But Is Political Conspiracism Always Regressive? Hitler and the Voice of the Subalterns

In the literature on the political forms of conspiracism, it has repeatedly been argued that there is a rather strong relationship between these narratives and forms of populism, and that this correlation should be regarded as fundamentally negative: conspiracy theories exacerbate the Manichean, polarizing, and even persecutory traits of populist—as well as authoritarian—rhetoric (Bergmann 2018; Pirro and Taggart 2022; Caiani, Solinas, Trenz 2026). However, some authors also maintain that this is not always the case. The political forms of conspiracism, understood as strategies of mobilization, may at times be capable of conveying even progressive demands, or at least remain anchored in largely disadvantaged social strata and groups—so-called subaltern groups, as well as dominated or colonized communities—where the notion of “losers” remains central (Uscinski and Parent 2014; Uscinski and Enders 2023). In this sense, such narratives could be understood as voices that, while distorting reality, nonetheless articulate normative claims, protest, revolt, or at least forms of resilience and resistance by subaltern groups against dominant ones, and are thus oriented toward transforming the status quo (Harambam and Aupers 2016; Yonkwang 2019; Imhoff and Bruder 2014; Briggs 2004). To stigmatize such voices would, ultimately, amount to playing into the hands of dominant groups. The present talk aims to analyze the terms of this debate. The thesis advanced in this talk is that, even in cases where political conspiracism addresses social groups that may be considered genuine “losers” in the sense of subalternity—which is not always the case—it nevertheless remains composed of anti-democratic and regressive narratives. Such narratives not only “distort” the original claims of disadvantaged groups, but also perform an additional, particularly pernicious function: they annihilate and prevent the articulation of genuinely progressive and emancipatory demands. When conspiracist narratives construct the figure of a phantasmatic enemy—usually embodied by a small, allegedly all-powerful elite—they preclude an analysis of the dynamics that may instead be regarded as the actual sources of concrete social malaise. In this way, political conspiracism ultimately preserves the foundations of the status quo rather than transforming them. This helps explain why political conspiracism is typically employed by formations with authoritarian tendencies—the model of Hitlerian antisemitic conspiracism provides a historical and theoretical paradigm in this regard (Solinas 2026). Moreover, since conspiracy theories are by definition anchored in an epistemological framework that is impermeable and unfalsifiable in the eyes of their adherents, they undermine the epistemic preconditions of public discussion and, therefore, of democratic life itself (Taguieff 2021; Sunstein and Vermeule 2009). The Manichean and even persecutory character of conspiracism simultaneously tends to demonize political opponents, thereby deploying a logic that is intrinsically anti-democratic in this respect as well (Solinas 2025). In short, political conspiracism proves to be a tool that is in itself regressive and anti-democratic.