The world is facing a cataclysm, but the plastic man, our reality-TV president, is still more interested in posturing and preening, in beating up on his favorite targets, than doing the hard work of navigating through this crisis.
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For nearly two months, President Donald Trump downplayed the looming coronavirus threat before finally acknowledging the crisis at hand. But by the time the president shifted his stance, many of his supporters on the fringes of the internet had already adopted—and amplified—his initial skepticism, framing the pandemic as just another flu bug or a liberal media hoax.
Now that the virus has circled the globe, killing thousands of people and crashing the stock market, what are these people, who live off a steady diet of perceived grievances and conspiracy theories, thinking? Are they, like Sean Hannity and other prominent Fox News hosts, no longer dismissing the novel virus as an overblown, politicized event, or are they steadfast in their denial—and even coming up with more fanciful theories as time goes on?
Given the dire situation, it seems worth knowing if the severity of the pandemic finally has penetrated the bubble of the most extreme coronavirus scoffers; if these people and their followers are ignoring safety measures because they believe the pandemic is a false flag to take away their guns or a Deep State plot to take down Trump, then they risk contributing to the disease’s spread. So, this past week, I created a faux Twitter account and set about building my own information bubble. My objective: Inhabit the world of far-right figures and conspiracy fanatics, survey the landscape and see where it leads me. I wanted to not just look into, but live in, the information universe seemingly giving comfort to people who want to believe this is all just an overreaction.
