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Having claimed that a Supreme Court justice may have been rubbed out, that the Pope is Mexico’s patsy, and that the president of the United States wasn’t actually born in the United States, Donald Trump has made political conspiracy theories seem like a unique speciality of the American right.

If only. Crank theories are far-flung, geographically and ideologically. They land wherever chaos and confusion reign (that’s anywhere), and on whatever side of the spectrum populists reside (that’s both sides). As populists proliferate throughout Western states, we can all look forward to learning more about the various pernicious forces that clandestinely govern our lives. It’s just not clear how societies should respond.

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None is immune. In France, the founder of the extreme right Front National claims that the Charlie Hebdo attacks were enabled by Western intelligence agencies in collusion with the French government. In Poland, the leader of the nationalist governing party believes that his brother was killed in a plane crash by assassins, not pilot error, and that the country is being manipulated by the European Union, the Russians, the Germans, the refugees, and other “gangsters.” And in the United Kingdom, the socialist Labour leader and presumed Da Vinci Code fan fiction author thinks that Illuminati members are building a New World Order.