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>Fears of political violence are growing as the 2024 campaign heats up and conspiracy theories evolve
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DePape, the Paul Pelosi attacker, testified that his interest in right-wing conspiracy theories started with GamerGate, an online harassment campaign against feminists in the video game industry. Beginning in 2014, misogynistic gamers terrorized female game developers and other women in the industry with rape and death threats.
Brianna Wu, one of GamerGate’s original targets, said she wasn’t surprised to hear it linked to a politically motivated attack nearly a decade later. Wu said GamerGate emerged from the same online recesses that spawned far-right conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate and ‘’’QAnon’’’.
“This is a pattern of radicalization that we’re seeing over and over and over in every single bit of politics,” Wu said. “This is not a right-versus-left issue. This is a radicalization issue that is happening online. We need a policy response.”
DePape testified that he went to Nancy Pelosi’s home with plans to interrogate her about Russian interference in the 2016 election. He said he intended to wear an inflatable unicorn costume while recording it and then upload the video to the internet.
DePape allegedly told authorities that his other targets included a women’s and queer studies professor at the University of Michigan. He told jurors that he heard about the professor while listening to a conservative commentator.
DePape’s spiral into conspiracy theories is a textbook tale of radicalization, according to experts on extremism who say that the mainstreaming of false, bigoted and harmful ideas on radio shows, cable news, social media websites and other public online forums has made them far more accessible.
The problem is exacerbated by lax content moderation on social media and a growing “conspiracy-creating cottage industry” looking to use extreme rhetoric to cash in or widen their audience, said American University professor Brian Hughes, associate director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab.
“Some of the people in that wide audience are going to be people like DePape, who are intentionally going to commit an act of violence based on this false and harmful information that they’ve been served,” Hughes said.
Conspiracy theories are alluring by design, driving some who are susceptible to them to completely immerse themselves, said Amarnath Amarasingam, an extremism researcher and professor at Queen’s University in Canada. DePape testified that before the attack, he frequently played video games for hours on end while listening to political podcasts.
Repeatedly hearing that the political opponents or government leaders are responsible for evil acts give believers a scapegoat for their troubles and a “moral mission” to do something about it, Amarasingam said.
American election years are often characterized by violence, said Ware, of the Council on Foreign Relations, whether it’s hate crimes in response to a particular candidate’s identity or violent reactions to unfavorable results. “So we should absolutely expect such incidents in 2024,” he said.
Trump’s return to the ballot next year, as well as his current legal battles, are sure to amplify politicized rhetoric and could drive more extremist violence, experts said.
“Donald Trump has a knack for tacitly endorsing violence without saying anything that’s really a clear endorsement of it, necessarily,” Hughes said.
To combat potential violence, Americans should try to turn down the temperature of political rhetoric and look out for loved ones who may be spiraling down a path toward radicalization, experts said.
“Spending hours and hours consuming conspiracy theory material is intoxicating,” Hughes said. “It anesthetizes you from the worries of your day to day life in the same way that certain drugs do. And I think that we need to reorient our thinking a little bit in that direction, so that we can begin to view this as the public health problem that it really is.”
https://apnews.com/article/depape-paul-pelosi-qanon-conspiracy-theories-violence-390ad310fa34b0edb925d88540a7ddcd