Mainstreaming Extremism: Pathways from the Margins to the Mainstream

Abstract

What can explain the variation in mainstream presence of extremist ideologies and conspiratorial beliefs? Extant research addresses the role of critical junctures, psychological predispositions, or social media algorithms. These approaches help explain why individuals adopt extremist ideologies, but not why some ideologies move into the mainstream, while others do not. This dissertation adds to those explanations by (1) treating extremist ideologies and conspiratorial beliefs as objects of analysis, and (2) by showing that these extremist ideologies become legible when they are aligned with political and cultural contexts. In doing so, I introduce political and cultural alignment, two concepts that can help explain this variation. Cultural alignment refers to the convergence of extremist ideologies and conspiratorial beliefs with widely shared cultural symbols, myths, and nostalgic narratives. Political alignment refers to the convergence of extremist ideologies and conspiratorial beliefs with the rhetoric of influential political actors. Each form of alignment is a graded phenomenon, referring to minimal, weak, and strong alignment, which helps explain why some ideologies remain on the margins despite high visibility and why others are fully embedded in mainstream political and cultural discourse. I examine political and cultural alignment through four case studies, each of which demonstrate a different variation of alignment. First, a content analysis of an incel forum reveals how misogynistic discourses leverage cultural nostalgia and symbolic gender hierarchies to normalize extremist attitudes. Here, I find evidence for strong cultural alignment and weak political alignment. Second, a textual analysis of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory demonstrates how narratives of demographic threat gain mainstream resonance through appeals to moral decline and national myths. In this case study, I find evidence for strong political and cultural alignment. Third, an analysis of Telegram messages surrounding the 2020 U.S. presidential election traces the amplification of election-fraud narratives via digital platforms, demonstrating a top-down mechanism of mainstreaming. I find strong political alignment and weak cultural alignment. Finally, an analysis of social media groups discussing the chemtrail conspiracy theory demonstrates how conspiracy theories can persist despite minimal political alignment and the absence of cultural alignment. I find that in cases with strong political and cultural alignment, mainstreaming is more likely and more embedded within political and cultural discourse. I also find that weak alignment, whether political or cultural, can create the permissive conditions for an extremist ideology or conspiratorial belief to take hold. I make two contributions: I show that the cultural context is an important and understudied factor in explaining the mainstreaming of extremist ideologies and conspiratorial beliefs, and that extremist ideologies draw upon and repurpose this existing cultural context. Further, I highlight the importance of the interplay between political and cultural contexts in mainstreaming extremism. This has implications for future research, as these insights show that countering the mainstreaming of extremist beliefs requires an understanding of the cultural and political contexts that make these extremist ideologies and conspiratorial beliefs legible and resonant.