Unraveling trust, sowing dread: The historical connections between pandemics and extremism

From the days of yore to the current turmoil, outbreaks of illness have frequently fueled extremist sentiments.

Adam Crigler once entertained his YouTube audience with discussions on aliens, movies, skateboarding, and video games, steering clear of politics. Then came the pandemic. Now, a significant portion of his talk show is dedicated to arguing that mask mandates infringe upon personal liberty and that Democrats somehow hijacked the 2020 election from Donald Trump. The result? A substantially larger viewership.

“The pandemic has led more individuals to point fingers at others because they’ve either lost their jobs or are grappling with loneliness,” observed Crigler.

Ian Bayne, who had spent years in campaign circles, had sworn off politics and ventured into real estate. Then came covid, and he co-founded No Mask Nevada, spearheading a series of protests against masking, convinced that the government was exaggerating the threat of the coronavirus.

“People are feeling isolated, solitary, and they yearn to express their authentic selves,” remarked Bayne. “It’s no wonder extremism is on the rise. Folks attended our rallies seeking human connection.”

Throughout history, pandemics have triggered drastic shifts in political ideologies, giving rise to extremist movements, waves of distrust, and widespread defiance of authorities. Nearly a year into the coronavirus crisis, Americans find themselves ensnared by a similar phenomenon, as noted by historians, theologians, and other experts, highlighted by a recent NPR-Ipsos poll where nearly 1 in 5 respondents believed in a conspiracy involving Satan-worshipping elites enslaving children to control the world.

As economic activities ground to a halt in the early stages of the pandemic, Americans significantly intensified their online searches for extremist and white supremacist content, according to Moonshot CVE, a firm specializing in extremism research. The impact was not confined to the United States alone: A British study revealed a global surge in radicalization amid the pandemic, as individuals found more time to delve into extremist narratives.

The newfound insecurities and fears spurred by the pandemic compounded existing erosion of trust in leaders and institutions, according to experts who’ve examined public responses to rampant, unchecked diseases.

Some of these insecurities predated the pandemic: Many of those involved in the Capitol riot were business owners or held white-collar jobs, and a Washington Post analysis revealed that nearly 60 percent of individuals facing charges had prior financial woes, including bankruptcies and unpaid taxes. However, many individuals ventured into politics only after virus-induced shutdowns devastated their finances.

Between the economic downturn and the virus’s lethal toll, covid-19 has forced Americans to confront their mortality and fostered a sense of social dislocation and diminished confidence in all establishments, remarked Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and a prominent evangelical figure.

The outcome, he observed, is a surge in extremism across the political spectrum, marked by widespread acceptance of alternate versions of reality.

“In a healthy society, both the government and the church would dismiss these notions as baseless, and people would heed them,” Land remarked. However, during the pandemic, he noted a failure in curbing extremist impulses for some individuals starved for human connection: “We’re social beings by nature, and when we’re cut off from human interaction, we tend to malfunction.”

Over the past year, the pandemic has remained an underlying factor as Americans took to the streets to protest against racial injustice, police brutality, and President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. While these protests were fueled by genuine grievances, psychologists studying the effects of social isolation suggest that many participants were also driven by a yearning for human connection.

Viewed through this lens, the January 6 Capitol attack was both an insurrectionary attempt and an impromptu gathering, undermining American democracy while serving as a social rendezvous for those who believed they were defending their notion of nationhood.

“In the aftermath of covid-19, it’s evident that far-right extremists have tapped into people’s fears of social control and loss of liberty, exploiting citizens who may not typically embrace extreme ideologies,” concluded Arie Kruglanski, a social psychologist at the University of Maryland, in a recent study on the pandemic’s connection to extremism.

The pandemic erodes trust — trust in government and science to contain the disease’s spread, trust in acquaintances and strangers who might carry the virus, Kruglanski noted. And “in the absence of trust, people seek something to believe in.”

With numerous places of worship, schools, and workplaces shuttered for the better part of the past year, millions have sought community online. Some have gravitated toward and adopted unfounded conspiracy theories involving government, the nation’s elite, and the origins of the coronavirus.

“2020 was a perfect storm,” remarked John Fea, a historian at Messiah University. “You had many evangelicals convinced that this strongman president was shielding them from secularization. This belief in a divinely appointed president who took minimal action against the pandemic and fueled the ‘Don’t tell me to wear a mask’ sentiment created an incredibly volatile mix that led to the January 6 attack — and now this almost Lost Cause mentality of ‘we must continue to fight for Trump.’”

“Pandemics,” Fea continued, “have always fueled apocalyptic thinking.”

Bayne, 47, who had spent years in electoral politics but thought he had moved past that phase of his life, found himself drawn back into activism by the pandemic. Before covid, he was focused on real estate sales and pursuing an online law degree. However, as the virus spread, Bayne became convinced that covid posed minimal danger, that lockdowns and mask mandates constituted a governmental power grab, and that Americans were finally feeling empowered to voice their suspicions about powerful elites openly.

“Many argue that covid is nothing more than a severe flu,” he asserted. “Few believe that wrapping a cloth around your face can prevent a deadly illness.”

Bayne, whose 72-year-old mother contracted and swiftly recovered from covid, claimed that his activism empowered him to confront the government and reclaim control over his life.

The pandemic tapped into deep-seated anxieties and enabled people to unite in their quest for answers, whether concerning the disease, immigration, globalism, socialism, or any other issues that have animated fringe movements in the past year.

“Pandemics breed uncertainty, while extremism offers a semblance of certainty,” Kruglanski observed. “Especially now, with trust eroded in government, Congress, science, medicine, and even the church — when you can’t trust anyone else, you trust your peers, your tribe.

“Extremists present a binary worldview,” he added. “There’s a villain responsible for a nefarious plot to dismantle the nation, and they propose a restoration plan to bring back greatness.”

Amid the current pandemic, white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups have exploited shutdowns and mask mandates to recruit adherents, peddling a unified belief system that assigns blame to others — from the Chinese to Jews to socialists — and advocates addressing anxieties by dismantling the existing power structure.

American extremism isn’t exclusive to times of crisis; it has persisted across generations. However, it typically remains on the fringe, surfacing in mainstream discourse during periods of rapid, unsettling change — such as