Daily: How the fantasy religion VALKISM powers the Far Right

Amid the chaos of the Capitol Invasion of January 6, keen observers could spot the iconography of Valkism, a weird confected “religion” born out of video game culture that’s now empowering QAnon and far right politics. Former Government advisor and BBC and Reuters correspondent Amil Khan tells Arthur Snell about the crossover of video games, 4Chan, 8Chan and far right politics which produced Valkism and what it means for the fight against extremism.

• “Some of these people want to create an alternative reality where their political fantasies can play out.” – Amil Khan
• “If you’re inspired by the idea of a Nazi alternative universe in a video game, you may well be attracted to far right politics.” – Arthur Snell
• “We like think that we’re stable, rational people and the nutters must be from somewhere else. Well, the US Capitol riots disproved that.” – Amil Khan
• “We tend to see extremism as a foreign problem... But this is a British problem, because it feeds off our problems at home.” – Amil Khan

Presented by Arthur Snell. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. The Bunker is a Podmasters Production

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