Revealed: populists far more likely to believe in conspiracy theories
Populists across the world are significantly more likely to believe in conspiracy theories about vaccinations, global warming and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to a landmark global survey shared exclusively with the Guardian.
The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project sheds new light on a section of the world population that appears to have limited faith in scientific experts and representative democracy.
Analysis of the survey found the clearest tendency among people with strongly held populist attitudes was a belief in conspiracy theories that were contradicted by science or factual evidence.
The research may go some way towards understanding the success of rightwing populists such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, who have , undermined and dismissed fact-based journalism as “fake news”.
