Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World

Content Warning: This section discusses fascist ideology, antisemitism, and racism.



Part Two begins with a quote from George Orwell’s 1984.

Before Wolf meets Steve Bannon, her conspiracy theories often get her into trouble online. She is regularly shut out of her Twitter account for spreading misinformation about COVID-19. She is also mocked online, though she has loyal followers. However, in March of 2021, Wolf’s fortune changes. She becomes involved in Steve Bannon’s circle and fine-tunes her COVID-19 conspiracy theories. She focuses primarily on the idea of vaccine passports, which she argues will be used to control and enslave populations. She ties her theory to conspiracies about the Great Reset, a real COVID-19 recovery policy proposed by the World Economic Forum.

Wolf’s ideas give her credibility and traction in far-right political circles, and she becomes a popular guest on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News talk show. She claims that vaccine-tracking apps will be used to usher in a Chinese Communist Party-style “social credit score system” (81), among other personal liberty violations. Although all of Wolf’s claims about the vaccine passports are false, she is tapping into something true: the fear of digital surveillance and omnipresent technologies that govern so many aspects of modern life.