Who Knew Europeans Would Be So Pilled?
As an American in Europe, I thought I'd left the mainstreaming of conspiracy thinking behind. I've since been disabused of this notion.
Based on an article originally published on December 1st, 2021.
I’ll have to accept that this is a topic that has been covered extensively by a number of mainstream "journalistic" outfits (Opens in a new window), crack investigators, and superb podcasts (Opens in a new window). Bear with me, as this will be a far more anecdotal (and less professional) piece of writing, and is in no small part about my own biases.
“Deep-state cabal.” “Pedophile elites.” “Soros-funded crisis-actors.”
It was 2008 when I’d heard these phrases for the first time. They came from a man we’ll call ‘Frank’. Frank lived out of his car—an ‘88 Nissan Stanza that was emblazoned with InfoWars and Coast to Coast AM bumper stickers. Proudly a Sovereign Citizen, he felt no need to display license plates on the Stanza—a principled stance that would cost him the vehicle several weeks later.
Frank was an unwell man in a small town, and while he had a reputation, he was broadly regarded as an endearing figure. My friends and I would routinely encounter him outside the local Dunkin Donuts, where he’d regale us with tales of the HAARP Machine, nanites in the MMR vaccines, and the pedophilic crimes of the Clinton family. This was my first knowing encounter with someone so shamelessly indoctrinated into the world of conspiracy. As a teenager, I wasn’t nearly aware enough to pick up on the anti-Semitic subtext or dehumanizing “othering” of liberals that Frank was eluding to.
Fast-forward a decade and Frank’s views don’t seem nearly as fringe as they once did. The rise of Q-pilled politicians (Opens in a new window), the legitimizing of Great Replacement propaganda (Opens in a new window) through the country’s most popular news outlet, and the windfall of anti-vaxers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic would certainly make Frank feel vindicated.
“In political terms, this policy is called the ‘great replacement,’ the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries,” an actual quote from Tucker Carlson
In 2019, I ended up moving to Europe, and like many Americans that land “left-of-center”, I have this tendency to think of Europe as a more sane place. After all: universal healthcare, higher minimum wages, no two-party system, affordable universities—surely these people wouldn’t fall so completely to these obvious fictions. This was the continent with the reasonable people who have wind turbines and Smart cars.
Two years into Europe’s COVID-19 landscape has since disabused me of this notion.
Original Photo: Encountered in Den Haag: Unvaccinated Lives Matter. The sign on the left reads “So that everything goes back to normal?” in Dutch. The one on the right, “Do you really believe this?” Arabic-looking words unknown.
“Vaccines are weapons to kill,” claim some of the organizers of the recent Dutch lockdown protests (Opens in a new window). Unrest and disinformation have found welcome ears in cities all over Europe as the identification of the Omicron variant threatens renewed restrictions. A number of articles have already covered the fact that The Netherlands is a hotbed for Q content and demonstration (Opens in a new window). The infamous Qanon documentary, Fall of the Cabal was created by Dutch filmmaker (Opens in a new window), Janet Ossebaard.
Image stolen from Hope Not Hate UK (Opens in a new window): Photo of Janet Ossebaard
In 2020, Germany ranked fifth and the UK ranked second to the US in Tweets related to Qanon (Opens in a new window) before Twitter broadly banned Q-related content. Germany is estimated to he home to roughly 200,000 adherents (Opens in a new window) to the conspiracy theory.
Image stolen from DW (Opens in a new window): To unpack what we’re seeing here—Q Demonstrators displaying a variation of the Imperial German flag—itself a symbol of right-wing nationalism—bearing images of Donald Trump, a Q, and the infamous “WWG1WGA” slogan.
It’s difficult to keep this piece from being mostly about Qanon. While Q as a phenomena didn’t arrive on the scene until 2017, the movement as a whole has become an all-encompassing unified conspiracy theory. It’s an effective inroad for radicalization that many who might have scoffed at old Frank have fallen victim to.
I do find it bizarre that a conspiracy theory rooted so heavily in the presidencies of Donald Trump and John F Kennedy would find solid ground in Europe, but here we are. Qanon as a movement has co-opted anti-vax disinformation, anti-Zionism, anti-Communism, and a number of esoteric and apocalyptic Christian elements. It would seem that no pocket of the conspiracy theory community is safe from appropriation. In four years, Q accomplished what Alex Jones could not in two decades.
Not unlike Alex Jones, there have been a fair share of grifters coming out of the woodwork to peddle snake oil throughout the pandemic.
Original Photo: Seen outside a shop in central Nürnberg. It touts the ability of colloidal silver to resist diseases. Selling colloidal silver products to combat disease is a grift that predates COVID-19.
The above photograph was taken in a major market square in the city center of Nürnberg, Germany. Colloidal Silver has been the focus of many a scam for years (Opens in a new window) and a favorite of both right-wing prepper and new-age grifters. This particular store is only a few meters away from where the city’s storied Christmas Market stalls are typically set up. The implication that they have a potential treatment for COVID, from a business in such a heavy foot-traffic area at the height of the pandemic is absolutely revolting.
Now, I’m not saying that Europe’s conspiracy landscape is more or less threatening than that of the US at this point in time. In my opinion, none of these recent movements in Europe have recreated an incident quite so dramatic as the January 6th storming of the US Capitol, where their influence was undeniable. That said, what’s also undeniable is the rise of the radical right across all of Europe and how they’ve historically mobilized and recruited using conspiracies (Opens in a new window) (see: fascism, the Holocaust).
Image stolen from The World Jewish Congress (Opens in a new window): Pictures of Golden Dawn demonstrators in Greece from 2014
As well, conspiracy thinking doesn’t get to be the scapegoat for critics of the unrest caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Not everyone at a lockdown protest is Q-pilled, a racist, a believer in Bill Gates nanomachines (Opens in a new window), or a fascist, but they are in a position to easily be influenced by those people. While I personally find issue with the resistance to vaccination and other public health measures, conspiracy theorists do not have a monopoly on populism and rage. Being dismissive of these people (Opens in a new window) is a dangerous mistake.
Quin @Quinfour (Opens in a new window)
Het gaat écht los in Rotterdam #RotterdamProtest (Opens in a new window)
7:59 PM ∙ Nov 19, 2021 (Opens in a new window)
542Likes283Retweets (Opens in a new window)
For the first twenty-five years of my life, I longed for a greater cyberpunk aesthetic. Now faced with the reality of routinely lethal protests, a global pandemic that’s killed millions and hasn’t slowed down, a constant barrage of input about demonic pedophile cults operating in the shadows, and the torrent of online disinformation shaping our lives, I would like to return this monkey’s paw wish. There’s an obvious lesson here about the grass not always being greener and checking my own biases, but I feel that the greater takeaway is a shakeup of my own lack of engagement. My own apathy.
I can’t deny that I would like a vacation from Frank’s timeline, and I certainly never expected his ravings to catch up with me on the other side of the ocean.
Original Photo: Outside of a Biergarten in Bavaria: "Pizzagate. Elite Child Trafficking. Adrenochrome."
