Hofstadter saw a golden thread linking the scapegoating of Jews and Catholics by 19th-century populists to the fever dreams of Joseph McCarthy, who believed a fifth column had embedded itself in America’s most powerful institutions. The notion was popularized by the political scientist Richard Hofstadter in his famous essay ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’. It is widely accepted as fact in contemporary politics that all the biggest conspiracy theories originate on the far right, whether it’s QAnon, birtherism or the belief that Sandy Hook was staged by actors. Social media companies like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are supposed to be vigilant about removing all conspiracy theories from their platforms, particularly those connected with the virus - and no doubt they permanently banned those wingnuts who blamed Trump’s ill-health on a sinister cabal linked to Joe Biden.īut Reid and Moore were allowed to spread their crackpot notions all over social media without any interference by ‘independent’ fact-checkers. It’s up there with the claim, popular on the fringes of the Republican party, that Trump was deliberately infected with COVID during the first presidential debate. This is a conspiracy theory, pure and simple. MSNBC presenter Joy Reid took to Twitter to air her doubts, saying a friend had asked her whether Trump was faking the disease to avoid doing any more debates, while the documentary-maker Michael Moore wrote a long post on Facebook claiming that ‘Trump has a long history of lying about his health’.

Yet many of Trump’s opponents are convinced the whole COVID drama was a hoax. He spent three nights in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center White House physician Dr Sean Conley confirmed he had the disease at a press conference flanked by a team of 10 doctors - and at least eight other people who attended the Rose Garden event where the President is thought to have been infected also tested positive. Did Donald Trump fake his battle with coronavirus to boost his standing in the polls? No, obviously not.

Hofstadter the paranoid style