Vol. 1 No. 2 (2023)
Articles

Conspiracy Theories and Populism: Analyzing the Trumpian Embrace of Conspiracy Narratives as a Political Instrument

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Dóra Busi
Pázmány Péter Catholic University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Folia Humanistica et Socialia 1(2) 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69705/FHS.2023.1.2.11

Published 31-12-2023 — Updated on 11-06-2024

Copyright (c) 2023 Busi Dóra

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The attack on its Capitol on January 6, 2021, was an unprecedented event in the history of the United States. It was made more peculiar by the fact that the conspiracy theory (CT) that the election had been fraudulent was spread by the outgoing president, Donald Trump, too. The purpose of this research is to show that CTs are suitable political tools for populists, as both are based on the division of society and appeal to alienated, dissatisfied groups. The main conclusion of the research is that populism and CTs spread because of political polarization, which, in turn, these narratives themselves deepen. For this reason, the populist use of conspiracy theories is almost inevitable.

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