Donald Trump's campaign for the Republican Party nomination now appears unstoppable. Much has been written about his appeal to white nationalists here, who interpret his slogan "Make America Great Again" to "Make America White Again". Less attention has been paid to his conspiracy theories, which resonate with an every-growing segment of the US electorate. But conspiracies are at the heart of Trump's campaign strategy. After all, he became a hero to many conservatives with this vocal Birther campaign against President Obama. And millions of Americans cheered when he stated that "thousands and thousands" of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated in the streets on September 11, 2001 as the World Trade Center came down, even though the story was a total fabrication.
Anne Applebaum, who has written extensively about conspiracy theories in Russia, explores the role of conspiracy theories in the Trump Campaign:
Now Trump has placed conspiratorial thinking squarely at the center of the Republican primary. A whole generation of people who get their information from random sources on the Internet have eagerly taken up his invented stories and are reposting them as fast as they can. Trump’s lies and his distortions of reality don’t stick to him because his followers are not interested in truth. They prefer satisfying stories.
Popovic has written that it’s impossible to debunk conspiracy theories, and I can confirm that he is right, being the subject of several myself. He argues, instead, that the best weapon against conspiratorial thinking is laughter. He and his friends wore T-shirts with the slogan “Touch me — I’m a foreign mercenary.” Maybe, just maybe, that might work: When President Obama mocked Trump’s birther campaign at the White House correspondents’ dinner in 2011, Trump did shut up for a while. But I’m afraid that as Trump looks more and more likely to become the Republican presidential nominee, it’s going to get harder and harder to find him funny.
The situation in Germany is equally dire as more and more people get their information from "alternative" news sites such as the Truther site Kopp Online or Kremlin-backed outlets such as RT Deutsch or NachDenkSeiten . The journalist and researcher Tobias Jaecker has written extensively about conspiracy theories in Germany:
"US-Schiffe bringen Flüchtlingsmassen nach Europa!", "Man will die deutsche Bevölkerung austauschen", "Der IS ist ein Geheimdienstkonstrukt des Westens", "Die Amerikaner wollen mit den Flüchtlingen Europa destabilisieren" - das Internet und viele Köpfe sind voller solcher Thesen. "Verschwörungstheorien haben gerade Konjunktur", sagt der Journalist Tobias Jaecker, der sich schon lange mit dem Thema beschäftigt. "Verschwörungstheorien entstehen immer im Zusammenhang mit gesellschaftlichen Umbrüchen mit Kriegen und Krisen", sagt er. "Immer, wenn sich Leute Dinge nicht erklären können und nach Erklärungen suchen, dann wird in der Regel die Frage gestellt: 'Wem nützt ein Ereignis?' Und dann kommt der Umkehrschluss: 'Wem es nützt, der muss dahinterstecken'."
Most popular conspiracy theories in Germany, as Jaecker points out, have an anti-American/anti-Semitic foundation.
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