to destroy CAPITALISM.” Fox personality Laura Ingraham said “China has blood on its hands.” Ben Shapiro, editor of the right-wing Daily Wire, alleged that China had purposely “unleashed COVID-19 on an unsuspecting world.” And President Trump, who has repeatedly used the phrase “Chinese virus” to describe the pandemic, was forced to defend himself against accusations of racism: “It’s not racist at all, no, not at all,” he told reporters. “It comes from China, that’s why. I want to be accurate.” More recently, Trump bowed to the criticism and agreed to stop using those words. But at the very same time, NBC News reported that Trump’s administration was pushing the U.N. Security Council to explicitly name China as the source of the virus—a move that has infuriated Chinese leaders.269 Secretary of State Mike Pompeo even barred the Group of Seven from issuing any communiqué regarding the pandemic because members wouldn’t agree to label it “Wuhan virus.” 269 Josh Lederman, “U.S. insisting that the U.N. call out Chinese origins of COVID-19,” NBC News, March 25, 2020, COVID-19, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nationalsecurity/u-s-insisting-u-n-call-out-chinese-origins-COVID-19-n1169111.

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Trump, of course, has a long history of ginning up hatred of foreigners. He began his presidential campaign by accusing Mexican immigrants of being rapists and drug dealers. He said “all” Haitians have AIDS. He worked to impose a ban on the immigration of all Muslims. He decried Africa and other places as “shithole countries.” He has long sought a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexican border. This kind of xenophobia is hardly new. Throughout the history of the US, nativists have used fear, and in particular, the fear of disease, to attack immigrants. And those typically false fears have in many cases unleashed racist violence.

America’s history of blaming disease on immigrants Irish immigrants were blamed for cholera in the 1830’s, and in 1853, a Staten Island, New York, mob, holding the Irish responsible for a typhoid epidemic, burned a large quarantine hospital. Accusations that Chinese immigrants were behind malaria, smallpox, and leprosy helped win passage of the racist Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. In the 1890s, tuberculosis was known as ‘the Jewish disease.’ In 1906, the Santa Ana City Council in California ordered the burning of that city’s Chinatown after a dubious report of a Chinese man dying of leprosy. The city’s Fire Department stood by to prevent damage to neighboring structures. In 1918, a deadly flu pandemic came to be known as the ‘Spanish flu,’ leading to attacks on those seen as ‘Spanish.’ As it turns out, that was because censors on both sides of World War I would not allow news of the pandemic. Only in neutral Spain, whose newspapers were not censored, was information about the pandemic printed. As a result, the virus was dubbed the Spanish flu. It actually originated in Kansas. This sorry list continues into contemporary times. Blame was laid on Haitians for the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s, on Navajos for the hantavirus scare in 1993, on Mexicans for swine flu in 2009, on Africans for Ebola in 2014, and on unaccompanied Central American minors for a range of diseases the same year. A particularly nasty report from Fox News’ Todd Starnes cited unnamed sources to claim that many of those minors were infested with a variety of diseases. Starnes quoted an unnamed nurse saying “bugs [were] crawling through their hair.” Krikorian’s Center for Immigration Studies—and other organizations founded by or linked to the late John Tanton, a racist and eugenicist

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immigration opponent—have long sounded similar notes. The center last year ran a story under the headline “Infectious Diseases Making the Border Crisis Worse,” and a more extreme Tanton group, The Social Contract Press, claimed a few years ago that bubonic plague had been found in “the Sanctuary City of Chicago.” An especially well-known case is that of Lou Dobbs, who, while anchoring a major CNN show in 2005, claimed that 7,000 new cases of leprosy had appeared in a recent three-year period, apparently brought by immigrants. Although Dobbs would never admit it, his claims were entirely false—it turned out that those 7,000 cases were the total from a 30-year period. The New York Times ultimately concluded that Dobbs had “a somewhat flexible relationship with reality.” Now comes the novel COVID-19, and with it a spate of new accusations, not all of them limited to the US. Neo-Nazis and their ilk have come up with a series of conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the pandemic, according to the Anti-Defamation League.270 Many conservatives charge that the Democrats are hoping for a deadly outcome in order to weaken Trump’s re-election chances. In France, the Le Courier Picard newspaper ran headlines that translate as “Yellow Alert” and “Yellow Peril” next to photos of an Asian woman in a mask. In Italy, right-wing leader Matteo Salvini linked the disease to African immigrants. And in Scottsdale, Arizona, Councilman Guy Phillips posted a claim that the official name of the virus, COVID-19, “literally stands for ‘Chinese Originated Viral Infectious Disease’ and the number 19 is due to this being the 19th virus to come out of China.” Phillips was completely wrong—the acronym stands for Coronavirus Disease 2019—and he later apologized for his “reckless act,” saying, “The Asian community has since reached out to me and we had a good discussion about the repercussions of these types of propaganda.” The reality is that very few, if any, contagious diseases are limited to one race or ethnicity or region. Viruses have no regard for national borders and the various quarrels that separate one people from another. In an ever more globalized world, only multinational solutions can really take on the threat of pandemics. As a nation, we should beware of those who seek to hang the responsibility for disease outbreaks on one nationality or racial or ethnic group. History clearly shows these claims are not only typically false, but also 270 Leonard Weinberg, “The Dangers Of Right-Wing COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories,” Rantt Media, March 24, 2020, https://rantt.com/COVID-19-conspiracy-theories.

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have the rancid effect of demonizing immigrants and subjecting them to unwarranted hatred and violence. In an era when intergroup relations are especially fraught, it would behoove all of us to recognize that the real enemy of our collective health is disease, and disease has almost nothing to do with one or another group of immigrants.

Canada and the ‘Yellow Peril’ Conspiracy Amidst COVID-19 Bàrbara Molas

Introduction Just like many other white-dominated countries, Canada has seen a rising tide of anti-Asian racism since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.271 ‘Traumatized’ by the spread of another virus of the same family in 2003 (SARS-CoV), COVID-19 has already triggered unprecedented levels of misinformation and suspicion—causing a dramatic increase in xenophobic attitudes, particularly in the multicultural cities of Toronto (Ontario), Montreal (Quebec) and Vancouver (British Columbia). This article explores some racist responses to the threat of COVID-19 that occurred in such places from January to May 2020, including phase one of the lockdown. The responses considered in this article are shaped by historical understandings of Chinese immigrants as ‘aliens’, a view that insists in characterizing the group as composed of ‘temporary’ residents or ‘foreigners’ regardless of their actual status. These ideas date as far back as 1871, when the Canadian government recruited and hired thousands of Chinese workers as cheap labor to work in the West Coast.272 While there was an economic need for such labor, the government also wanted to preserve a British-dominated society. So, in order to justify their ‘transient’ status, the Canadian government depicted Chinese immigrants as “dangerous to [the] white [population]” and “unhealthy”, explicitly stating that they had a “standard of morality immeasurably below us.”273 This article uses antiChinese responses to COVID-19 to illustrate the prejudices that have characterized Canadian relations with—and interpretations—of the Chinese community since the mid-19th century. It concludes by suggesting that the 271 Leyland Cecco, “Canada’s Chinese community faces racist abuse in wake of COVID19”, The Guardian, January 28, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/ 28/canada-chinese-community-battles-racist-backlash-amid-COVID-19-outbreak; Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, “Chinese Canadians denounce rising xenophobia tied to COVID-19”, Aljazeera, February 2, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/ch inese-canadians-denounce-rising-xenophobia-tied-COVID-19-200202191216923.html. 272 Anthony B. Chan, “Chinese Canadians”, The Canadian Encyclopedia, May 22, 2019, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chinese-canadians. 273 Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration: report and evidence (Ottawa: Order of the Commission, 1885).

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recent anti-Asian upsurge in Canada presents a comparable—if not a greater and more long-lasting—danger than COVID-19 itself.

The ‘yellow peril’ Shortly after learning about the newly discovered strain of COVID-19 nearly 10,000 parents in York, Toronto, signed a petition demanding that students who had recently traveled to China “stay home and keep isolated.”274 The York District School Board condemned the petition amid fears that students would be targeted based on their ethnicity. It insisted on the importance of not seeing COVID-19 “as a Chinese virus.”275 Yet the Pandora box had already been opened. The CBC reported that in some workplaces Chinese employees were told “not to come back to work the next day” after some individuals had been coughing at the office. Similarly, in public transit, there have been reports of passengers moving away from passengers with Asian characteristics, fearing that they might be carrying “the Chinese disease.”276 “Unfortunately, the ‘yellow peril’ term used against the Chinese, it’s still here,” said Amy Go, who is the Interim National President of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice in Toronto.277 Go compared the situation with 2003, pointing out that in the present episode social media has made it even easier for hateful ideas to spread. Indeed, the Internet is now the place where xenophobic attitudes about COVID-19 are most prevalent and have spread more rapidly, according to sociology professor at Toronto’s York University, Harris Ali.278 Illustrative of this, in 274 “Stop the Potential spreading of the Novel COVID-19 in schools of York Region, Ontario” (10,055 signatures), Ipetitions, https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-2019n CoV-spread-in-york-region-school. 275 Juanita Nathan, “Message from the Board Chair and Director of Education”, York Region District School Board, January 27, 2020, http://www.yrdsb.ca/schools/Repos itory/NewsEvents/Pages/Message-from-the-Chair-Archive/2020-01-27.aspx. 276 Shanifa Nasser, “Racism ‘still very much alive’ in Canada as stereotypes around COVID-19 spread, some warn”, CBC, February 1, 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/news/ canada/toronto/racism-COVID-19-canada-1.5449023; Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, “Chinese Canadians denounce rising xenophobia tied to COVID-19”, Aljazeera, February 2, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/chinese-canadians-denounce-risingxenophobia-tied-COVID-19-200202191216923.html. 277 Shanifa Nasser, “Racism ‘still very much alive’ in Canada as stereotypes around COVID-19 spread, some warn”, CBC, February 1, 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/news/ca nada/toronto/racism-COVID-19-canada-1.5449023. 278 Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, “Chinese Canadians denounce rising xenophobia tied to COVID-19”, Aljazeera, February 2, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/ chinese-canadians-denounce-rising-xenophobia-tied-COVID-19-200202191216923. html.

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January this year, CTV investigative reporter Peter Akman tweeted a photo of himself next to an Asian barber wearing a medical mask: “Hopefully ALL I got today is a haircut,” he wrote reprehensively. After being reprimanded for the offensive tweet, Akman apologized by admitting it was “insensitive”.

“Hopefully ALL I got today is a haircut.”

Among the main social media platforms, Facebook has also been a main source of harassment. For example, Montreal’s Asian population state that pages on Facebook “relay complete lies” on the virus—perpetuating misinformation and increasing discrimination they have been facing since the

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outbreak began.279 Online anti-Asian racist incidents have had direct, real world consequences too. For example, in Montreal an active boycott against Asian-run businesses has accompanied the spread of COVID-19related online discrimination.280 British Columbia, a Western Canadian province known for its long history of anti-Asian racist legislation, has been the focus of many COVID-19-related racist incidents. The Vancouver Police Department said that more than 20 anti-Asian hate crimes have been reported to police so far this year—compared to a total of 12 that occurred in 2019.281 The incidents include offensive graffiti on the Vancouver Chinese Cultural Centre; a verbal and physical assault on an elderly man in a convenience store; and another assault on an Asian woman on Granville Street. Despite all the investigations, so far “no hate crime charges have been approved,” allegedly because such crimes have been “underreported”.282 In Kelowna, a city in British Columbia, a couple of property salespeople posted racist Internet memes in relation to Chinese real estate customers. Even though the posts were taken down shortly after, they were released and the realtors recognized the content as offensive. However, this did not prevent the memes from spreading to other Instagram accounts in order to incite xenophobic prejudice against Chinese citizens elsewhere.283

279 Scott Prouse, “Brossard mayor calls out racist misinformation about COVID-19 and local Chinese community”, CTV News Montreal, January 30, 2020, https://montre al.ctvnews.ca/brossard-mayor-calls-out-racist-misinformation-about-COVID-19-and-l ocal-chinese-community-1.4791044?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=dlvr.it. 280 Rachel Lau, “Selective xenophobia: What COVID-19 is teaching us about who we target when it comes to racism”, CTV News Montreal, March 11, 2020, https://montr eal.ctvnews.ca/selective-xenophobia-what-covid-19-is-teaching-us-about-who-we-targ et-when-it-comes-to-racism-1.4848134. 281 Alyse Kotyk, “29 anti-Asian hate crimes being investigated by Vancouver police”, CTV News, May 22, 2020, https://bc.ctvnews.ca/29-anti-asian-hate-crimes-being-investigat ed-by-vancouver-police-1.4950416. 282 Ibid. 283 Brady Strachan, “’Unacceptable’: Realtors’ Instagram posts on China and COVID-19 provoke outrage”, CBC, February 15, 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britishcolumbia/kelowna-realtor-meme-outrage-china-COVID-19-1.5474296.

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“Realtors in Kelowna posted racist internet memes in relation to Chinese real estate customers”. Source: CBC, ‘Unacceptable’: Realtors’ Instagram posts on China and COVID-19 provoke outrage’, February 15, 2020.

In the face of events like this, in March 2020 a Chinese-Canadian group created a “Stop the Spread” counter-narrative campaign aimed at combatting COVID-19-related racism. In Toronto, members of the group dressed in Hazmat suits handing out hand sanitizer, whose purposes or “Uses” included “Protects against toxic behaviour” and “Explosive personal growth may result.” The “Directions” read “Apply liberally to alleviate irrational fear.”284 The campaign aims to fight misinformation and “COVID-19-inspired xenophobia” against the Chinese-Canadian community.285 Other initiatives include “Elimin8hate”, an online form that allows citizens to report COVID-19-related racist incidents. The aim is to “build a more coordinated effort in understanding the impacts of rising anti-Asian racism” in Canada.286

284 Stop the Spread, stropthespread.ca. 285 Miriam Lafontaine, “Chinese organization launches ‘stop the spread’ of racism campaign amid COVID-19 outbreak”, The Star, 3 March, 2020, https://www.thestar.com/ news/gta/2020/03/03/chinese-organization-launches-stop-the-spread-of-racism-campa ign-amid-COVID-19-outbreak.html. 286 File a Report, https://www.elimin8hate.org/fileareport.

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Conclusion A Canadian of Taiwanese descent, Carol Liao, who is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) Allard School of Law, reminds us that “Anti-Asian sentiments are not new.”287 To be specific, Canadian history—and particularly the history of Western Canada—is scarred by the Chinese head tax and what came to be known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. These measures, which were part of subsequent revisions of the Chinese Immigration Act (1885, 1900, 1923), were established to keep Chinese immigrants from staying in Canada after having moved there to work, primarily to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Act was essentially a means to manipulate “the flow of migrants to the new Canada to be weighted towards European and in particular British migrants,” explains Henry Yu, an associate professor in UBC’s department of History.288 The Act was kept in place until 1947, but even after that emigration to Canada was challenging for the Chinese. “It’s just that COVID-19 has been shining a spotlight on an ugly issue that many people in Canada have always faced, and has now escalated,” claims Professor Liao.289 Indeed, the sort of sentiment that COVID-19 has triggered across Canada reveals a current of everyday racism against communities of Asian descent that was ever present but not always tangible—until now. Yu says “combating these racist incidents is comparable to our fight against COVID-19.”290 The message is clear. Unless racist hatred is fought as vigorously as COVID-19, when the virus is gone the world will be left with an ever more dangerous pandemic—and no vaccine will save us from this one.

287 Carol Liao, “COVID-19 has put a harsh spotlight on the anti-Asian racism that has always existed in Canada”, CBC, May 16, 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/bri tish-columbia/covid-19-has-put-a-harsh-spotlight-on-the-anti-asian-racism-that-has-al ways-existed-in-canada-1.5572674. 288 Matthew McRae, “The Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act”, Human Rights Canada. https://humanrights.ca/story/the-chinese-head-tax-and-the-chinese-excl usion-act. 289 Carol Liao, “COVID-19 has put a harsh spotlight on the anti-Asian racism that has always existed in Canada”, CBC, May 16, 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/bri tish-columbia/covid-19-has-put-a-harsh-spotlight-on-the-anti-asian-racism-that-has-al ways-existed-in-canada-1.5572674. 290 Roshini Nair, “Hate has no place in British Columbia, says premier on rise in anti-Asian crimes”, CBC, May 6, 2020, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/covid19-racism-bc-1.5558842.

“#CORONAJIHAD”: How the Far Right in India is Responding to the Pandemic291 Eviane Leidig A number of far-right extremists have recently taken to social media platforms to spread conspiratorial content about COVID-19. Such conspiracy theories range from the virus being a biological weapon created by the Chinese government, to the predictable anti-Semitic tropes of ‘globalism’ claiming it was developed by the tech philanthropist, Bill Gates, in collaboration with the Jewish investor George Soros (a favorite target of the far right).292 The proliferation of such disinformation, circulated with the assistance of bot accounts, has been coupled with offline manifestations of authoritarian actions by government leaders.293 Take, for instance, Hungary under Viktor Orbán, who has recently capitalized on the opportunity to consolidate power and rule by decree with effectively no opposition according to the newly passed “Act on the containment of COVID-19.” As my colleague Cathrine Thorleifsson notes, this “makes yet another contribution to the erosion of democracy in Hungary,” a country which has been witnessing the effects of a radical-right government in power, including the systematic censoring of the media and dismantling of education institutions.294 What has largely gone unnoticed is the response of the far right to the COVID-19 in the world’s largest democracy—India. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India remains rather low compared to its

291 This piece was originally published by GNET. 292 Julia R. DeCook, “COVID-19 and the radical right: conspiracy, disinformation, and xenophobia,” Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, March 19, 2020, https://www.ra dicalrightanalysis.com/2020/03/19/COVID-19-and-the-radical-right-conspiracy-disinf ormation-and-xenophobia/; Cécile Guerin, “COVID-19, the ‘Soros Bio-weapon’: How Far Right anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories Are Infecting Mainstream Politics,” Haaretz, April 1, 2020, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-soros-bio-weapon -anti-semitic-far-right-COVID-19-theories-go-mainstream-1.8732195. 293 Jessica Glenza, “COVID-19: US says Russia behind disinformation campaign,” The Guardian, February 22, 2020, COVID-19 outbreak, https://www.theguardian.com/wor ld/2020/feb/22/COVID-19-russia-disinformation-campaign-us-officials. 294 Cathrine Thorleifsson, “Quarantining Hungarian Democracy,” C-Rex—Center for Research on Extremism, April 3, 2020, https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/news-andevents/right-now/2020/quarantining-hungarian-democracy.html.

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population size (likely due the number of testing kits and lack of resources). However, this has not stopped the Indian far right from scapegoating Muslims as the cause of transmission. In February, I wrote a blog post for GNET about a far-right terrorist shooting at a Muslim university in Delhi, with the perpetrator having been radicalized online.295 Indeed, online spaces play an especially pivotal role in understanding how far-right ideas and narratives are spread throughout India; with a growing middle-class that has increasing accessibility to technology, but high levels of media illiteracy and dated mobile hardware that doesn’t support software updates to prevent the spread of misinformation, this creates a toxic combination. This came to light when a video recently went viral falsely showing a group of Muslim men spitting on a police officer.296 These men were attributed to be attendees of a missionary group that held a conference in Delhi in early March. A number of these conference attendees have tested positive for COVID-19, and since then, Muslims as a community have once-again become targets for India’s far-right Hindu nationalists exploiting fear surrounding the pandemic in pushing for an ideological agenda.297 (This comes only more than a month after Delhi witnessed one of the worse Hindu-Muslim riots in decades, incited by Hindu nationalist politicians and ideologues.)298 It was reported on 3 April that since 28 March, 300,000 tweets using the hashtag #CoronaJihad (a play on the concept of ‘love jihad’, or when a Muslim man seduces a Hindu woman to convert her to Islam) have reached 165 million people on Twitter.299 These tweets, for 295 Eviane Leidig, “Far-Right Terrorism is Global, but Coverage is Not: Hindu Nationalist Violence in India,” Global Network on Extremism & Technology, February 24, 2020, Insights, https://gnet-research.org/2020/02/24/far-right-terrorism-is-global-but-covera ge-is-not-hindu-nationalist-violence-in-india/ 296 Pooja Chaudhuri, “COVID-19: Video of an undertrial in Mumbai falsely viral as Nizamuddin markaz attendee spitting at cop,” Alt News, April 2, 2020, https:// www.altnews.in/COVID-19-video-of-an-undertrial-in-mumbai-falsely-viral-as-nizam uddin-markaz-attendee-spitting-at-cop. 297 Parth MN, “India tracks attendees after Muslim event linked to virus cases,” Aljazeera, March 31, 2020, India, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/india-links-dozensCOVID-19-cases-muslim-gathering-200331095417048.html. 298 Eviane Leidig, “What is going on in Delhi and how is this connected to right-wing extremism?,” C-Rex—Center for Research on Extremism, February 28, 2020, https:// www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/news-and-events/right-now/2020/what-is-going-on-in-de lhi.html 299 Billy Perrigo, “It Was Already Dangerous to Be Muslim in India. Then Came the COVID-19,” TIME, April 3, 2020, https://time.com/5815264/COVID-19-india-islamophobia-coronajihad/.

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instance, show a Muslim man who allegedly attended the conference as ‘intentionally’ coughing on somebody in order to spread the virus, despite the video being filmed in Thailand and no confirmation that the man in question was an attendee.300 Another video, shared by an Indian actress with a verified account, but originating from a TikTok user with far-right views, shows a Muslim male fruit seller licking his fingers, apparently with the intent of spreading the virus to customers.301 These videos are only a couple examples of hundreds of thousands of tweets that depict similar visual and textual material targeting Muslims for supposedly spreading the virus in order to ‘wipe out’ Hindus. While Twitter has removed some tweets with inflammatory content, citing violation of hateful conduct, the same accounts continue to share misinformation in additional posts. The tech company thus needs to take more active measures to ensure that such content does not continue to go viral. Twitter should not be the solely responsible tech company, however. As indicated above, other platforms like TikTok and Facebook-owned WhatsApp (which remains an overwhelmingly popular channel in India as the app’s biggest market and within the diaspora at large) have a due regard to monitor content that spreads hate.302 With the latter, the government has launched a chatbot to help curb the spread of fake news.303 Even the notoriously difficult to censor 4chan is not immune, as a number of users based in India have shared Islamophobic posts warning of Muslims spreading COVID-19 not just in India, but in a worldwide attempt of ‘Islamization’.

300 Rosy (@rose_ko1). 2020. “CCTV Footage shows This MuIIаh INTENTIONALLY coughed on Mans face!! Then he goes around touching stuff. Such VILЕ minded people. Stay away from these Сrееру people #TJKMKB #TablighiJamatVirus #Corona Jihad #COVID-19Pandemic #COVID2019india.” Twitter, April 3, 2020, 12:03. https:// archive.fo/A3Gq7#selection-2966.0-2966.14; Moya Lothian-McLean, “Man who had COVID-19 appears to be caught on camera spitting on a stranger’s face just hours before he died,” Indy100 from Independent, April 3, 2020, https://www.indy100.com/art icle/COVID-19-thailand-spits-passenger-dead-anan-sahoh-9445181. 301 PAYAL ROHATGI & Team—Bhagwan Ram Bhakts (@Payal_Rohatgi). 2020. “राम राम जी I can SEE the religion of the fruit guyI won’t take fruits from THEM again #PayalRohatgi #COVID-19india #CoronaJihad.” Twitter, April 4, 2020, 12:08 a.m. https:// twitter.com/Payal_Rohatgi/status/1246318715408273408. 302 Kunal Puhorit, “Misinformation, fake news spark India COVID-19 fears,” Aljazeera, March 10, 2020, India, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/misinformation-fakenews-spark-india-COVID-19-fears-200309051731540.html. 303 “India Launches WhatsApp Chatbot To Curb Fake News On COVID-19t,” Bloomberg, March 21, 2020, https://www.bloombergquint.com/COVID-19-outbreak/india-launche s-whatsapp-chatbot-to-curb-fake-news-on-COVID-19.

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The real danger of tech companies not taking active measures to control the spread of viral disinformation is that not doing so has the potential to escalate to violence—as we saw earlier this year with the terrorist shooting in Delhi. Far-right extremists have exploited the fear and uncertainty of this global pandemic, and its high time that we also respond with necessary preventative action.

Chapter 5: COVID-19 and the Radical Right’s Transition Online

Quarantined Radicals: Right-Wing Extremism in the Age of COVID-19 Julia DeCook There have been articles published that assert that there will be an uptick in far-right radicalization due to shelter-in-place orders currently occurring in many countries across the world—not to mention most of the US. Some examples include a Rolling Stone article’s contact with researchers from the Southern Poverty Law Center and a new New York Times opinion piece.304 Despite the fact that I do acknowledge the possibility of shelter-inplace orders being a fertile environment for radicalization that we’ve seen emerging in the digital era, the point must be made that it is also widely accepted that the journey of radicalism does not go from zero to literally Hitler. Rather, those who are already holding slightly radical ideas go further down the rabbit hole through Internet searches and finding radical content that already supports their views, as nascent as they may be. The case in point is that of mass murderer Dylann Roof, who searched for “black on white crime” on Google and was met with a number of websites espousing racist content.305 Although we can perhaps expect an uptick in activity, this piece will explore the connections between the current pandemic and the increasing hate speech and violence against Asians and Asian Americans.306 In essence, the radicalization was already underway before the Internet and the pandemic intervened. In particular, the prevalence of right-wing ideas and casual racism, sexism, and homophobia in our day-to-day mainstream culture emerges in ways that people often don’t anticipate, or know to look for. 304 EJ Dickson, “How Social Distancing Could Lead to a Spike in White Nationalism,” Rolling Stones, March 18, 2020, Culture News, https://www.rollingstone.com/cult ure/culture-news/covid-19-COVID-19-pandemic-extremism-white-nationalism-southe rn-poverty-law-center-969079/; AnnIe Kelly, “Who Goes Alt-Right in a Lockdown?,” The New York Times, April 7, 2020, Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/op inion/COVID-19-isolation-radicalization.html. 305 Rebecca Hersher, “What Happened When Dylann Roof Asked Google For Information About Race?,” National Public Ratio, January 10, 2020, What Happened When Dylann Roof Asked Google For Information About Race?. 306 Mark Potok, “Anti-Asian Racism Amid COVID-19 Echoes US History Of Blaming Immigrants For Disease,” Rantt Media, April 7, 2020, https://rantt.com/COVID-19triggers-anti-asian-racism.

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Indeed, the pandemic has not only brought anxieties surrounding health, but now with world economies entering recessions and possibly depressions, anxiety is the state of many people around the globe. Relying on the Internet for work, school, connection, and information means that many people are spending more time online than before. Many scholars before me have noted how the Internet is not a world apart, but rather an extension or mirror of our “face to face” reality.307 Conspiracy theorists, political leaders, and other malicious actors have often used times of insurmountable crisis in order to push and advance their agendas. What is different about our current crisis is the digital aspect of it, and although it is too soon to tell what the outcomes of this pandemic may be, the online discourse from not just far-flung Internet subcultures but just online spaces like Twitter are demonstrating how this is taking shape.

Radicalization of the already radicalized Address the contradiction in attacking someone suspected of contracting COVID-19 and point out that they’re just looking for excuses. Previously, I noted how xenophobia was an emerging product of the online discourse that pointed to China for being at fault for the current COVID-19 pandemic. Mixed up with conspiracy theories, rumors, and other kinds of mis/disinformation, the hate speech and hate crimes being directed toward Asians and Asian Americans has seemingly gotten lost in broader conversations about COVID-19 disinformation.308 As Matthew Lee noted in his piece for NBC, this hate speech is not one that has emerged with the current crisis, but echoes already held public beliefs about Asians in Western countries being the ‘yellow peril’, and “perpetual foreigners who pose a threat to stability and order.”309 Lee notes how little has changed in our society and its perceptions of Asian people. The casual racism of terms like ‘Kung Flu’ and the

307 Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce and T.L. Taylor, Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), p. 264. 308 Leonard Weinberg “The Dangers Of Right-Wing COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories,” Rantt Media, March 24, 2020, https://rantt.com/COVID-19-conspiracy-theories; Ayal Feinberg “COVID-19’s Bigotry Epicenters: Asian And Jewish Americans,” Rantt Media, April 15, 2020, https://rantt.com/covid-19-anti-asian-hatred-and-anti-semitism. 309 Matthew Lee, “COVID-19 fears show how ‘model minority’ Asian Americans become the ‘yellow peril’,” NBC News, April 27, 2015, Self Explanatory, https://www.nbc news.com/think/opinion/COVID-19-fears-show-how-model-minority-asian-americans -become-yellow-ncna1151671.

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‘Chinese virus’ have resulted in real-life violence. In Texas, a man named José Gómez attacked an Asian family at a Sam’s Club—slashing a toddler in the face and stabbing two other family members.310 He defended his actions by saying he thought the family was Chinese and infecting people with the virus. In Montreal, a Korean man was stabbed, as well as a number of sites frequented by Chinese and Vietnamese people were vandalized.311 In the Bronx, an Asian woman was attacked by four teenagers who demanded to know why she wasn’t wearing a mask, in addition to accusing her of causing the virus.312 The issue here isn’t whether or not these victims were Chinese, since that is a moot point, but rather the idea that it does not matter what ‘kind’ of Asian someone is—to those seeking revenge and an outlet—any Asian they encounter is the source of their discontent. The hate crimes are not only increasing in North America, but around the world. In fact, the irony of the hate crimes is that if someone is afraid of an Asian person having the virus, they wouldn’t want to be close to them.313 The physical assaults then demonstrate that the fear of the virus is an excuse, and the attacks are caused by a deeper, more entrenched racism. Although not an empirical study, the racist and xenophobic posts that I and other Asian Americans have been encountering online have been on Twitter, Instagram (see figure below), YouTube, Facebook, and even TikTok.314 Although the usual perpetrators are also engaging in this hate speech, it is present and widespread on mainstream social media platforms. The memes, hashtags, and content emerging range from racist hate speech, and conspiracy theories, to absolutely absurd shitposts. Regardless of the 310 “FIRST ON CBS7: Suspect admits he tried to kill family at Midland Sam’s Club,” CBS7, March 16, 2020, Crime, https://www.cbs7.com/content/news/FIRST-ON-CBS7Suspect-admitted-to-trying-to-kill-family-at-Midland-Sams-Club-affidavit-says-5688 37371.html. 311 Kamila Hinkson, “Montreal’s Korean consulate issues safety warning after man stabbed,” CBC, March 18, 2020, Montreal, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mon treal/koreans-montreal-safety-warning-1.5501963. 312 Zack Budryk, “Four teen girls charged with hate crime for attacking Asian woman on bus,” The Hill, June 4, 2020, News, https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/ 491372-four-teen-girls-charged-with-hate-crime-for-attacking-asian. 313 Josh Margolin, “FBI warns of potential surge in hate crimes against Asian Americans amid COVID-19,” ABC News, March 27, 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-warnspotential-surge-hate-crimes-asian-americans/story?id=69831920. 314 Eoghan Macguire, “Anti-Asian hate continues to spread online amid COVID-19 pandemic,” Aljazeera, April 5, 2020, COVID-19 Pandemic, https://www.aljazeera.com/ news/2020/04/anti-asian-hate-continues-spread-online-covid-19-pandemic-200405063 015286.html.

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genre of content, what it all reveals is what Lee has said: it merely makes visible the already existing anxieties, racist beliefs, and attitudes of those who create, share, and participate in this kind of online discourse. In fact, by taking advantage of fear, of people’s desperate need for answers, extremists will cash in on this crisis like any other one and use these online networks to do so.

A screenshot of an Instagram story posted by “antiasiansclubnyc,” which has since been removed and banned.

In conclusion, and on a more personal note, I am not afraid of the possibility of further radicalization due to more people moving online for dayto-day life. Rather, I am more afraid of existing in the world as an Asian woman, and what this means for my partner, friends, family, and the Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. Because if things continue in the direction, AAPIs will not only be blamed for the current health crisis, but will also bear the burden of being blamed for causing the economic crisis we are already experiencing. We’ve seen this before with the murder of Vincent Chin, who was brutally attacked and killed in 1982 by two white men who were angry about losing their auto

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industry jobs due to the growing presence of Japanese car manufacturers.315 The long-term effects of a presidential administration that openly espouses hate speech, as well as extremist communities that are using this crisis to recruit and mobilize their members, will be significant. Although the Internet may serve as one of the primary spaces for socialization (and thus, radicalization), it is merely the portal through which non-members are able to see these beliefs and ideas on display. The real-life violence that has happened throughout the world as a result of further radicalization online is only a small part of the racist, misogynistic violence that has already long existed. Rather than wondering how this crisis and subsequent isolation will lead to radicalization, I would implore researchers and citizens to look at what has already occurred and is currently happening. The radicalization has been well underway and just needed a spark (like a pandemic) to ignite its fire.

315 Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, “Who Is Vincent Chin? The History and Relevance of a 1982 Killing,” NBC News, June 15, 2020, Asian America, https://www.nbcnews.com/ news/asian-america/who-vincent-chin-history-relevance-1982-killing-n771291.

Zoom-Bombing and the Far Right’s Latest Assault on College Communities Simon Purdue For the modern far right in America, higher education is a major battleground.316 Whether as targets for hate or as potential recruiting grounds, college campuses have consistently been on the front lines of the far-right culture war that has been raging over the last four years. Organizations like Turning Point USA, the Patriot Front and the American Identity Movement (formerly Identity Evropa) have embarked on a concerted campaign to disrupt the safe spaces and liberal politics of college campuses, whilst simultaneously seeking to foster radical racist politics among certain sections of their student bodies and creating a grassroots far-right movement.317 Traditionally, these campaigns of propaganda, intimidation and recruitment have consisted of disseminating mass flyers, tabling, leaflet drops and disruption of on-campus activities, often coordinated on a national scale through channels such as Gab and Telegram.318 This campaign has been complicated in recent weeks, however, as colleges across the country have seen a mass exodus as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. As campuses lie empty, these traditional methods of harassment and recruitment have become wholly ineffective. Yet this has not stopped the desire of those on the racist political fringe to target and disrupt the college space, and far-right groups and actors are finding new, equally harmful ways to target students and faculty. With the transition to online learning, new opportunities have come for those with malicious intent, in some cases even allowing them into the previously

316 “The Far Right Comes to Campus,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, last modified August 13, 2017, https://www.chronicle.com/specialreport/The-Far-Right-Comes-toCampus/138. 317 “The Alt-Right On Campus: What Students Need To Know,” Southern Poverty Law Center, last accessed May 27, 2020, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremistfiles/group/identity-evropaamerican-identity-movement; “Identity Evropa/American Identity Movement,” Southern Poverty Law Center, last accessed May 27, 2020, https:// www.splcenter.org/20170810/alt-right-campus-what-students-need-know. 318 Faith Karimi, “There have been at least 5 hate incidents reported on college campuses this week,” CNN, November 23, 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/22/us/collegecampuses-racist-incidents/index.html;

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sacrosanct classroom spaces. One such example is a new trend known as ‘Zoom Bombing’, which is fast becoming the new modus operandi for farright activists seeking to attack, or even just ‘troll’, college students and their professors. Zoom, a video-conferencing platform that has rocketed to international prominence as a result of the sudden shift to work-from-home and online learning in the early months of 2020, has become the go-to app for professors seeking to maintain some semblance of normalcy during the COVID-19-enforced exodus from the traditional classroom. Given the rapid shift and steep learning curve experienced by many professors who have not used Zoom or similar software before, virtual classroom security has often been an overlooked factor. This has left major loopholes, and has opened access to teaching spaces for malicious actors, particularly farright trolls or those seeking to intimidate. The result is Zoom-Bombing, or Zoom Raiding, a practice of logging into ‘private’ (but unsecured) Zoom calls and harassing, intimidating or ‘trolling’ students and teachers. Two such cases have occurred over the last week in Massachusetts alone, with one individual reportedly logging into an online class before shouting profanities and sharing the teacher’s home address, and the other case involving a man who displayed neo-Nazi tattoos on camera, including a swastika.319 These cases are far from alone, and in recent weeks enough reports have surfaced on Twitter and other social media to suggest that a concerted effort is being made by far-right actors to disrupt the online classroom. An investigation by The New York Times found over 150 social media accounts as well as a number of chatroom forums and Discord servers in which groups were planning or discussing organized, concerted Zoom-bombing campaigns.320 Many of these accounts and forum users shared meeting passwords and details on professors or meetingconveners, allowing for targeted abuse and harassment. Users have reported Zoom-bombers shouting racial slurs, drawing neo-Nazi insignia, sharing explicit or violent videos and ‘doxxing’—sharing the confidential personal information of—faculty and participants.

319 Elizabeth García and Julia Cherry, “‘Zoom-Bombing’: What it is and How to Prevent it from Happening During Your Next Call,” WHNT19News, April 5, 2020, https:// whnt.com/news/zoom-bombing-what-it-is-and-how-to-prevent-it-from-happening-dur ing-your-next-call/. 320 Taylor Lorenz and Davey Alba, “‘Zoombombing’ Becomes a Dangerous Organized Effort,” The New York Times, April 3, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/ technology/zoom-harassment-abuse-racism-fbi-warning.html.

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The phenomenon has become so widespread in such a short period of time that the FBI issued a warning to users of the platform last week, highlighting the issue of Zoom-bombing and cautioning meeting conveners to take appropriate steps to maintain the security of their calls.321 This in turn prompted a number of public school districts, most notably New York City Department of Education, to ban the use of Zoom in any of their online classrooms, taking an instant toll on Zoom stock, which fell over 14 percent in a single day.322 Despite the damage that Zoom-bombing has done, however, the platform remains popular. Major universities continue to push the use of Zoom and for many faculty members and students it remains the easiest, most accessible option for maintaining a semblance of normalcy in these trying times. If the far right hijacking of Zoom is to be stopped, each and every user of the platform must take the necessary precautions to ensure that their meeting is not hacked or raided by malicious actors whose primary intent is to intimidate and harass students. In order to use Zoom safely, users can restrict screensharing options to the host; organize invite-only meetings; or create waiting rooms through which the convener can approve members. If users are not careful and informed, however, the gateway will remain open for far-right actors to hijack and harass, continuing their decades-long campaign of targeting colleges.

321 Kristen Setera, “FBI Warns of Teleconferencing and Online Classroom Hijacking During COVID-19 Pandemic,” FBI, last modified March 30, 2020, fbi.gov/contact-us/ field-offices/boston/news/press-releases/fbi-warns-of-teleconferencing-and-online-cla ssroom-hijacking-during-covid-19-pandemic. 322 David Z. Morris, “Zoom stock down after schools and businesses banned the meeting app over ‘Zoom bombing’ security issues,” Fortune, April 6, 2020, Tech, https://fort une.com/2020/04/06/zoom-zm-stock-price-today-security-issues-school-districts-spac ex-ban/.

The Risks of Online Radicalization in the COVID-19 Era Cynthia Miller-Idriss Within the span of a few weeks, the social and academic lives of over 91 percent of the world’s youth have been completely upended, as 1.5 billion students’ schools have closed, leading to an unprecedented shift in youth online engagement.323 In the US alone, over 55 million children now spend much of their days online in a variety of semi-structured learning environments.324 Parents and teachers have been understandably overwhelmed with the immediate technical and logistical aspects of this shift. But it is just as important to be aware of the potential long-term consequences, too, including the increased risk of far-right radicalization and extremism. Long before the COVID-19 era, media headlines warned parents and educators of the growing dangers of online exposure to extremist propaganda and persuasive recruiters.325 As the Christchurch and El Paso shootings made all too clear, online spaces are a central way in which people encounter extremist ideas, share violent tactics, and circulate livestreamed attacks. More than ever, exposure to extremism requires no physical destination at all—its virtual spaces beam right across our screens in social media memes, imageboards, chatrooms, and online games. In the wake of COVID-19, access to those screens has expanded massively, in part through free devices and hotspots set up by school districts that aim to ensure equity in the availability of distance learning.326 Meanwhile, parents have widely acknowledged that they are allowing more online gaming and screen time than usual in an effort to secure more

323 “COVID-19 Educational Disruption and Response,” UNESCO, last accessed May 27, 2020 https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse. 324 “Map: COVID-19 and School Closures,” Education Week, last updated May 15, 2020, https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/map-COVID-19-and-school-closures. html. 325 Molly Wood, “More extremists are getting radicalized online. Whose responsibility is that?,” Market Place, March 19, 2020, Tech Blogs, https://www.marketplace.org/ 2019/03/19/extremists-are-being-radicalized-online-whose-responsibility-is-it/. 326 Alaa Elassar, “Austin school district deployed over 100 school buses equipped with WiFi for students without internet access,” CNN, April 14, 2020, https://edition.cnn. com/2020/04/14/us/austin-wifi-busses-independent-school-district-trnd/index.html.

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work time for themselves. Much of that access is highly unsupervised, as students navigate learning platforms, search engines, and chat rooms on their own. This dynamic creates a perfect storm for extremist recruitment and radicalization. Extreme isolation and increased online presence on gaming platforms and social media creates growing possibilities for exposure to extremist content and expands the gateways that can lead to extremist radicalization. Meanwhile, the tremendous insecurity brought on by the crisis can make the kinds of simplistic solutions offered by far-right extremists more appealing. For extremists, this is therefore an ideal time to exploit youth grievances about their lack of agency, their families’ economic distress, and their intense sense of disorientation, confusion, fear, and anxiety. In the absence of their usual social support systems and networks of trusted adults and peers—as daily interactions with coaches, youth group leaders, employers, teachers, and others have ended—youths become easy targets for the far right, who promise easy answers about who they can blame for their plight. Extremists have already seized the opportunity to spread propaganda and white supremacist content through online channels. Disinformation and conspiracy theories about the virus, its origins, and the government’s response are circulating widely, with one recent report showing that 18 million of the 40 million tweets about COVID-19 in a two-week period were “manipulated to push harmful narratives to the public.”327 On April 1, a California train engineer deliberately derailed a locomotive and tried to crash it into a Navy hospital ship in order to wake people up to lies he felt the government was telling about the hospital’s purpose.328 Some far-right groups use the crisis to promote themselves as stronger, better helpers of the people than current governments. Far-right groups across Europe have posted photos of themselves organizing ‘mutual aid’ and food distribution to the elderly and low-income citizens, or driving healthcare professionals to work—in the hopes of building solidarity and gaining broader support for nationalist and exclusionary

327 “Blackbird.AI Releases New Report on Disinformation Around COVID-19 and Finds Evidence of Massive News And Commentary Manipulation,” BENZINGA, March 25, 2020, https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/20/03/n15658756/blackbird-ai-releases -new-report-on-disinformation-around-covid-19-and-finds-evidence-of-massive-n. 328 Bill Chappell, “Train Engineer Says He Crashed In Attempt To Attack Navy Hospital Ship In L.A,” National Public Ratio, April 2, 2020, https://www.npr.org/sections/COV ID-19-live-updates/2020/04/02/825897966/train-engineer-says-he-crashed-in-attemptto-attack-navy-hospital-ship-in-l-a.

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platforms.329 Meanwhile, far-right extremist chatter in online spaces has called for followers to deliberately spread COVID-19 to Jews and the police—effectively calling for biological terror attacks.330 Online educational spaces have been a particular target. Online classes, virtual conference presentations, and educators’ office hours have been ‘zoom bombed’ by students or hackers posting racist content and videos.331 Far-right provocateurs and activists, meanwhile, have urged college students to record online lectures and submit them so that they can “document and expose” faculty they deem too liberal.332

What can be done? Policymakers, law enforcement, and the tech sector are already working to address these aforementioned challenges. Over a dozen tech vendors are actively engaged in combating COVID-19 disinformation, for example, by offering analysis, data tracking, and information to the public about misinformation. But we urgently need educational responses, too. Parents and caregivers are in need of particular support. They require resources to improve their recognition and awareness of far-right messaging, symbols, and recruitment styles, as well as the kinds of apps and chat functions extremists are exploiting. Parents need to be able to better understand the key emotional drivers that create vulnerabilities to far-right radicalization pathways. Recognizing the signs is not enough, though. Advice and training on how to effectively intervene when they do spot warning signs is a critical component. Teachers also need help. They need to know how to protect their online classroom spaces from being ‘zoom bombed’ with racist and misogynistic content posted by outsiders, and what to do when students share 329 Michael Colborne, “For the Far Right, the COVID-19 Crisis Is a PR Opportunity,” Fair Observer, April 13, 2020, https://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/michael-colb orne-far-right-COVID-19-pandemic-assistance-covid-19-crisis-pr-news-10109/. 330 Alex Woodward, “COVID-19: White supremacists planned to use virus as a bioweapon,” Independent, March 22, 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ americas/COVID-19-terrorist-white-supremacy-fbi-bioterrorism-a9417296.html. 331 Elizabeth Redden, “‘Zoombombing’ Attacks Disrupt Classes,” Inside Higher Ed, March 26, 2020, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/03/26/zoombombers-disr upt-online-classes-racist-pornographic-content 332 April Glaser, Ben Kesslen and Olivia Solon, “In video chats, familiar forms of online harassment make a comeback,” NBC News, March 25, 2020, COVID-19, https://www. nbcnews.com/tech/security/video-chats-familiar-forms-online-harassment-make-come back-n1168806

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such content or usernames in chat rooms. Youths and adults alike need media literacy training in ways that go well beyond the basics about privacy and cyberbullying. The kinds of interventions that might effectively inoculate against hate require helping people learn how to recognize conspiracy theories, misinformation, fake news, and identify key strategies that extremists use to manipulate potential recruits. Like the global pandemic itself, the challenge of rising far-right and white supremacist extremism is not a local or even national matter. Crossnational and global engagements about the COVID-19 pandemic need to include the sharing of educational and parenting strategies to combat the consequences of youth isolation, expanded online engagement and the far right’s mobilization of the virus. There is no need for each country to reinvent the wheel. Parents and caregivers are already struggling, and worrying about online radicalization, may feel like piling one more thing onto already overburdened lives. But crises like these are multifaceted. And while it makes sense that our initial response to mass school closures has necessarily been oriented toward emergency logistical and technical needs, we also need to think bigger. As we shelter in place, track daily infection rates, and collectively grieve, we need to keep our eyes trained on how far-right extremists are seizing this moment for their own ends to recruit and radicalize youth. As we now know all too well, the best way to stem the spread of a virus is through prevention. The same is true for the spread of hate and farright extremism.

The Influence of Memes on Far-Right Radicalization Blyth Crawford The far right has always thrived in the online space. However, scholars Lisa Bogerts and Maik Fielitz suggest that the advent of Web 2.0 catalyzed “a process of (post-)modernisation” within the movement, thus creating new avenues for online radicalisation.333 This shift has heavily featured the use of memes, which can be imagined as highly medium-specific, often user-generated “cultural units of transmission”—drawing upon Richard Dawkins’ original definition, and may have the potential to influence individuals’ radicalization trajectories into violent extremism.334

Opening the Overton window A number of memes originate from within forum culture, which is marked by a particular ‘troll sensibility’ that has catalyzed antagonistic campaigns targeting the Church of Scientology in the US and Hollywood actor Shia Labeouf in a months-long game of Capture the Flag.335 This same sense of countercultural, antagonistic irony, which fueled these campaigns, plays a dual function within far-right memes. Often presented as humorous images, memes enable the spread of elements of far-right ideology by allowing extreme messages to masquerade as medium-specific parody. An example of this dynamic is the ‘Successful Black Man’ meme, which presents an apparent parody of racial profiling while simultaneously enabling the gradual spread of prejudice. As scholar Ryan Milner notes, “familiarity with racist tropes is necessary to get the joke.”336 Angela Nagle suggests that this kind of countercultural 333 Maik Fielitz and Nick Thurston, Post-Digital Cultures of the Far Right (Wetzlar: Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, 2019), p. 211. 334 “What’s In A Meme?,” Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science, last modified February 4, 2020, https://www.richarddawkins.net/2014/02/whats-in-a-meme/. 335 Julian Dibbell, “The Assclown Offensive: How to Enrage the Church of Scientology,” Wired, September 21, 2009, https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-chanology/; Mack Lamoureux, “How 4Chan’s Worst Trolls Pulled Off the Heist of the Century,” VICE, March 11, 2017, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d7eddj/4chan-does-first-good-thi ng-pulls-off-the-heist-of-the-century1. 336 “Successful Black Man,” Know Your Meme, last accessed May 27, 2020, https:// knowyourmeme.com/memes/successful-black-man/photos; Ryan M. Milner, “FCJ-156

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irony is a tactic employed by far-right movements to shift the “Overton Window”—the public conception of what is acceptable discourse—by using edgy humor to disguise the loaded racism of their messaging.337 Thus, by gradually exposing users to increasingly virulent content concealed as ironic parody, far-right movements may catalyze the Gramscian-style creep of extreme ideology. This dynamic is evidenced in the “red-pilling” Discord logs collected by Unicorn Riot where one user comments he became involved in anti-Semitism “as a meme first off … then all of a sudden it stopped being a meme.”338 This kind of exposure may function from the bottom-up as users seek out increasingly extreme content for themselves, or it may be part of a topdown dynamic where existing members of extremist online spaces launch ‘meme campaigns’ to attract new users. This latter possibility has been evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic as calls have been made on fringe online forums for users to create and share memes, which spread racist conspiracies surrounding the virus to attract newcomers to white supremacist ideology. Furthermore, the intended humor that underlies extremist memes may also produce a sense of moral impunity. Users are able to engage with the underlying ideology within memes, while simultaneously mocking outsiders who take the content seriously. Thus, these memes profit from the inherent ambiguity of online interactions, as is outlined in Poe’s law, creating what Milner has termed a “Logic of Lulz” where it is never possible to discern the intended tone of an online post with any certainty, thereby rendering all participants of an online space perpetually vulnerable to trolling.339 In this way, extreme views are allowed to thrive as memes, enriched by a surrounding culture of troll sensibility and ambiguity.

Hacking the Social: Internet Memes, Identity Antagonism, and the Logic of Lulz,” The Fibreculture Journal, 22, (2013): 62–92. 337 Oldřich Tristan Florian, “Nagle, Angela: Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-right,” Czech Journal of Political Science, 3, (2018): 270–272. 338 VasilistheGreek, “VasilistheGreek (Discord ID: 270328712367570955), page 1,” Discord Leaks, last accessed May 27, 2020, https://discordleaks.unicornriot.ninja/discord/ user/1445. 339 “Poe’s law,” Wikipedia, last modified May 9, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe% 27s_law; Ryan M. Miller, “FCJ-156 Hacking the Social: Internet Memes, Identity Antagonism, and the Logic of Lulz,” The Fibreculture Journal, 22 (2013): 62–92.

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Memes and identity cohesion Cristina Archetti, drawing on Social Movement Theory, stresses that radicalization into violent extremism is made possible as individuals come to regard the values of an extremist movement as key markers of their own selfhood, and thus converge with a movement’s in-group identity.340 Farright memes constitute a form of social capital in online communities where the ability to understand and disseminate images espousing comical articulations of extreme ideology signals one’s degree of belonging within that space. Dynamics such as this both bind users together and simultaneously create distinct out-groups through mocking notions such as “the left can’t meme.”341 Edwin Hodge and Helga Hallgrimsdottir also note that as users become more imbedded within increasingly extreme online communities, they may be exposed to ‘shock’ memes, which may feature gore or graphic violence, thus potentially eroding psychological barriers to violence.342 Additionally, a number of memes exist as templates to be ‘remixed’ and edited by others. Thus, users are not only bound by dynamics of coconsumption but in co-production within a culture of “semiotic productivity”, where they are encouraged to participate in the reproduction of collective extremist tropes, and become active in the continuation of cultural in-jokes.343 Therefore, by engaging in the production or dissemination of memes, members of far-right movements may enhance a sense of in-group cohesion, critical to processes of radicalization. This function of memes as a facet of identity and community cohesion has been demonstrated in the recent string of far-right lone-actor attacks. Directly before his attack, Brenton Tarrant, the 2019 Christchurch shooter, posted a manifesto to the ‘/pol/’ (politically incorrect) board on the imageboard forum 8chan—which has since been removed from the Clearnet—addressing the users there as “top blokes”. In his manifesto, Tarrant directly referenced a number of memes popular on the forum, notably including the entire ‘Navy Seal’ copypasta, which is thought to have 340 Cristina Archetti, “Terrorism, Communication and New Media: Explaining Radicalization in the Digital Age,” Perspective on Terrorism, 9, no.1 (2015): 49–59. 341 “The Left Can’t Meme,” Know Your Meme, last accessed May 27, 2020, https:// knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-left-cant-meme. 342 Edwin Hodge and Heiga Hallgrimsdottir, “Networks of Hate: The Alt-right, “Troll Culture”, and the Cultural Geography of Social Movement Spaces Online,” Journal of Borderlands Studies, (2019): 1–18. 343 John Fiske, “The Cultural Economy of Fandom,” in Lisa A. Lewis (ed.), The Adoring audience: fan culture and popular media (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 30–49.

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originated within ‘chan’ forum culture.344 This mimetic style of manifestowriting was a trend imitated by subsequent attackers such as John Earnest, who carried out a firearms attack at the Chabad of Poway synagogue on 27 April 2019, and included a reference to the Toddroll copypasta in his ‘open letter’.345 Additionally, Stephan Balliet, who attempted to carry out a mass casualty attack at a synagogue in Halle, Germany on 9 October 2019, also incorporated images of the ‘catgirl’ meme, popular within some fringe imageboard communities in documentation supplemental to his main manifesto.346 The incorporation of these memes acts as a ‘dog whistle’ to others familiar with this culture, signaling a degree of belonging to the online community, while simultaneously ostracizing those unfamiliar with these communities. The inclusion of memes such as these in the writings of lone-actors suggests a self-awareness of the importance of memes within far-right communities. This is a clear signal that memes must not be overlooked merely as a ‘quirk’ of far-right online culture, but as an important potential tool for radicalization.

344 “Navy Seal Copypasta,” Know Your Meme, last accessed May 27, 2020, https://knowy ourmeme.com/memes/navy-seal-copypasta. 345 “Toddroll/You’re Finally Awake,” Know Your Meme, last accessed May 27, 2020, https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/toddroll-youre-finally-awake. 346 “Cat Girl/Neko,” Know Your Meme, last accessed May 27, 2020, (Before or after the Web site) https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/catgirl-neko.

Chapter 6: COVID-19, Class and Gender

Appropriating ‘Choice’: Uses of Gendered Discourse in ‘Re-Open’ Protests Ashley Mattheis In the US, common narratives circulated by the radical right and rightwing extremists about the COVID-19 pandemic include racist, anti-Asian stories of the virus’ origins, xenophobic calls to close all borders, and ‘liberation’ protests which argue that government shutdowns are meant to strip people of their rights and freedoms.347 Gender, a common frame used in radical-right and right-wing extremist ideological narratives, has been primarily discussed at this time in terms of increases in misogynist online harassment.348 Tracing how gender appears in emergent forms of radicalright engagement is necessary because gendered discourses are commonly used to normalize radical-right ideology, connect with and radicalize potential in-group members, and promote radical-right political goals.349 Moreover, gendered discourses are used in all varieties of radical-right narrative framing whether religious, secular, conspiratorial, overtly political, or seemingly non-political. Thus, a focus on gendered discourses, particularly in relation to political tropes such as ‘free speech’ and ‘individual liberty’ also provides urgently needed analytical purchase across the diffuse arena of radical-right thought and activism. Without a doubt, gender is a component of radical-right discourse around the pandemic in the US.350 As a narrative frame, it is used to pose connections that leverage conservative frustrations and fears of 347 Adam Gabbatt, “Michigan Conservatives Hail Protest Success—and Set Sights on Trump’s Re-Election,” The Guardian, April 25, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us -news/2020/apr/25/michigan-protests-COVID-19-trump. 348 Rebecca Traister, “How Far-Right Media Is Weaponizing COVID-19,” The Cut, March 24, 2020, https://www.thecut.com/2020/03/how-far-right-media-is-weaponizing-COV ID-19.html. 349 Ashley Mattheis, “Understanding Digital Hate Culture,” Fair Observer and Center for Analysis of the Radical Right, August 15, 2019, https://www.fairobserver.com/cult ure/digital-hate-culture-online-extremism-misogyny-news-15212/. 350 Alex Bollinger, “White House credentialed journalist blames Wuhan corona virus on trans kids & sexual immorality,” LGBTQ Nation, April 27, 2015, Bias Watch, https:// www.lgbtqnation.com/2020/01/white-house-credentialed-journalist-blames-wuhan-co rona-virus-trans-kids-sexual-immorality/; Farron Cousins, “Christian Author Says COVID-19 Is God’s Way Of Pushing Women Back Into The Home,” The Ring of Fire, March 22, 2020, Bias Watch, https://trofire.com/2020/03/22/christian-author-says-CO VID-19-is-gods-way-of-pushing-women-back-into-the-home/.

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government overreach and social change. It is currently unclear whether protestors using gendered, specifically feminized, images and slogans are members of any specific radical-right groups.351 In spite of that, their uses of gender indicate that radical-right narratives are both rhetorically effective and connecting with broader political discourse. Illustratively, recent protestors have used gendered slogans such as the typically leftist, prochoice slogan “My Body My Choice,” and a male protestor dressed as a handmaid from the dystopic feminist novel and television show adaptation, A Handmaid’s Tale.352 The use of the slogan and costume are appropriations of leftist activist rhetoric and praxis, particularly women’s use of the costume to protest political issues such as the myriad abortion and women’s health restrictions that have been put forth and enacted in recent years in numerous states.353

351 Jason Wilson, “The Rightwing Groups behind Wave of Protests against Covid-19 Restrictions,” The Guardian, April 17, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-COVID-19-protests-restrictions; “COVID-19 Lockdown Protest: What’s behind the US Demonstrations?”. BBC News, April 21, 2020. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52359100; Cassie Miller, “White Supremacists See COVID-19 as an Opportunity,” Southern Poverty Law Center, March 26, 2020, https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/03/26/white-supremacists-seeCOVID-19-opportunity; Shannon Reid and Matthew Valasik, “Why Are White Supremacists Protesting to ‘Reopen’ the US Economy?,” The Conversation, April 28, 2020, https://theconversation.com/amp/why-are-white-supremacists-protesting-to-reopen-the-us-economy-137044?__twitter_impression=true. 352 Khaleda Rahman, “Some of the Signs Held by Protesters Calling for End to COVID-19 Lockdown Raise Eyebrows,” Newsweek. April 21, 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/ protesters-wave-signs-branded-dumb-ignorant-1498873; Arwa Mahdawi, “TrumpSupporting Protesters Are Wearing Handmaid’s Outfits—Do They Not See the Irony? | Arwa Mahdawi,” The Guardian, April 25, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/comm entisfree/2020/apr/25/trump-handmaids-tale-COVID-19. 353 Emma Grey Ellis, “‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Garb Is the Viral Protest Uniform of 2019,” Wired, June 5, 2019, https://www.wired.com/story/handmaids-tale-protest-garb/; Laura Bradley, “Under Their Eye: The Rise of Handmaid’s Tale-Inspired Protesters,” Vanity Fair, October 10, 2018, https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/photos/2018/10/hand maids-tale-protests-kavanaugh-healthcare-womens-march.

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These uses of gendered frames seem to follow a broader pattern of radicalright appropriations of existing cultural phenomena in online contexts.354 This may be in part because radical-right participation in these ‘Re-Open’ protests are promoted through online media, thus drawing in protesters more versed in online strategies and tactics. They also highlight several important facets of the way the radical right capitalizes on the ‘meme-ification’ of appropriated culture for use in their “culture war”.355 As Ryan Milner has argued, it is easier to appropriate viral memes (and trends) than it is to make a meme (or trend) go viral.356 Such cultural appropriation has

354 Ashley Mattheis, “Manifesto Memes: the Radical Right’s New Dangerous Visual Rhetorics,” Open Democracy and Center for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR), September 16, 2019, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/manifes to-memes-the-radical-rights-new-dangerous-visual-rhetorics/. 355 Jeremy W. Peters, “How Abortion, Guns and Church Closings Made COVID-19 a Culture War,” The New York Times, April 20, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20 /us/politics/COVID-19-protests-democrats-republicans.html. 356 Ryan M. Milner, The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2018).

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the added benefit of infuriating the opposition or “owning the libs”—in contemporary radical-right online speech. The “My Body, My Choice” slogan and the handmaid costume are used precisely because they will be noticed, photographed, discussed, and spread. This juxtaposition of leftist visual markers to forward rightist arguments mobilizes anger on the left and identification on the right. Such appropriations also have the potential to evacuate the cultural meaning of these makers for the left. Even if they fail to break these symbols down— at a minimum—they still get ‘the lulz’: a good laugh at the expense of the ‘libs.’ As such, this usage generates a ‘win-win’ scenario in the culture war from the radical right’s perspective. The rhetorical force of these gendered juxtapositions works in concert with common narratives of radical-right ideology.357 First, these appropriations support the protest’s positioning of government ‘stay-athome’ orders as an attempt to limit ‘civil rights’ and ‘freedoms’ by the leftist state (protests have occurred in states with Democratic governors at a nearly two to one rate).358 The rhetorical suggestion is that the state is failing to deal with the pandemic and is seeking to restore institutional control by controlling people’s physical movements. This aligns with radical-right narratives of societal collapse and civilizational decline. Second, the link between institutional control and bodily control is made specifically by using the pro-choice slogan and the handmaid costume. This is because both are understood to represent (feminist) arguments against legislative/governmental attempts to limit women’s rights through control of their bodies. Rhetorically, and in alignment with radical-right narratives, these gendered images suggest that the government is using legislative force to coerce the people to its will; forcing everyone to think and act alike and leaving no room for dissent or individual liberty. In this way, the juxtaposition of gendered symbols works to bolster radical-right claims that leftists—particularly feminists—are the ‘real’ fascists, Nazis, or totalitarians because they want to limit free thought, speech, and action of conservatives.359

357 Chamila Liyanage, “Endchan: Narratives of the Chanosphere,” Center for Analysis of the Radical Right, January 14, 2020, https://www.radicalrightanalysis.com/2020/01/15/ endchan-narratives-of-the-chanosphere/. 358 “COVID-19 Lockdown Protest: What’s behind the US Demonstrations?,” BBC, April 21, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52359100. 359 Jonathan Chait, “Liberals Are the Real Nazis, Says Donald Trump Jr. Actual Nazis Disagree,” Intelligencer, August 3, 2018, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/08/tru mp-jr-dinesh-dsouza-liberals-are-nazis-actual-nazis-love-trump.html.

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Third, the connective thread between these two arguments—the collapse of society and the leftist (cultural Marxist) threat in radical-right and right-wing extremist discourses—is anti-feminism. Feminism is seen as a primary modality of the destruction of the West (white genocide) and the collapse of society.360 The appropriation of the feminist slogan to rightist aims and the use of the handmaid costume by a man furthers this common anti-feminist sentiment through a visual containment and control of feminist rhetorical objects. In addition, a man in a handmaid costume—the mark of women entirely under violent, physical control by the state—connects directly to the extreme radical-right conspiracy theories of feminism as a global governmental plot to control and emasculate (white) men through its visual connection to gendered slavery. Gender and gendered discourses do not currently seem to be a focus of online discussions of ways radical-right-groups might benefit from the COVID-19 pandemic.361 However, the use of anti-government gendered narratives at COVID-19 protests, which have been organized in part by radical-right groups, is informative about the usefulness of gender as a frame for engagement. While understandings of narrative framings around the pandemic will be shifting as events continue to unfold, these instances of appropriation underscore the utility of gendered narratives and discourses as a bridge between normative and extreme conservative cultures.

360 See example of anti-feminist propaganda: Drake Matthew, “Black Pidgeon Speaks,” BitChute, March 15, 2019, https://www.bitchute.com/video/0RzNwws27Vrm/. 361 Jason Wilson, “Disinformation and Scapegoating: How America’s Far Right Is Responding to COVID-19,” The Guardian, March 19, 2020, https://www.theguardi an.com/world/2020/mar/19/america-far-right-COVID-19-outbreak-trump-alex-jones.

Gender and Mainstreaming in the Era of COVID-19: Swedish Exceptionalism & the Radical Right Mette Wiggen Female leaders in the Nordic countries have dealt with the global health pandemic much better than the one male Prime Minister in Sweden. As the female Prime Ministers in Denmark, Norway, and Finland closed down in the middle of March, Sweden led by Stefan Löfven decided not to lockdown, but to simply advise the public on social distancing and to close high schools and universities.362 The Swedish government hoped that high levels of trust in politicians would be enough to make people behave ‘responsibly’ with no need for any emergency legislation. Initially, it could seem like the Swedish government was trying to resist calls from the radical right to close borders and stigmatize immigrants and refugees as the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD) tried to blame immigrants for the spreading pandemic.363 SD called for mass testing whilst members and local politicians were poking fun at— and ridiculing—the high proportion of deaths among Swedish Somalis. The government’s approach soon started to look more like a laissezfaire strategy to achieve so-called ‘herd immunity’ and to minimize damage to the economy rather than to stave off racism and xenophobia. With a mortality rate ten times that of Finland and a third of nursing homes in Stockholm infected, many argue the price has been too high to pay. Some scientists use words like ‘catastrophe’ and a ‘massacre’ to describe the impact of the government’s strategy.364 Despite strategies taken by most political leaders globally and in neighboring countries, Löfven relies on advice from the Public Health Agency; a government agency responsible for public health led by the civil 362 Holly Ellyatt, “Sweden resisted a lockdown, and its capital Stockholm is expected to reach ‘herd immunity’ in weeks,” CNBC, April 22, 2020, Health and Science, https:// www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-stockholm-could-see-herd-i mmunity-in-weeks.html 363 Ibid. 364 David Nikel, “Sweden: 22 Scientists Say COVID-19 Strategy Has Failed As Deaths Top 1,000,” Forbes, April 14, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/04/ 14/sweden-22-scientists-say-COVID-19-strategy-has-failed-as-deaths-top-1000/#3686 c29d7b6c.

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servant and state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell. Löfven—from the Social Democratic Party (Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti, SAP)— leads a minority coalition with the Greens that needs support in parliament from the Center Party, the Liberals and the Left Party. Critics say the government thought they couldn’t stop the virus so they decided instead to let people die and ‘save’ the economy. This Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest strategy’ is popular as Löfven’s support in the polls has risen in the last couple of months to nearly 28 percent from 22.6 percent in one month, whilst the Sweden Democrats who polled at 30 percent in November and looked likely to become the biggest party in the country, are now down to 20.8 percent. It is interesting, but not surprising that the increasingly neoliberal Social Democratic Party should be taking this view, a view that seems more fitting with Scandinavian parties on the radical-right. The approach has paralyzed the SD who are struggling for attention in the shadows of the government in charge. “The Sweden Democrats survive on dissatisfaction and distrust, that doesn’t work right now,” stated Lena Mellin in Aftonbladet.365 The death toll in Sweden soon started to climb rapidly and at a much sharper rate than in other Nordic countries. This was especially the case among the elderly who are exactly the group the government said they wanted to protect. The death rate in nursing homes has alarmed health workers who say they themselves are probably responsible for infecting the residents, taking the virus in from outside as they do not isolate and don’t wear personal protective equipment.366 Health workers and scientists don’t only criticize the government’s strategy, but also doubt they have enough expertise to understand how the virus spreads. Many within Sweden are highly critical of the government’s strategy and on the 14 April a letter signed by 22 leading scientists was published in Dagens Nyheter.367 The scientists demanded that the politicians intervened to save lives as the Public Health Agency had failed. The experts are concerned about

365 Lena Mellin, “Jimmie Åkesson, vart tog du vägen?,” Aftonbladet, April 1, 2020, https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/a/8m8JKA/jimmie-akesson-vart-togdu-vagen. 366 Richard Orange, “Anger in Sweden as elderly pay price for COVID-19 strategy,” The Guardian, April 19, 2020, The Observer, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ apr/19/anger-in-sweden-as-elderly-pay-price-for-COVID-19-strategy. 367 Yasmin Sfrintzeris, “Sverige: 22 forskere mener strategien har mislyktes,” VG, April 14, 2020, https://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/i/Op92E3/sverige-22-forskere-mener-str ategien-har-mislyktes; “DN Debatt. “Folkhälsomyndigheten har misslyckats—nu måste politikerna gripa in,” Dagens Nyheter, April 21, 2020, https://www.dn.se/deb att/folkhalsomyndigheten-har-misslyckats-nu-maste-politikerna-gripa-in/.

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the lack of leadership as well as expertise; it is well-known that many COVID-19 carriers are asymptomatic, which leads to rapid spread and poses danger to the elderly and people in the ‘extremely vulnerable’ category. The letter caused a storm as it warned the death toll in Sweden would soon be comparable to Italy. Some of the experts have later accepted that the assumption was a mistake and that one should compare with the other Nordic countries, and try and find a dialogue and a solution rather than escalate the conflict between the two parties. Some of the international press has focused on successful strategies in countries led by women both on the left and the right. It is somewhat ironic that the only country in the Nordic region not led by a woman is Sweden. Mette Fredriksen in Denmark took the lead and the other Nordic leaders followed suit with a quarantine for people arriving from abroad, lockdown and testing.368 Fredriksen from the Social Democratic Party leads the minority government and relies on support from the other leftwing parties, the Socialist People’s Party, the Red Green Alliance, and the Social-Liberal Party, to legislate. Fredriksen’s firm handling of the crisis has saved lives and earned her a position in a league with other female leaders. Leaders who have acted swiftly, responsibly and with empathy and authority to this pandemic include: Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand and Angela Merkel in Germany. In Norway, the Prime Minister Erna Solberg from the conservative party-led coalition also introduced a quarantine, travel bans even within Norway, closed universities, schools, nurseries and non-essential shops, and introduced testing promptly. In Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir offers free COVID-19 testing to everybody and the proportion of people screened is five times that of South Korea, another country that is seen to be an international success story in tackling COVID-19.369 Sanna Marin in Finland has engaged social media influencers in spreading information about the pandemic and it reaches people who don’t read the press.370 This empathy, clarity in communication, and intelligence stands in stark contrast to US and Brazilian 368 Emily Ferguson, “End in sight? Denmark prepares to end COVID-19 lockdown—‘We have succeeded’,” Express, April 1, 2020, https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/126 3297/COVID-19-latest-news-Denmark-lockdown-restrictions-Mette-Frederiksen-cov id19-cases. 369 “Iceland offers $420 million aid for firms and families hit by lockdown,” Reuters, April 22, 2020, Healthcare, https://www.reuters.com/article/health-COVID-19-iceland/icel and-offers-420-million-aid-for-firms-and-families-hit-by-lockdown-idUSC7N2AL01L. 370 Jon Henley, “Finland enlists social influencers in fight against Covid-19,” The Guardian, April 1, 2020, Finland, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/finlandenlists-social-influencers-in-fight-against-covid-19.

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presidents, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. They openly discriminate against women and minority politicians and dismiss science and experts.371 In Sweden, political leaders are fully aware of the threat, but scientists disagree on the approach depending on political persuasion. Sweden (and Norway) have a history of eugenics which might be one of the reasons the Swedish Prime Minister has gained support from a public that accepts sacrificing ‘weaker’ citizens for the public good.372 Female leaders in the other Nordic countries disagree with the Swedish approach and ideology and are not willing to risk so many lives. They have been very clear and honest in communicating with a diverse public. The women have managed to do so in a non-authoritarian manner without falling into the trap of using the language of war. They have stressed that this pandemic is very dangerous and needs to be taken seriously and that they understand it is difficult, especially for children. Fredriksen and Solberg even hold press conferences for children where they can ask questions, and their answers are very clear and reassuring.373 The strategy has paid off in both Norway and Denmark and both countries have strategies in place to open up gradually. Norway re-opened nurseries from 20 April and schools will open before the summer, whilst over the 1,630 km long border to Sweden, nurseries and schools have been open all along and the death toll on 20 April was 1,765 compared to 182 in Norway. Norway has 5.5 million inhabitants and Sweden has 10.2 million. The difference is stark no matter how—and who—you count.

Conclusion To an outsider, it is difficult to understand why the Social Democrats have taken such a brutal, neoliberal approach and seem to blatantly prioritize the economy over protecting people’s lives. Most of the Sweden Democrat’s criticism of the government seems like a voice of reason: demanding mass testing, lockdowns and compulsory facemasks for health workers.

371 Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, “Trump Repeatedly Attacks Reporters In COVID-19 Briefing,” Huffpost, April 7, 2020, Politics, https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trump-attack s-reporters-media-COVID-19-briefing_n_5e8bc4b7c5b62459a92dbe4e?ri18n=true&g uccounter=1. 372 Vito Laterza and Louis P. Romer, “COVID-19, herd immunity and the eugenics of the market,” Aljazeera, April 14, 2020, Europe, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi nion/COVID-19-herd-immunity-eugenics-market-200414104531234.html. 373 Erna Solberg, Guri Melby and Kjell Ingolf Ropstad, “Inviterer til ny pressekonferanse for barn,” Regjeringen, last modified May 15, 2020, https://www.regjeringen.no/no/akt uelt/inviterer-til-ny-pressekonferanse-for-barn/id2698494/.

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These are not easily identified as radical-right-wing policy suggestions. Clarity and guidelines from the authorities, which the SD keeps asking for, does not seem to be a niche for them to exploit. The SD’s problem right now is that too many mainstream experts and politicians in Sweden and abroad, including the WHO agreed with lockdown and mass testing. It will be interesting to see if the support for the Social Democrat’s reactionary policy will continue and from where the opposition might emerge—if not from the radical right. SAP’s approach has occupied and normalized a territory that has been at the core of radical-right ideology (i.e. immigration as well as fear and security politics). For the SD to win back support, it will have to move so far to the right that it would surely fall from the Overton window of what is acceptable in Sweden. Like Margaret Thatcher’s 1978 ‘swamping’ comments in the UK, then, SAP has successfully managed to contain and manage xenophobic and authoritarian leanings—outbidding a radical-right competitor with hard right promises.374

374 Gordon Burns, “TV Interview for Granada World in Action (“rather swamped”),” Margaret Thatcher Foundation, last modified January 27, 2978, https://www.margaretthatc her.org/document/103485.

Contesting Class in the Lockdown Protests Justin Gilmore “Five, 10 years from now—different party. You’re going to have a worker’s party.”375 These words, uttered by Donald Trump in May of 2016, might at first appear prophetic given the current bout of protests that have taken off throughout the US. In these protests, the star-spangled banner is strewn across various cityscapes as largely white crowds gather to demand that their respective states resume normal working operations. “We are all essential workers” has quickly become a go-to slogan for many who show up; and yet, it is worth dwelling on what exactly this means, particularly for a country that, for a long time, was politically ‘allergic’ to questions concerning the working class.376 In a sense, the rhetorical norm of referring to “working people” as political auxiliaries for the “middle class” has now become unsettled. With this in mind, we can see the protestors’ attempt to aesthetically represent themselves through the avatar of productive labor as a significant development worthy of some preliminary concentration. Of course, the transformation of political discourse is one thing, but its aesthetic adaptation by protestors who appear opposed to measures taken against the COVID-19 pandemic is another. Certainly, how political issues are framed is an important element that has been discussed widely by sociologists of social movements. Framing allows movement participants ways to publicly articulate grievances on their own terms. Yet, what is interesting about the framing before us is its contextual and historical content. The idea that short-term distress would beckon long-term economic dynamism—a set of causal presumptions cast into the concept known as the Kuznets Curve—has begun to splinter.377 Simultaneously, political forces that once asserted themselves through the middle-class registers of taxation and entrepreneurial freedom now appear differently. 375 Nick Gass, “Trump: GOP will become ‘worker’s party’ under me,” Politico, May 26, 2016, https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trump-gop-workers-party-223598 376 Amanda Walker, “COVID-19: Gun-packing Virginians want lockdown axed—but they will have to bite the bullet,” Sky News, April 23, 2020, Eyewitness, https://news.sky. com/story/COVID-19-gun-packing-virginians-want-lockdown-axed-but-they-will-hav e-to-bite-the-bullet-11977307. 377 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 816.

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While there is a fierce, and perhaps intractable, debate about how rightwing populism in the US relates, or does not relate, to economic distress and racial status, the slow discursive turn towards labor, especially amid the Republican Party’s softening to economic nationalism, signals a new ideological battle line in US politics that must be taken seriously.378

From the real to spectral Economic inequality is very real in the US. Since the 2007–09 economic crisis, which was simultaneously a destabilization of the financial sector and a housing crisis, concerns about inequality have spurred interest in a class antagonism perspective. It should be no surprise, then, that the development of the Occupy Movement has been followed by the Bernie Sanders campaign, as the lived experience of augmenting economic inequality has yet to find a durable avenue for political representation.379 Of course, these singular political developments reflect long-term general trends, with class divisions widening significantly since at least the 1970s.380 Yet, although interrelated, economic realities and political constructions are clearly two very different things. An unresolved question lingers: Which political forces can meld feelings arising from today’s uncertain economic experience into a durable ideological perspective? It is from this view that we can assess the current ‘open my state’ protests. Setting aside the empirical question about class composition, the protests are nevertheless engaged in an attempt to fuse together the liberal—and in the US, libertarian-tinged—anxiety for personal liberty with ostensibly workerist concerns—ostensibly because the class character of the protests seems quite questionable. Given the history of similar protest moments, like the Tea Party, it is likely that the overall class situation for many is that of the middling classes. Presuming that this is so—it is too early to give an empirical answer—gives rise to another question, one that is centered on what these protests have do within today’s wider political field? 378 Mike Davis, “The Great God Trump and the White Working Class,” Catalyst, 1, no.1 (2017); Ronald F. Inglehart and Pippa Norris. 2017. “Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash.” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series. Harvard Kennedy School, August 29. 379 Astra Taylor, “Occupy and Space,” NPlusOne, January 5, 2012, American Politics, https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/occupy/occupy-and-space/. 380 Raj Chetty, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca, Jimmy Narang, “The fading American dream: Trends in absolute income mobility since 1940,” Science, 28, no.6336 (2017): 398–406.

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Aestheticized politics One way to thinking about the protests is through the lens of aestheticized politics, which is to say that the performative enactments of ‘working class’ is an attempt to definitionally attenuate ‘working class’ at an ideological level.381 Parading large vehicles like trucks and SUV’s and the presence of work gear are paired with a discourse that emphasizes the productive capacity of the human in general, and the apparent exceptionality of American productivity in particular.382 Initially, ‘we are all essential workers’ appears as a demand for productivity to be treated as a universal category. But this aestheticized performance of the working class enacts a sleight of hand: it renders those who employ low-income wage earners to labor as ‘essential,’ resulting in an automatic downgrade for frontline workers who would be forced to resume working during the COVID-19 pandemic if the shutdowns were lifted. While these sentiments appear to connect with anti-government positions expressed by right-wing protests of the recent past, their emphasis on the worker, as opposed to the taxpayer, indicates an important shift.383 Concerns surrounding taxation typically center on a property-first approach, with cash transfers politicized as undue state intrusion into the private sphere. In attempting to frame the situation through the lens of labor, the polemic focus is moved towards productivity, and thus production as such. One might imagine that this shift would cast light on hitherto neglected economic trends, like the ascendency of low-wage service labor, or the demolition of labor rights by mounting tech-mediated gig work. Instead, we are confronted with an aesthetic detour, as the conditions of production are subsumed under the apparent right to consume. This obfuscation becomes apparent when looking at the various Internet pages where protest partisans share related content about the shutdowns. In one post, a video of an angry Wal-Mart customer who, denied his ability to buy two loaves of bread by store policy, circulates rapidly alongside numerous complaints of small business owners who demand that their shops be reopened. The juxtaposition of consumption complaints and the myriad issues of small business owners is an important

381 Ernesto Laclau, “Universalism, Particularism, and the Question of Identity,” October, 61 (1992): 83–90. 382 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 349. 383 Vanessa Williamson, Theda Skocpol and John Coggin, “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism,” Perspectives on Politics, 9, no.1 (2011): 25–43.

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amalgamation. More broadly, the desire to establish a homology between the consumption of labor and the acquisition of goods appears to be an animating element of the protest’s discourse. However, while there have been no reports of widespread food shortages yet, workers will certainly see rates of infection rise among their ranks if economic operations resume. For us, this contradiction appears obvious enough. While our use of analytical argumentation may be able to take apart the protest’s discourse, it must be acknowledged that performed representations of ‘working class’ communicate in an altogether different mode. The protest’s articulations are aesthetically communicated. Rather than through rational exposition, they attempt to engage their viewer at an intuitive, ‘common sense’ level. They portend to render the Gordian knot of social relations into something apparently ‘knowable’ through a series of aesthetic representations that purport to describe what the US working class is.384 The US has a notable absence of institutions that maintain and transfer historical accounts of working-class social struggles and their traditions that might serve as important tools of interpretation for increasingly unsettled economic conditions. This absence makes knowing the social relations behind today’s economic turbulence intensely opaque. Importantly, the aestheticization of politics is not new. In fact, rendering politics through a malleable aesthetic frame has a storied history in far right-wing political development. Walter Benjamin, reflecting on fascist legitimization in interwar Germany, famously reflected on this very situation: Fascism attempts to organize the newly proletarianized masses without affecting the property structure that the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life.385

The danger, following Benjamin, was one of engendering authoritarian compliance from the raw material of class contradictions. Of course, interwar Germany’s class cleavages were obviously different than those in today’s US. Benjamin’s insight is helpful, though, for thinking through the stakes of the turn towards working class representations. 384 Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities (London: Verso, 1991), p- 232. 385 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1968), p. 278.

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While the level of success of these protests remains to be seen, the importance of capturing the ‘American working class’ at the ideational level has serious political implications. Common sense presumptions about what the ‘working class’ means will determine the potentials and limits for right-wing politics, especially if class divisions continue to widen. Regardless of their potential for success or failure, today’s protests signal an important, albeit paradoxical, rift around discourses that signify the ‘working class.’ And, amid a rapidly deteriorating economic situation, politicizing what the working class is, and what it wants, seems impossible to avoid.

Epilogue

Will the World Be More Tolerant After the COVID-19 Pandemic? Valery Engel In April 2020, the German parliamentary far-right Party Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland—AfD) lost more than 4 percent in polls compared to January. Its popularity in April was at the level of 9–10 percent.386 And this is after a record 18 percent in 2018 (in Eastern Germany this figure reached 25 percent). The reasons are two factors directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Firstly, the radical right, populists and Eurosceptics have received much of what they have been pursuing for years—strict measures have been introduced in EU countries to restrict crossing borders, and migration flows to Europe have been suspended. Moreover, many emigrants, fleeing the epidemic, tried to return to their homelands, where, in their opinion, the danger is not so obvious. As a result, we have seen the rise of the UK Independence Party, which a year after winning the referendum on Brexit in June 2016, lost 85 percent of its voters. Eurosceptics considered the task of the party accomplished. The same thing is happening today with AfD, although many people understand that this is a temporary ‘success.’ Secondly, the layman’s interest has shifted to the sphere of health care and state anti-crisis measures—a field where radicals feel less confident than in matters of immigration, refugees and EU membership. One way or another, far-right parties and movements were no longer able to dominate the political discourse in the new conditions. “This crisis is not like the other crises that the AfD has benefited from, the euro crisis and the refugee crisis,” said Johannes Hillje, a Berlinbased political consultant and expert on the AfD’s communication and rhetorical tactics.387 In addition, she also noted: “Both crises had an enemy which was an outsider … but now it’s a virus, and it’s spreading from within. The default populist narrative—us versus them, insiders versus outsiders—doesn’t work anymore.”

386 Emily Schultheis, “The COVID-19 Has Paralyzed Europe’s Far-Right,” Foreign Policy, April 14, 2020, Dispatch, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/14/COVID-19-hasparalyzed-europes-far-right/. 387 Ibid.

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Other radical-right and populist parties, including the Austrian Freedom Party, the Italian League, the French National Rally, or the Latvian National Bloc, found themselves in approximately the same situation. This made it possible to claim that in different countries disaster brought people together and the world is becoming more tolerant. Is it really? All these aforementioned parties tried to find new arguments to gain political leverage during the pandemic. Although each of these parties has its own agendas, they share common discourses in respect of COVID-19: 1. 2.

3. 4.

Criticism of government measures aimed at combating the pandemic; Calls for withdrawal from the EU due to lack of solidarity in the face of a pandemic, while criticizing the authorities for trying to help their neighbors; The accusation that minorities spread COVID-19; China is ultimately responsible for infecting the world with COVID-19.

Thus, the Freedom Party demanded the abolition of fines for violation of quarantine conditions, urged Austrians to leave the EU, and, at the same time, insisted on banning all holiday parties in order to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases.388 Roughly the same requirements were put forward by the Italian League. In addition, its leader, Matteo Salvini, widely disseminated the well-known theory that COVID-19 was invented in Chinese laboratories, and a Facebook video in which Salvini demanded “to tell the Italians the truth” about the “Chinese conspiracy” gained traction with 144 million (!) views by 31 January 2020.389 Also, Salvini, together with the leader of another far-right party, Brothers of Italy, Georgia Meloni, accused the EU’s leadership of betraying Italy, stating that the EU left the country to the mercy of fate at the beginning of the pandemic and did not help it.390 According to the populists, their country should therefore leave the EU. Germany’s AfD used its Facebook page to express a “strong protest” against the European idea of issuing special “Coronabonds” to help the most affected EU states.391 388 Ibid. 389 Alberto Nardelli and Joey D’Urso, “Italy’s Far-Right And Nationalist Leaders Are Pushing Debunked Conspiracy Theories About The COVID-19 To Millions Of Followers,” BuzzFeed News, March 26, 2020, World, https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonard elli/COVID-19-matteo-salvini-giorgia-meloni-conspiracy. 390 Ibid. 391 AfD. 2020. “Wir sind gegen die Vergemeinschaftung von Schulden. Unsere Steuerzahler sollen nicht für andere Länder geradestehen müssen. Wir sagen “NEIN” zu Corona-

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The head of the delegation of the French National Association in the European Parliament MEP Nicholas Bay said “the EU was completely powerless. The European Commission could have foreseen [this crisis]. It had the tools, it was informed and did nothing with that.”392 The former Minister of Justice in Latvia, a member of the parliamentary far-right National Block, Dzintars Rasnachs, blamed the Russian linguistic minority for spreading COVID-19. On March 30, 2020, he stated the following on Twitter: “Until there is an emergency regime in Russia, consumers of Russian television propaganda will hang around [the streets] and spit on all self-isolation events in Riga. Tonight, the children’s playground was full of non-Latvian speaking teens and children of irresponsible mothers. Does this happen all over Imanta (Riga’s region)?”393 On April 24, almost a month later, he repeated this idea about the Latvian Russians, allegedly, potential carriers of COVID-19, because they are manipulated by Russia rather than Latvia.394 In addition, his party actively supported the new law adopted by the Saeima during the pandemic to reduce the presence of the Russian language in Latvian media to 20 percent.395 As for non-parliamentary and small right-wing radical groups, their activity in this difficult period, at first glance, has the same or almost the same goals. First of all, these parties, working ‘on the ground,’ used the pandemic to win the sympathy of the population, which, unlike their parliamentary counterparts, they could not get from the voters for a long

392 393

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Bonds!” Facebook, April 9, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/alternativefuerde/photo s/a.542889462408064/3113947321968919/?type=3&theater. Hans Von Der Burchard, Hannah Roberts, Barbara Moens and Maïa De la Baume, “Europe’s far right knows how to waste a good crisis,” POLITICO, April 27, 2020, https:// www.politico.eu/article/europe-far-right-COVID-19-pandemic-struggles/. Rasnačs, Dzintars (@DzintarsRasnacs). 2020. “Kamēr Krievijā nebūs ārkārtas režīms, tikmēr RU propagandas vērotāji iekš TV vazāsies un uzspļaus visiem pašizolācijas pasākumiem Rīgā. Šovakar bija pilns bērnu rotaļu laukums ar latviski nerunājošiem tīņiem un bezatbildīgu māmiņu bērniem. Visā Imantā tas tā notiek?” Twitter, March 30, 2020, 2:48 p.m. https://twitter.com/DzintarsRasnacs/status/1244728138791346180. Rasnačs, Dzintars (@DzintarsRasnacs). 2020. “Lieciet droši video par #COVID2019 pārkāpumiem! Tas ir vienīgais līdzeklis pret pandēmijas otro vilni. Problēma gan paliek ar citu informatīvo telpu. Kremlini.” Twitter, April 24, 2020, 3:31 p.m. https://twitter. com/DzintarsRasnacs/status/1253783520960528388. Pastars, Edgars (@E_Pastars). 2020. “Un vē viens šodienas prieks par Saeimu—80/20 proporcija TV kanālu pakošānā ir pieņemta 2.lasījumā, dodot signālu RU mediju dominances mazināšnai, vienlaikus apzinoties, ka tas ir pareizs signāls, nevis 100% ideāls risinājums.” Twitter, April 23, 2020, 11:52 a.m. https://twitter.com/E_Pastars/status/ 1253366132762972160; “Saeima,” Wikipedia, last modified May 8, 2020, https://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeima.

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time.396 They do seemingly necessary things—they inform the population about the rules of quarantine compliance or deliver food to people with low incomes. True, they deliver products in their branded packages. Sometimes they put their leaflets with the phone numbers of the nearest party offices and call to replenish their ranks, as well as make accusations against ‘enemies of the nation,’ which usually includes immigrants and people of color. Such tactics are typical, for example, of the military-political organization of the neo-fascist type Azov in Ukraine, Casa Pound Italia (CPI) in the Apennines, the German Die Rechte (Rights), and the British National Party.397 The pandemic is a great opportunity for the extreme right-wing movements to intervene and become “real” defenders of the people, the only ones who really care and can “save the country from ruin,” writes journalist Michael Colborne.398 Like their ‘elder brothers’, who are in European parliaments, small right-wing groups accuse the authorities of ill-conceived measures to counter the pandemic, demand that they close their borders, and accuse China, Jews and illegal immigrants of spreading COVID-19.399 Louis Brook claims that “these extremist groups are using the COVID-19 as an opportunity to further their ideological objectives by spreading fear and division and exacerbating social tensions.”400 This is a characteristic of all of the aforementioned parties and movements in various European countries. Russians on the radical-right follow this pan-European agenda. In March 2020, they called on social networks to close the borders with neighboring Kazakhstan, since “thousands of illegal immigrants who infect Russians with COVID-19 infiltrate from there.” In April, they actively objected to the presence of labor migrants from the post-Soviet republics 396 Michael Colborne, “For the Far Right, the COVID-19 Crisis Is a PR Opportunity,” Fair Observer, April 13, 2020, https://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/michael-colbo rne-far-right-COVID-19-pandemic-assistance-covid-19-crisis-pr-news-10109/. 397 Ibid; Jamie Doward, “Far right hijack COVID-19 crisis to push agenda and boost support,” The Guardian, April 25, 2020, The Observer, https://www.theguardian.com/wor ld/2020/apr/25/far-right-hijack-COVID-19-crisis-to-push-agenda-and-boost-support. 398 Michael Colborne, “For the Far Right, the COVID-19 Crisis Is a PR Opportunity,” Fair Observer, April 13, 2020, https://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/michael-colbo rne-far-right-COVID-19-pandemic-assistance-covid-19-crisis-pr-news-10109/. 399 Jamie Doward, “Far right hijack COVID-19 crisis to push agenda and boost support,” The Guardian, April 25, 2020, The Observer, https://www.theguardian.com/world/20 20/apr/25/far-right-hijack-COVID-19-crisis-to-push-agenda-and-boost-support. 400 Ibid; Jamie Doward, “What’s happening at Zinc Network,” Zinc Network, https://zinc network.com/blog/far-right-hijack-COVID-19-crisis-to-push-agenda-and-boost-support/.

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in Central Asia in the Moscow subway because they are allegedly carriers of COVID-19.401 However, small extremist groups do not stop there. Unlike their counterparts in legislatures, they are more ideological and aim at ‘practical work’ with the population. Therefore, they go further—they call for a ‘national uprising’ and for a revolution against ‘immigrant dominance’ and even incite for a massive terrorist attack to destroy the ‘enemies of the nation,’ to which they include not only immigrants, people of color and Jews, but also the police and other established authorities. The radical right has accused China of spreading COVID-19, but at the same time they pay tribute to the tough measures that the Chinese authorities took in fighting the pandemic. They conclude “authoritarian regimes, as Louis Brooke has already mentioned, are superior to Western liberal democracies in overcoming the health crisis.”402 Another, more generalized conclusion follows from this: “Modern liberal states are on the verge of collapse and their decline can be accelerated by armed action or by a serious crisis.”403 The theme of ‘national rebellion’ has become one of the main topics in radical-right discourse. Thus, the neo-Nazi organization Northern Resistance Movement (NRM), based in northern Europe, welcomed the pandemic as a necessary step towards creating a New World. “[The virus] may be exactly what we need in order to trigger a real national uprising and strengthen revolutionary political forces,” wrote Simon Lindberg, leader of the Swedish branch of NRM, on the movement’s

401 Федоров, Владимир. 2020. “С большой помпой, “кремлевские мудрецы” закрывают российско-белорусскую границу. А с практически неконтролируемой границей с Казахстаном, через которую просачиваются тысячи нелегальных мигрантов, что делать собираются?” Facebook, March 16, 2020. https://www.face book.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2790179467733330&id=100002239113040; Федоров, Владимир. 2020. “Вчера, по делам спускался в метро. Людей практически нет. Кроме курьеров, в вагонах практически одни мигранты из Средней Азии. Редкие полицейские патрули не обращают на них никакого внимания, все равно взыскать с них штраф невозможно. По кольцевой линии катаются бомжи. Интересно, как они получали цифровые пропуска? Да, на некоторых станциях установили аппараты для обработки рук спиртом.” Facebook, May 1, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=28900332577479 50&id=100002239113040. 402 Jamie Doward, “Far right hijack COVID-19 crisis to push agenda and boost support,” The Guardian, April 25, 2020, The Observer, https://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2020/apr/25/far-right-hijack-COVID-19-crisis-to-push-agenda-and-boost-support. 403 Ibid.

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website.404 “We cannot build a millennial society of the future based on the rotten foundation of today; we must build it on ruins,” added Lindberg. Other radical-right groups see the pandemic as an opportunity to further promote xenophobic and overtly racist messages. In Ukraine, a representative of the Azov movement said in a Telegram messaging application that white people were not to blame for the spread of COVID-19 in Europe—“only the ethnic minorities of Italy are to blame.”405 The same position is advanced by white supremacists. From their point of view, everything connected with COVID-19 is a conspiracy led by the New World Order, George Soros and the Jews, the government of China and other villains seeking to “destroy the white race.”406 Telegram’s encrypted group channels and ‘freedom boards,’ such as 8Kun, which are often visited by extremists, have promoted the theory of domination by ‘white people’ through the use of ‘COVID-19 weapons.’ These communities advocate that white populations take up arms so that, one day, the ‘white order’ will triumph. “Telegram’s neo-Nazi channels have increased their calls for destabilization and violence related to COVID-19,” said Joshua Fisher-Birch, a researcher with an American anti-extremist project, in an interview with Al Jazeera.407 “These channels view the current situation … as an opportunity to try to exacerbate tensions and advocate violence,” insisted Fisher-Birch. Islamist radicals have also sought to capitalize from the pandemic. Al-Qaeda’s central media released a statement in both English and Arabic, stating that the pandemic is a “sign of God’s rage” towards humanity for its sins and non-observance of God’s rules.408 Al-Qaeda called on Muslims to repent and fight against the “enemies—the crusaders.” Shi’ite groups, including Hatball Kataib in Iraq and the Hussites in Yemen, as well as their social media supporters, have accused the US government of using 404 Michael Colborne, “As world struggles to stop deaths, far right celebrates COVID-19,” Aljazeera, March 26, 2020, COVID-19 Pandemic, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ features/world-struggles-stop-deaths-celebrates-covid-19-200326165545387.html. 405 Ibid. 406 “Intelbrief: White Supremacists And The Weaponization Of The COVID-19 (Covid19),” The Soufan Center, last modified March 25, 2020, https://thesoufancenter.org/int elbrief-white-supremacists-and-the-weaponization-of-the-COVID-19-covid-19/. 407 Michael Colborne, “As world struggles to stop deaths, far right celebrates COVID-19,” Aljazeera, March 26, 2020, COVID-19 Pandemic, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ features/world-struggles-stop-deaths-celebrates-covid-19-200326165545387.html. 408 Souad Mekhennet, “Far-right and radical Islamist groups are exploiting COVID-19 turmoil,” The Washington Post, April 10, 2020, National Security, https://www.wash ingtonpost.com/national-security/far-right-wing-and-radical-islamist-groups-are-explo iting-COVID-19-turmoil/2020/04/10/0ae0494e-79c7-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html.

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COVID-19 as a biological weapon.409 At the same time, ISIS encourages its members to stay away from Europe and constantly wash their hands in the hope of avoiding infections.410 However, there are difference between the activities of the Islamists and secular radical-right groups. The Washington Post quotes Rita Katz, Executive Director of SITE Intelligence Group, a privately held firm that tracks extremist activity on the Internet:411 “Practically speaking, these groups’ directives largely remain the same: continue attacking the enemy.” “The far right has gone much further in directly exploiting the COVID-19 Pandemic [for their own purposes]” include, added Katz. Right-wing extremists are actively discussing the situation, believing that this may be “their time,” as they seek to derive strategic benefits from what they call the “potential collapse of society.”412 In recent months, we have witnessed obvious provocations by rightwing radicals directed both against minorities and political opponents. Using the Telegram channels, there have been several waves of distribution of fakes—scans of false documents made in such a way that they look like real medical or government messages.413 According to Zinc Network monitoring, Telegram played an important role in distributing a fake scan of the positive COVID-19 test for former Democratic Vice-President and presidential candidate Joe Biden.414 Fakes about the overestimated number of victims of the pandemic were discovered in several cities in the UK.

409 Ibid. 410 Ben Makuch, “Experts Say Neo-Nazi ‘Accelerationists’ Discuss Taking Advantage of COVID-19 Crisis,” VICE, March 18, 2020, Tech, https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ pkewgv/experts-say-neo-nazi-accelerationists-discuss-taking-advantage-of-COVID-19 -crisis. 411 Souad Mekhennet, “Far-right and radical Islamist groups are exploiting COVID-19 turmoil,” The Washington Post, April 10, 2020, National Security, https://www.was hingtonpost.com/national-security/far-right-wing-and-radical-islamist-groups-are-expl oiting-COVID-19-turmoil/2020/04/10/0ae0494e-79c7-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story .html. 412 Ben Makuch, “Experts Say Neo-Nazi ‘Accelerationists’ Discuss Taking Advantage of COVID-19 Crisis,” VICE, March 18, 2020, Tech, https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/ pkewgv/experts-say-neo-nazi-accelerationists-discuss-taking-advantage-of-COVID-19 -crisis. 413 Souad Mekhennet, “Far-right and radical Islamist groups are exploiting COVID-19 turmoil,” The Washington Post, April 10, 2020, National Security, https://www.was hingtonpost.com/national-security/far-right-wing-and-radical-islamist-groups-are-expl oiting-COVID-19-turmoil/2020/04/10/0ae0494e-79c7-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story .html. 414 Amanda Holpuch, “Joe Biden warns that Donald Trump may try to delay November election,” The Guardian, April 24, 2020, Joe Biden, https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2020/apr/24/joe-biden-donald-trump-delay-election.

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These fake messages also proclaimed: “The Crown is a medicine, and the people are a disease.”415 Moreover, as a rule, there were hints that immigrants and Jews made people sick. A typical provocation aimed at a clash of two communities occurred in April 2020 in Latvia. The Latvian section of Facebook was thrilled with the message of several Russian-speaking residents of Riga who received leaflets in the Latvian language. The leaflets reported the following: “Dear Russian-speaking neighbors, if you do not like the Latvian language, Latvian culture and Latvia, then Russia will be waiting for you! Livestock cars are already ready for the journey and we will take you to Russia like cattle. You will live in tents all year.”416 The leaflet clearly hinted that the Soviet authorities sent many inhabitants from Latvia to Siberia after its annexation by Soviet Union in 1940. Although the deportations were carried out not on an ethnic but on a political basis, there were not only ethnic Latvians but also Russians, Jews, Belarusians and others among the deportees. However, Latvian nationalists traditionally view the Soviet excesses as a ‘Russian job,’ directed exclusively against Latvians. The purpose of the provocation with the leaflet is very simple—to provoke indignation among the Russian inhabitants of Latvia, to set them against the Latvian majority. A couple of weeks later many Russian-speakers in Riga found another leaflet in their mailbox—this time in Russian—with an appeal to take part in the traditional Victory Day march on 9 May.417 Since the year was 415 Souad Mekhennet, “Far-right and radical Islamist groups are exploiting COVID-19 turmoil,” The Washington Post, April 10, 2020, National Security, https://www.washin gtonpost.com/national-security/far-right-wing-and-radical-islamist-groups-are-exploiti ng-COVID-19-turmoil/2020/04/10/0ae0494e-79c7-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html. 416 Pankratov, Ruslan. 2020. “Есть новость. Люди выяснили, что всё таки письма были выброшены в почтовые ящики только одного подъезда. Спасибо Иван Романов. Вот такие письма сегодня были брошены во все почтовые ящики Золитуде. Денег видимо у местных наци хватает, чтобы поддерживать свою опухоль мозга. Перевод шедевра: Дорогие русскоговорящие соседи, если Вам ненравится латышский язык, латышская культура и Латвия, тогда Вас оджидает родина Россия! Скотские вагоны уже приготовлены к пути и в Россию Вас повезём как скотов. Будете жить в палатках весь год.” Facebook, April 15, 2020. https://www.fa cebook.com/ruslan.pankratov.7/posts/10158192207136575. 417 Русский союз Латвии. 2020. “ВНИМАНИЕ—ФАЛЬШИВКА! В Риге неизвестные разбрасывают по почтовым ящикам листовки 2018 года с призывом прийти на первомайский марш. Поскольку год не указан, то призыв можно отнести к году нынешнему. Но если присмотреться, то становится понятно, что речь идёт о ВТОРНИКЕ 1 мая 2018, а не о ПЯТНИЦЕ, на которую 1 мая приходится в этом году. Эти листовки хранились у какого-то провокатора аж два года (!) для того, чтобы в подходящий момент подставить под удар жителей Риги и нашу партию.” Facebook, April 29, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/rusojuz/posts/2917314155052419.

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not indicated on the leaflet, the appeal can be attributed to this year. But if you look closely, it becomes clear that we are talking about TUESDAY May 1, 2018, and FRIDAY, which falls on May 1 in 2020. These leaflets were kept by some provocateur for two years (!) in order to use the right moment for the Russian residents of Riga. Hundreds of thousands come every year to the monument for Soviet soldiers who liberated Latvia from German occupation in 1945 to take part in the Victory march. But this year on May 9 there was still a quarantine. What would have happened if hundreds of people came to the monument that day? They would have been detained by the police and fined for violation of quarantine rules in the amount of 500 to 2,000 euros. It would not only be a financial burden, but an occasion to claim that the Russians are not in control; they are influenced by the propaganda of a neighboring country; and they do not fulfill the quarantine restrictions. In short, Russians would be viewed as representing a danger to Latvia. Such a situation would provoke a strong protest from the Russian community as a whole. These two facts indicate that the Latvian radical-right-wing groups (and perhaps some lone wolves) are pushing for a confrontation between Russians and Latvians. The pandemic is a tool to achieve this goal. But, as it turned out, provocations are not the worst thing that rightwing extremists are preparing for us. The Internet has gradually become filled with threats of deliberate infection using COVID-19. In March 2020, the FBI told police agencies in New York that white supremacists intended to spray Jews and police officers with virus-infected human fluids.418 At the same time, extremists urged their supporters to carry out such attacks “in any place where they [Jews and police officers] can be gathered, including markets, political offices, enterprises and places of [religious] worship.”419 Michael Masters, head of the Secure Communities Network, an umbrella group that coordinates security for Jewish organizations and synagogues around the US, reports that its staff have recorded the dynamics of hate messages on the Internet—“From pushing the idea that Jews 418 Souad Mekhennet, “Far-right and radical Islamist groups are exploiting COVID-19 turmoil,” The Washington Post, April 10, 2020, National Security, https://www.wash ingtonpost.com/national-security/far-right-wing-and-radical-islamist-groups-are-explo iting-COVID-19-turmoil/2020/04/10/0ae0494e-79c7-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story. html. 419 Josh Margolin, “White supremacists encouraging their members to spread COVID-19 to cops, Jews, FBI says,” ABC News, March 23, 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/US/whi te-supremacists-encouraging-members-spread-COVID-19-cops-jews/story?id=697375 22&cid=social_fb_abcn.

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created the COVID-19 virus to sell vaccines to encouraging infected followers to try to spread the illness to the Jewish community and law enforcement.”420 This is not unique to the US. On April 21, 2020, Belgium’s Internal Security Service (Veiligheid van de Staat—VSSE) published an online brochure entitled “Hidden Danger COVID-19,” in which it reported that the Internet resource Indymedia, which VSSE called an “anarchist website,” urged it followers “to use the Covid-19 epidemic to commit violent acts against the police and prison officers.”421 Many do not consider this threat seriously, instead claiming that it is harmless trolling. However, experts urge that this problem be taken with utmost gravity since “someone may succumb to these calls and commit a terrorist attack.”422 For example, in March, a man from New Jersey, a 50-year-old named George Falcone, was charged with creating a terrorist threat after he intentionally coughed near a supermarket employee in Manalapan and informed her that he had COVID-19.423 On the same day, authorities said the Department of Justice had warned of similar threats to the spread of the virus. White supremacists called Falcone “sublime to holiness.”424 In fact, we must be aware of biological terrorism—the deliberate infection of a serious disease. Rita Katz warns of this possibility: “Ultimately, we need to start thinking about terrorism in these new contexts: public health, disinformation, etc.”425 However, we must not only consider the new danger new danger of deliberate infection with COVID-19, but also the new risks of traditional terrorist attacks associated with COVID-19. Everyone knows the case of

420 Ibid. 421 Veiligheid van de Staat Sûrete de l’etat “The hidden danger behing COVID-19,” VSSE, last modified April 21, 2020, https://vsse.be/fr/le-danger-cache-derriere-le-covid-19. 422 Michael Colborne, “As world struggles to stop deaths, far right celebrates COVID-19,” Aljazeera, March 26, 2020, COVID-19 Pandemic, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ features/world-struggles-stop-deaths-celebrates-covid-19-200326165545387.html. 423 Neil Vigdor, “A Man Coughed on a Wegmans Employee. Now He’s Charged With a Felony,” The New York Times, March 25, 2020, The COVID-19 Outbreak, https://www. nytimes.com/2020/03/25/us/COVID-19-terrorism-nj.html. 424 Michael Colborne, “As world struggles to stop deaths, far right celebrates COVID-19,” Aljazeera, March 26, 2020, COVID-19 Pandemic, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/ features/world-struggles-stop-deaths-celebrates-covid-19-200326165545387.html. 425 Souad Mekhennet, “Far-right and radical Islamist groups are exploiting COVID-19 turmoil,” The Washington Post, April 10, 2020, National Security, https://www.wash ingtonpost.com/national-security/far-right-wing-and-radical-islamist-groups-are-explo iting-COVID-19-turmoil/2020/04/10/0ae0494e-79c7-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story .html.

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Timothy R. Wilson, who was popular in ultra-right-wing US circles.426 He was recently killed in a shootout with FBI agents in Missouri. Wilson planned to attack a hospital with patients suffering from COVID-19. According to reports, Wilson was the administrator of the neo-Nazi channel Telegram, well-known for its open calls to violence. He advocated terrorist attacks and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on the channel, arguing that the pandemic was “an excuse to destroy our people.” We can conclude that a system of interaction between radical-rightwing parties, movements, and individual extremists without direct connections is developing gradually. While radical-right-wing and populist parties are losing popularity, they create a public backdrop of fear and dissatisfaction with the government’s anti-virus measures. Other small and more militant radical-right-wing groups are using the Internet to spread hoaxes against the government, minorities and political opponents. Still other ‘activists’ call on their infected supporters to act as biological weapons in order to infect the ‘Enemies of the Nation.’ All these trends grow into a common system of threats to various people. Does all this affect society and those in power? As for society, the answer is an unequivocal YES. “Imagine the guy who just lost his job,” writes Levy West, Director of Terrorism Studies at Charles Sturt University in Canberra.427 “He can’t get work, and finds himself in a queue with people he perceives as ‘migrants’. It doesn’t take much for him to think that ‘the system is structured against people like me’ … This is gold for them [right-wing extremist groups].” A simple analysis of social networks shows that the number of victims of radical-right-wing provocations is growing. As for the authorities, one cannot fail to notice certain trends. For example, US President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo repeat the fiction of right-wing radicals that COVID-19 is a product of a laboratory in Wuhan, although US intelligence agencies do not confirm this.428 This

426 Adam Goldman, “Man Suspected of Planning Attack on Missouri Hospital Is Killed, Officials Say,” The New York Times, March 25, 2020, The COVID-19 Outbreak, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/us/politics/COVID-19-fbi-shooting.html. 427 Tim Elliot, “The scariest part about the COVID-19 pandemic is speed,” The Sydney Morning Herald, March 30, 2020, COVID-19 Pandemic, https://www.smh.com.au/nat ional/the-scariest-part-about-the-COVID-19-pandemic-is-speed-20200329-p54f00.html. 428 Matthew Lee, “Trump Administration fuels rumours that virus came from China lab,” The Sydney Morning Herald, April 17, 2020, COVID-19 Pandemic, https://www.smh. com.au/world/north-america/trump-administration-fuels-rumours-that-virus-came-fro m-china-lab-20200417-p54kr1.html; David E. Snager, “Pompeo Ties COVID-19 to China Lab, Despite Spy Agencies’ Uncertainty,” The New York Times, May 3, 2020,

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version is also repeated by British officials.429 As for EU leaders, they took unprecedented steps to close the borders, but some of them argued that there was insufficient support for the most affected countries.430 Today, countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and even Malta object to the issue of so-called ‘Coronabonds’ to help countries affected by the pandemic.431 A clear undermining of European values occurred during the pandemic in Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán used the pretext of combating COVID-19 to gain unlimited powers and virtually outlawed transgendered people.432 Many European leaders are secretly or explicitly implementing President Trump’s slogan, “America First!” in relation to their own countries. It is difficult to connect this idea with radical-right-wing propaganda, but it can certainly be connected with the mood of voters. All this, unfortunately, leads to the conclusion that the risks after the pandemic will not diminish. Therefore, in response to the question posed in the title of this article, it is worth noting that hatred did not go into quarantine. It will continue to sow separation and chaos throughout the world. A crisis did not bring us closer, as many had hoped, but created more problems for humanity.

429

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The COVID-19 Outbreak, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/us/politics/COVID19-pompeo-wuhan-china-lab.html. Brian McGleenon, “COVID-19 China cover-up: UK seriously considering shock Wuhan laboratory leak theory,” Express, April 5, 2020, https://www.express.co.uk/ news/world/1265224/COVID-19-china-original-wuhan-laboratory-leak-bioweapon-m ilitary-grade-china-scientist. Daniel Boffey, “Italy criticises EU for being slow to help over COVID-19 epidemic,” The Guardian, March 11, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/ita ly-criticises-eu-being-slow-help-COVID-19-epidemic. Matthew Vella, “Malta non-committal on COVID-19 eurobond, Scicluna prefers credit lines,” MaltaToday, April 1, 2020, https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/europe/1014 15/malta_noncommittal_on_covid19_eurobond_scicluna_prefers_credit_lines#.Xs77I 55Ki3J. Shaun Walker, “Hungary seeks to end legal recognition of trans people amid Covid-19 crisis,” The Guardian, April 2, 2020, Hungary, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2 020/apr/02/hungary-to-end-legal-recognition-of-trans-people-amid-covid-19-crisis.

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