Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World

Content Warning: This section discusses fascist ideology, genocide, medical experimentation, eugenics, antisemitism, racism, and slavery.

Part Three begins with an excerpt of a poem by Yehuda Amichai and a quote from Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

Conspiracy theories differ from well-researched investigative journalism. Journalists are held to a standard of integrity; they double- and triple-check their facts; they are upfront about uncertainties. Conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, mimic the language and style of investigative journalism while making unsupported claims. To Wolf, the threat in the COVID-19 pandemic is not the infectious disease itself, or the way it is “being fought half-heartedly by for-profit drug companies and hollowed-out states,” but the fact that an “app […] [wants] to turn you into a slave” (235). Politicians like Bannon love conspiracy theories that distract from real problems that would require societal overhaul to solve. They use shock and outrage to create policies that cause real harm. To counter this tactic, Klein urges calm as a form of resistance that can enable people to focus their energies and help them aim their anger at the correct targets.

Part of what makes battling conspiracy theories so difficult is that there are real underlying systems of power that uphold inequality and injustice in the name of protecting private property and capital.