The populist right is regretting its encouragement of Covid conspiracists | Paolo Gerbaudo

Extremists are being pitted against moderate centre-right voters in the next chapter of the culture wars

At the 1992 US Republican convention, the paleoconservative pundit and presidential candidate Pat Buchanan introduced the world to the idea that politics had become a culture war" between progressives and conservatives. Campaigns for environmentalism, abortion and LGBT rights weren't just about policy, he claimed, but were in fact intended to destroy wider American traditions and identity. This war is for the soul of America, " Buchanan said, and called on fellow citizens to take back our culture, and take back our country".

In the ensuing decades, the right closely adopted the strategy proposed by Buchanan. It claimed that, by dint of their alleged control of the media and academia, unpatriotic and elitist progressives were imposing radical changes - like openness to immigration and the demolition of the traditional family - against majority will. The plan worked: culture war tactics were instrumental in the right gaining support among disgruntled workers increasingly suspicious of a centre-left that had little to offer in terms of socio-economic policies.