Downstream: Going Undercover With Extremists w/ Julia Ebner

Since 2016 we’ve seen mainstream politics take a turn for the weird, epitomised by the surprise success of populist projects like Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Since then, fringe views have continued to muscle into the middle ground, with conspiracy theories and far-right talking points trickling into political discourse.

Julia Ebner has been charting this shift through her undercover work for years, infiltrating neo-Nazis, jihadists and Covid-sceptics to find out how ideas spread, as detailed in her books Going Dark and, most recently, Going Mainstream.

She joins Aaron to talk about how sceptics become extremists, the rise of Andrew Tate, and what it was like to be on the receiving end of Tommy Robinson’s hate campaign.