The spectacle of a mob overrunning the seat of American democracy has cast a long shadow. Anyone who thinks the same thing can’t happen in London hasn’t been paying attention. In fact in 2018 it almost did.
On May 25 2018, the right-wing activist known as Tommy Robinson (real name Steven Yaxley Lennon) was arrested for breach of the peace outside a Leeds courtroom. Less than 24 hours later, several hundred people gathered outside Downing Street demanding his release. When they started scaling the barriers into the iconic street it looked like police were about to be overwhelmed. At the same time as the physical demonstration was taking place, 70,000 people were signing an online petition demanding Robinson’s release. This synthesis between the online and offline has a been a key factor in the growth in power of conspiracy theorists. Incidentally, Robinson’s arrest was live-streamed.
The Downing Street incident has been all but forgotten. Once he was banned from social media platforms, Robinson’s influence barely registered, showing how powerful such bans can be. But the power that social media platforms have bestowed on those with the amorality and skills to use them to acquire money, influence and a street level following are almost unlimited in their scope and require a more robust response.
Those storming the Capitol Building were convinced their hero Trump had won an election fairly and was a victim of corrupt officials stealing democracy from them. They knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the case because Trump had told them as much on social media. The phenomenon of people believing irrational things and even acting on such irrationality is hardly new. George Orwell (who is more popular than ever) wrote of this in his Notes on Nationalism : “As soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and power worship are involved, the sense of reality becomes unhinged and as I have already pointed out the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also.”
