Buckle Up - We May Have To Remain Shut Down For 18 Months Or Die By The Millions - According To New Brit Study

When I first  read this report, released Monday by an epidemic modeling group at Imperial College London  I refused to believe it.  Ok, I had extreme difficulty in accepting it.  But the bottom line conclusion from one of its lead authors - Neil Ferguson - was that: the potential health impacts were comparable to the devastating 1918 influenza outbreak.  Also, and this is the kicker, would “kind of overwhelm health system capacity in any developed country, including the United States unless measures to reduce the spread of the virus were taken."

The study’s  30 authors simulated the role of public health measures aimed at reducing contact, including social distancing - such as evident in the U.S. now.  However, this is being projected to be for a few months at the most.  The study, instead, is advocating sequester until a viable vaccine is available - which may not be for another 18 months.  As Dr. Ferguson was quoted:

“We don’t have a clear exit strategy.  We’re going to have to suppress this virus — frankly, indefinitely — until we have a vaccine.”

That is some "serious shit" as comedian John  Oliver ('Last Week Tonight') would say.  But what is the alternative?  According to the study's authors:  without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of coronavirus and suppress new cases, 2.2 million people in the United States could die.  In the words from the report, leading to that conclusion:

"We assume that 30% of those that are hospitalised will require critical care (invasive mechanical ventilation or ECMO) based on early reports from COVID-19 cases in the UK, China and Italy (Professor Nicholas Hart, personal communication). Based on expert clinical opinion, we assume that 50% of those in critical care will die and an age-dependent proportion of those that do not require critical care die"

Adding:

"With 30% of hospitalised cases requiring critical care, we obtain an overall mean duration of hospitalisation of 10.4 days, slightly shorter than the duration from hospital admission to discharge observed for COVID-19 cases internationally."

Most disturbing in all the model's prognostications is the high R0, ("R nought") or reproduction number, of 2.4- 2.5.    This embodies the ease of transmissibility, or the infection rate per person.  By comparison the value for SARS (a variant of coronavirus) was 5.5. and for the Spanish flu, 1.8.   The authors do leave us with some minimal consolation - e.g. halving the projected fatalities- when they write:

"Even if all patients were able to be treated, we predict there would still be in the order of 250,000 deaths in GB, and 1.1-1.2 million in the US."

But  isn't this all exaggerated?  Not so. The Brit study is confirmed pretty well by an independent study by the CDC, using 4 scenarios developed by Prof. Ira Longini  (Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases) at University of  Florida. According to the span of scenario outcomes the U.S. could see from 200,000 to 1.7 million dead by the end of the pandemic.   This also means a critical patients load 5 to 10 times larger flooding our hospitals - of which only 10 % (of the current 975,000 beds) are already allocated to critical care.  

Could we see all patients treated? Unlikely, given the minimal additional capacity of our hospitals. Indeed,  I predict at least 4,500 supplemental and temporary medical facilities - at minimum- would be needed across the country.  These would most likely be put up  by the Army  Corps of Engineers, as Gov. Cuomo of New York has already requested.   The Germans are clearly able to do it, e.g.

• Berlin plans new coronavirus hospital with 1,000-patient capacity

This is something Trump could order right now so the nation is ready when the surge begins.  But the idiot asshole, who displayed a brief moment of sobriety last night, took to Twitter this a.m. and blasted Gov. Cuomo for his impertinence in demanding federal leadership. While also reverting to his standard xenophobia in calling it a "Chinese virus".  What will this Turd do next, suggest it was "created by Chinese bats in a lab"  like some of his paranoid asswit followers?  But it shows he has little comprehension of how weak his administration's response has been - not only in getting testing underway (weeks ago!) but having ample medical supplies including N-95 masks and ventilators. (That ought to have been ordered months ago, according to Dr. David Agus on CBS this morning). Instead the Dotard administration wasted weeks in labeling the outbreak a "hoax" and blaming Dems.  So they are responsible if this virus overwhelms the health care system with millions of patients because mitigation doesn't work.

To use the analogy of one VA Dept. of Public Health head: "If your stove has a fire you can probably put it out with a fire extinguisher, if your whole kitchen is ablaze, you can't".   This refers to not allowing the infection to overwhelm hospital capacity to treat patients.

Trump in a presser yesterday, after having been briefed on the British study, at least for the moment displayed a more sober demeanor and one heard no more happy talk.  (Even the FOX News bunch- according to a WaPo piece- have now gotten off their "hoax" hobbyhorse and are talking about a "crisis".)  Trump referred to the shutdown condition lasting through the summer - up to maybe August.  But even this is barely 5 1/2 months, and no vaccine will be ready at the end.  The British Imperial College study warns that to keep deaths down we will need to remain social distanced until that vaccine is ready and distributed.  They do warn people may not be able to adhere to strict quarantine standards, but maybe they will if their lives depend on it!

The other aspect is for such a lengthy shutdown, i.e. no one going out to work, to school, to theaters, to airports, to restaurants (all of ours in Colorado are already closed except for carry out)  a massive cash infusion will be needed to sustain those millions  shut in.  A Yale Epidemiology Professor (Gonsalves)  last night on 'All In' suggested what I also believe is needed: A $1,000 check per month per family affected.

Nonetheless, the nabobs at The Wall Street Journal are appalled at such a "giveaway" ('Virus Relief But New Business Burdens', March 16, p A16) and instead lean to Sen. Ron Johnson (R, WI) proposal of "applying for unemployment benefits"  Of course, this is nutso given our unemployment insurance system wasn't designed to provide support for what could be a year and a half absence from work.    The Journal editors' other solution of just extending sick days "as 76% of companies already allow" - also borders on foolishness.  How are you going to allow or enable an extension of sicks days for 18 months, far less 30 days? (The companies the Journal cites allow 3-7 days at most.)

Will such a stimulus infusion be mind boggling in terms of  the money needed? You bet!  But we've been through such extreme deficit spending before, as in the case of the national emergency known as World War II (Still have my mom's gov't issued ration cards from that era.)  The alternative, of letting people go out and still work while infected will see a condition in which there will not be enough body bags to dispose of the dead.  Mitch McConnell, you paying attention? 

How about the little dirtbag and Trump traitor enabler Devin Nunes, e.g.

The Fix

Analysis

Devin Nunes’s bad cleanup effort after his coronavirus comments

Should we put Devin in a  COVID-19 ward - with the other Reeptard skeptics- and let them catch it and see how much of a "hoax" it is?

French President Emmanuel Macron was correct last night when he said: "We are at war".  It is time all other global citizens recognize that and also that we may be facing a foe as ravenous and relentless as the H1N1 Spanish influenza virus that wiped out an estimated 1 percent of the then global population.

See also:

Testing positive: One D.C. woman’s week-long passage from perfect health into the grip of a ferocious virus

And:

Joan McCarter

Coronavirus | Healthcare Policy

Already Struggling Rural Hospitals Face Horrifying Future in Coronavirus Epidemic

And:

Coronavirus | Healthcare Policy

America Doesn’t Have a Public Health System

And:

Medicine & Biology

What Is "Herd Immunity"? Not What You Think It Is.

And:

Heather Digby Parton

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Donald Trump

Can a Pandemic Shake the Faith of Trump's Followers? Don't Count on It

The Burning Amazon Shows The Cancer of Human Overpopulation Has Almost Run Its Course

Image above shows every fire that's started across Brazil since August, 13, 2019.


Scene from ground level near Humaita, Brazil on August 17.


Another view from Humaita, Brazil, from August 14th.

"Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest - the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen - is on fire. It is an international crisis."  - Emmanuel Macron,  Thursday

One need have looked no further than yesterday's  WSJ (page A5 story), e.g.

'Fires Destroy Amazon Rainforest, Blanketing Brazilian Cities in Smog '

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fires-destroy-amazon-rain-forest-blanketing-brazilian-cities-in-smog-11566397901

To behold how we are now at the tipping point for cataclysm with the planet's "lungs" now being burned to a crisp.  This as human population growth has triggered ecological upheaval from India to Brazil to Siberia and Alaska and in between.  While too many  dunderheads and dopes still believe humans are "too puny" to cause or create a negative global impact, the evidence is now all around us. 

In Brazil, for example, we learn (WSJ, ibid.) that many of the fires raging - and even visible from space- were set by loggers.  These demented fools "have been burning newly cleared land for cattle ranching and agricultural use. The resulting clouds of smoke have reached such epic proportions as to be captured from a NASA satellite in space."

The idea has been to plunder as many forest resources as possible from the last great carbon repository on the planet- holding the line between humans and the runaway greenhouse effect.   Of course, the 'joker' in the deck, if we can call it that, has been Brazil's Trump clone (nicknamed "the tropical Trump"), Jair Bolsonaro.  Like Donnie Hitler Jr., this authoritarian maggot has no use for preserving the planet for future generations and even calls himself "Captain Chainsaw".  He is the one who has incited farmers, loggers to go on this burning spree that now puts the whole planetary habitat at risk - for all of us.  And the swine has done it by his mocking of environmentalists over their concern for the Amazon's preservation. ( In one spasm of rage he actually compared the Amazon to a "virgin" that "the outsiders want to take first".)

But say one thing, say the next.  Though Bolsonaro and his anti-environmental policies are the  proximate cause of the Amazon conflagration, population pressures - for arable land, living space and such - also played a role.   Hence, we can't ignore the fact that twenty three million people live in the Brazilian Amazon, 45 % of them below the poverty line.  In the words of one Sao Paulo -based journalist:  "Starving people don't care about the rain forest.. They consider it a green hell  and see forest rangers as enemies."

This is given that five of the six poorest states are located in the Brazilian Amazon according to the national statistical agency.  Such problems then are ultimately of human overpopulation and inadequate resources to support it.  Just as it is in respect of the  worsening water woes in India. Not to mention the uncontrolled land development now devouring natural regions globally at the rate of two football fields ever 3 minutes.  This according to a new UN report. So even if a lunatic like Bolsonaro didn't exist we'd still be in dire straits.

But perhaps not as quickly in the wake of "Capt. Chainsaw" having given so many subtle and overt cues to his eco-henchmen in waiting. 

 The scale of the Amazon  fires alone is such that smoke from them is ending up affecting cities more than 5,000 miles away.  Latest projections indicate that Amazon smoke will soon also cover the U.S. from LA to Detroit - which means we here in Colorado will be right smack in the middle of it.  The sheer number of fires spawned is staggering: some 72, 843 separate fires since January. This marks an 83 percent increase over last year   According to climate scientist Michael Mann:

"The impact is devastating because it's eliminating irreplaceable ecosystems and worsening climate change at the same time.. "

So it isn't for nothing the vast Amazon rainforest has been  nicknamed "the lungs of the Earth" .  This is because it has been responsible for the release of 20 percent of the world's oxygen even as it absorbs CO2 to generate that oxygen.  But as those "lungs" are destroyed the dynamic will be solely one way: no more oxygen produced, only more CO2.

Meanwhile, Africans also continue to burn wood from forests at a rate, using the material for fuel.  People and more people everywhere, too many for sure, gobbling resources at a rate as if there were no tomorrow. And there may not be at the rate they keep consuming.

In India, meanwhile, we learn,

'We Can't Waste a Drop.' India Is Running Out of Water. - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-cant-waste-a-drop-india-is-running-out-of-water-11566224878

"Water crises are unfolding all across India, a product of population growth, modernization, climate change, mismanagement - and the breakdown of traditional systems of distributing resources."

More worrisome:

"Nearly all of India's biggest cities ...are rapidly depleting their groundwater resrves, and 40 percent of India's people could lack drinking water by the end of the next decade."

Of course, this was predicted back in a 'State of the World' report from 2000, which estimated that 1.8 billion would face water scarcity by 2025.   The report even forecast "water wars" if the matter wasn't resolved or in some way addressed in an equitable manner.

Meanwhile,  in a piece in last Sunday's Denver Post by Bruce Finley ('Development Devours Natural Landscape At High Rat According to Study', p. A7) we learned that the conversion of natural landscapes into developed tracts is proceeding at a feverish pace, displacing habitats for thousands of species and destroying natural vegetation which serves as a carbon absorber.   As noted in the Post piece:

"A United Nations -backed biodiversity and ecosystem science panel determined that about three quarters of the land around the planet and two-thirds of marine environments have been significantly altered by human activity. An estimated 1 million plant and animal species face extinction."

What gives? Well, to put it bluntly, too many people!  Sir David Attenborough, in his BBC documentary entitled: 'How Many People Can Earth Hold?',  pulled no punches in his assessments. He observed that every current major societal, environmental problem- from clogged highways, to overflowing hospital ERs to crowded schools, as well as scarcity of commodities (reflected in their much increased prices) to fouling of our water and atmosphere, can be laid at the feet of too many people on this planet - each needing food, air, water and energy from the time it's born.

Of all the resources, the most critical is water because no one can live without it for very long. Even now, 1 billion people live in water-stressed conditions, meaning that renewable water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic meters per capita.  This is now the case with what's transpiring in India - and many other regions of the planet. 

The point is we're rapidly approaching the threshold at which there will simply be too many people to feed given existing resources- water, arable soil, fertilizers etc.. The projections now are for at least 10 billion people by 2050, and an 80 percent probability of 12.3 billion on Earth by 2100. Simply put, there simply aren't the resources to support even the lower addition. At root, the issue is sustainability - especially for water which is needed for crops. NO water, no crops to feed a growing population. The graphic below puts this into perspective;

The interpretation of the graph (upward) is simple. By June, 2030 TWO full Earths - that is the resources therein - will be needed to support the then population. Already we are at 1.5 Earths. Every year Global Footprint Network raises awareness about global ecological overshoot with its Earth Overshoot Day campaign. Earth Overshoot Day is the day on the calendar when humanity has used up the resources that it takes the planet the full year to regenerate.

A core problem is that people have a difficult time grasping any kind of exponential increase such as with population.

The late Univ. of Colorado physics professor Albert Bartlett delivered one of the best lectures  on the nature of the exponential function as it applies to  computing future population growth. It can be found at the link below :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZA9Hnp3aV4

Go to time index 13:04 and continue watching as he computes the global population projections at an estimated growth  rate of just 1.3 percent per year.  Within a minute or so we see the graphic appear:

Which Prof. Bartlett specifies as the full stop to further population increase, i.e.  the absolute arrival of  "zero population growth".   (Though he goes on to show that at the same assumed birth rate the mass of humans would equal the mass of the whole planet in 2400 years.)  As he notes:

"It's absolutely clear people could not live at that density on Earth. So zero population growth is going to happen!"

In other words, there exists an absolute limit to human population growth.   It cannot go on indefinitely!  Prof. Bartlett even includes a humorous cartoon to reinforce the point for any simpletons:


Why is this not possible?   Well because each human needs a defined living space to support him over a lifetime, not merely the minimal space his body may occupy. This is owing to the fact humans need resources to live which are extracted from a given land area.  This life support basis is a function of the rate of consumption of resources in this living space, and the birth rate.  The current average – when all humans are factored in – amounts to nearly 2.1 hectares per person .  This reckons in crops, lumber,  water,  meats-cattle etc.,  consumed over a life .  A square meter therefore cannot be a life support space. Only a certified moron would believe so. (Unless we are talking about immobilized humans put into a deep coma or deep freeze and remaining in stasis).

Thus, no high population density scheme that doesn’t factor in acreage impact  can be taken seriously.   Our species became a blight and cancer on the planet and to itself (bear in mind cancer occurs when cells fail to cease dividing, growing) at the instant it lost track of bio-support capacity and when we exceeded it.   The signs all around us now, from the massive Brazilian Amazon fires, to the dearth of water in India, scream in resonance of the failure of our species to control its numbers. 

As for solutions, as a recent blurb summarized them for Attenborough's BBC documentary:

"The filmmakers endorse the need for smaller families and increased access to contraceptives. Renewed investments in education are also championed in the film, particularly for women in impoverished countries, because the highly educated are less likely to have multiple children. Attenborough contends that it is only by following each of these steps that mankind can effectively limit the creation of new life and ensure a sustainable future for our species."

That sustainability is tied to the ability to reckon the bio-support capacity for the planet. How many can it support but without a total absence of life quality, only survival?

If one divides the total output of bio-productivity (determined in terms of food crops generated per hectare, water volume per hectare, etc.) and divide that by the population, one can get some idea. One expert to whom Attenborough turned calculated that based on his models - if we wanted a planet with equally shared bio-productive output - each human would get TWO hectares. If we inhabited such a world, then the planet might support 15 billion people. 

The reality is that the bio-productive output is not equal, and using a map of the world, Attenborough showed the divergences, what with the UK consuming 5.5 hectares per person, and the USA, 9.5 hectares. Thus, the average American is consuming more than four times that which is defined as a fair, equal apportioning of resources across all the numbers on the planet. According to Attenborough's expert, by this reckoning of such unequal apportioning of output, the planet can only hold 1.5 billion people.

The world then is overcrowded by roughly 6 billion humans. Sadly, it shows wherever one looks, from the massive housing shortages, to the water shortages (admittedly partly from drought) to the ever lowering GDPs of most nations.   Will we wake up in time to save some semblance of the future for our kids and grandkids?

It would be nice to believe so but with degenerates like Bolsonaro and Trump around it appears doubtful.  The clear addendum  remedy? Voters need to be intelligent enough not to vote in such unhinged, anti-environmental extremists and nationalists. Of course, this is an even more cogent reason for Millennials to get off their duffs and vote Dem in the 2020 elections. Personally, I suspect the planet cannot withstand another 4 years of Hitler Junior.
 
See also:

Thomas Neuburger

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Environmental Policy

It's Raining Plastic, From the Pyrenees to the Rockies to the Arctic

Excerpt:

 "I  often worry whether we aren't one of those species that self-eliminates, that commits "ecological suicide" as many bacteria do when they turn their environment too acid to live in. It's certain we're polluting the air with CO2 in a way that will change the climate from habitable to very inhospitable."

Why Be Amazed That A Racist Administration Would Snub An Accord To Curb Hate Speech?

The recent news that the Trump Racist and Criminal White House - a nest of vipers if ever there was one - snubbed the Christchurch Call, should not shock anyone. The "Christchurch Call", for those unaware, was an accord signed by nine nations Wednesday in response to the murderous attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand that left 51 dead.

One would have thought all civilized nations with interests in curbing extremist vitriol online would have signed on the 3-page agreement sponsored by New Zealand Premier Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron.

But not Trump and the U.S.   The Trump White House stated that "while it agrees with the overarching message" of the initiative, it "isn't currently in a position to join the endorsement".  These are weasel words for asserting it fully intends to protect hate speech, such as emanates from the dregs of the net, like 8chan, 4chan and similar cesspools.

Just put the speech under the banner of "free speech" and anything goes, and besides Trump can then get to applaud his top pals amongst the Nazis and KKK as worthy of respect.

I mean, when you have former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke applauding your spiel it's a no brainer that you're on the freaking WRONG side of history. Worse, you're cheering the Nazis and KKK, White Nationalists on by referring to them as "some very fine people".  This is what Herr Drumpf did back in August of 2017 after the Charlottesville violence with racists beating the holy hell our of protesters, e.g.


As well as thousands of cheering jeering Nazis and Confederates parading proudly, gratified to emerge from the hate woodwork after Trump had ascended to Fuhrer.


Trump's extremist minions march in Charlottesville, VA in Aug. 2017.

So why be surprised the Trump criminal vermin would refuse to sign on to an accord that would seek to curb hate speech, and the sort of verbal vomit that egged on the perpetrators of the slaughter in New Zealand as well as last year in the U.S. e.g. in the Tree of Life massacre.

According to the  corporate media the U.S. stance simply "points to how ideological differences on the role of government and the primacy of free expression complicate efforts to rein in extreme content on social media".    But I have a different take more in line with the signatories: that the U.S. leadership no longer possesses the moral compass to distinguish right from wrong, and hence is unable to differentiate hate speech from free speech. In effect, in the Trumpite Nazis' minds the two are now conflated, and woe betide anyone who tries to bring heat down on the Trump base for their bigoted memes.

Am I being too hard on Trump and his retinue of fascists, bigots and lawbreakers? Judge for yourselves after Trump delivered his "very fine people"  spiel and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke responded:   "Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa.”

Righto - the "leftist terrorists" who protected elderly African-Americans singing "this little light of mine" from being clubbed to death and maced by white supremacist thugs who also pointed guns at their heads.

Back to the Christchurch accord:  it  takes aim at  online terror, extremist rhetoric, and anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim content. In other words, anything that can trigger terror attacks such as the one in N.Z. where we know the Aussie mass killer had live streamed his murderous acts to appeal to the denizens of 8chan for their approval.

This is not rocket science and as my psychologist niece Shayl put it the M.O. is clear: "Most of the domestic terrorists promote themselves and their propaganda online and use it to basically radicalize others, create copycats and mainstream their memes and ideologies."

At the meeting Wednesday all the main G7 nations agreed the accord needed to be implemented to shut down extremist voices.  The only country that diverged - in the name of "protecting free speech" (actually protecting hate speech)- was the United States.   As one on site media observer noted last night on 'All In':

"Everyone's jaw dropped. It was then clear the president of the United States - who refused to disavow his Nazi and white nationalist supporters- now had made it official to the rest of the world. That is, he is unwilling to fight hate and terror online."

What was the big deal, the big problem in signing? Who knows? The accord simply incorporated signed commitments to act from signatory governments and tech giants such as Facebook, Twitter and Google - owner of Youtube.  The promises include the creation of a crisis plan for sharing information in the event of a terrorist attack.  Also important are the commitments of companies (like Google and Facebook) to prevent the live streaming of any domestic terror butchery or any other displays that might spread violent extremism. 

Sadly, we know other memes the Trumpies may have listened to are similar to what appeared in a TIME essay ('Hate Can't Be Blocked', May 19, p.25).  That essay, by Alex Krasodomski-Jones,  claimed it was "impossible" to totally snuff out hate speech given it would always emerge someplace - maybe in darkness (dark web) - where its propagators could still feed off it.  Maybe.  But at least it would be sequestered from the more open public square where it might infect susceptible minds.  

What was most revolting to me is when the author claimed:

"There's a lot to learn from sites like 8chan, alongside the violent extremism"

He argues this is given "they are among the most innovative and forceful drivers of cultural change and politics online for the last decade."

Yeah, but seriously, one need not go to a landfill to excavate the waste from porto-potties to learn how bad waste and its contamination can be. 

He also inbsists we need to learn (governments, that is), how and why extremist communities thrive in online spaces and "how they can brought back into the fold."  This again, isn't like general relativity.   More education, including in basic ethics, is needed at all levels for a largely amoral populace that thrives on seeing anyone different as "the other" and open to persecution.  In the meantime, we need to control the spread of the incipient mind viruses like we would Measles or Avian flu.  We also know the setting of moral-ethical standards begins at the top, so we need an election (next year) to change this vile current occupation by nationalists and know nothings.  Ethicist and author Marilynne Robinson is correct that we need to re-examine ourselves.  That includes the basis for voting choices. We can't simply base them on reaping better 401k balances.

We also know other nations - like Germany - take such viral mind infection seriously.  Thus, as my German friend Reinhardt noted when I last saw him in Garmisch 6 years ago, one can get years in prison for displaying swastikas or engaging in holocaust denial. 

I am not saying the U.S. need go that far, but it could at least be a signatory to an accord that embodies acceptance of basic human decency, and making an effort to control the dissemination of pathological propaganda and mind viruses online.  Especially given social media platforms are among the most powerful agents for radicalization today.  

 It's either that, or we are faced with ever more domestic terror and mass slaughters.  Meanwhile, the Canadians signing onto the accord were very clear on where they wish to go and are unafraid to over regulate if need be. Better to err on the side of over regulation than have mass slaughter such as in New Zealand and the Tree of Life Synagogue in the U.S.

See also:

Peace & Justice

What Happens When Conspiracy Theories Go Mainstream?

by Ilana Novick | May 17, 2019 - 6:47am | permalink

Excerpt:

"Sometimes, however, theories escape the confines of online message boards and social media and turn dangerous, even fatal. No one laughed when a man named Edgar Welch drove from North Carolina to Washington, D.C., and fired shots at innocent people in a pizzeria because he was a “believer in Pizzagate,” a theory spread by people like right-wing radio show host Alex Jones that Hillary Clinton and her close advisers ran a pedophilia ring out of the pizzeria’s basement. There also was no laughter when James Alex Fields drove his car into a crowd at a 2017 white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, Va., killing anti-racist protester Heather Heyer.

As journalist Anna Merlan explains in her new book, “Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power,” “While conspiracy theories are as old as the country itself, there is something new at work: people who peddle lies and half-truths have come to prominence, fame, and power as never before,” thanks to the Trump administration’s outward embrace of some of their biggest boosters."