"Conspiracists have often worried about artists being manipulated for political ends. After Anna Akhmatova, a Russian poet, gave a recital in Moscow, Stalin is said to have raged: ‘Who organized the standing ovation?’ In the 1950s America’s paranoid ‘Red Scare’ blighted careers and lives, including Charlie Chaplin’s.”
“As during the cold war, American politics is now especially conducive to suspicion of entertainers. One of them became president, a reality-TV star whose rallies combine the vitriol of a witch-burning with the reassuring formula of a game show. Donald Trump blurred to vanishing the line between politics and showbiz; he also dragged conspiracy theories to the centre of debate. And he exacerbated a prior political trend—America’s extreme polarisation—which encourages conspiratorial thinking.”
"Conspiracists have often worried about artists being manipulated for political ends. After Anna Akhmatova, a Russian poet, gave a recital in Moscow, Stalin is said to have raged: ‘Who organized the standing ovation?’ In the 1950s America’s paranoid ‘Red Scare’ blighted careers and lives, including Charlie Chaplin’s.”
“As during the cold war, American politics is now especially conducive to suspicion of entertainers. One of them became president, a reality-TV star whose rallies combine the vitriol of a witch-burning with the reassuring formula of a game show. Donald Trump blurred to vanishing the line between politics and showbiz; he also dragged conspiracy theories to the centre of debate. And he exacerbated a prior political trend—America’s extreme polarisation—which encourages conspiratorial thinking.”