The Coming Storm: A Journey into the Heart of the Conspiracy Machine

Is this how democracy dies? The Coming Storm is Gabriel Gatehouse’s brilliant exploration of how conspiracy theories are tearing America apart. It’s a story that takes you down a rabbit hole - one that both the US as a nation and he as a journalist fell through - to unpack an epochal shift in political culture that starts in the earliest years of the Clinton administration and reached a crescendo on 6 January 2021 with the storming of the US Capitol. But that event wasn’t the wild finale of a chaotic Trump presidency many hoped for - it was only the beginning. A compelling mix of research and reportage, The Coming Storm gets under the skin of these conspiracy theories to show us a radical new kind of politics emerging, a movement that has coalesced around a loose alliance of tech bros, internet trolls and white supremacists. At a perilous moment in the history of American democracy, Gatehouse tells us some dark truths about our present, and provides clues about our future. The Coming Storm marks the debut of a major new voice in political journalism. frontmatter half title title copyright dedication note contents PROLOGUE PART I: FOLLOW THE WHITE RABBIT 1. THE ENEMY WITHIN 2. LIGHTING THE MATCH 3. THE SCANDAL FACTORY 4. PERSISTENT MAKE-BELIEVE PART II: THE OPERATION 5. REHEARSAL 6. ANYONE CAN BE ANYTHING 7. CONFLICT IS ATTENTION, ATTENTION IS INFLUENCE 8. MIMETIC WARFARE 9. THE PATRIOT 10. THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM PART III: DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE 11. YOU ARE THE PLAN 12. EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED 13. THE BLACK PILL 14. WHATEVER IT TAKES 15. AMONG THE GODS endmatter NOTES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS