
The Coming Storm
267 FOLLOWERS
A year on from the Capitol Insurrection in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, Gabriel Gatehouse journeys into the dark undergrowth of modern America. He's looking for the origins of the story that drove the crowds to storm the heart of US democracy. From conspiracy-soaked barrooms in 1990s Arkansas, via spies in hotel rooms in the shadow of the Kremlin, to anarchic chatrooms on the early..
The Coming Storm
3w ago
Gabriel Gatehouse is joined by the BBC’s US Digital reporter Mike Wendling to answer listener questions.
Has the storm finally come?
What do listeners want to know about the incoming Trump administration?
Gabriel Gatehouse is joined by US-based BBC journalist Mike Wendling to answer listener questions about Donald Trump's picks for influential positions and about how to report on conspiracy culture. This live recording happened on the Live News stream on BBC Sounds the day before President Trump was inaugurated.
Producers: Lucy Proctor and Charlotte McDonald ..read more
The Coming Storm
3w ago
Over two series this podcast has followed a cast of characters who propelled Trump into the White House – twice. Many of them are now likely to take power and inject their reality-bending world views into America’s health, security and intelligence infrastructure. Who are they and what do they believe?
There's Kash Patel, Trump's pick for FBI director. He was deeply embedded in the Russiagate saga. Several bit-part players in our episodes who've now been promised influence. Elon Musk of course.
And then there's Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Son of a murdered Senator, nephew of a murdered president, he ..read more
The Coming Storm
1M ago
Join Gabriel Gatehouse and BBC journalist Mike Wendling for a Q+A on the BBC Sounds Live News stream on Sunday 19 January 2024, 1400 GMT.
And send us your questions! What would you like to know about some of the people Donald Trump has picked for influential positions in the White House?
Has the storm finally come? Email us: thecomingstorm@bbc.co.uk ..read more
The Coming Storm
3M ago
The Americast team gets together for an election inquest to examine what went right and wrong. Is Joe Biden to blame for Harris’ loss? Or did something else cause the VP to underperform with the voters she needed to win?
Was Trump’s straight-forward messaging a winning strategy? Or has there been a fundamental shift among American voters that goes beyond politics ..read more
The Coming Storm
3M ago
Gabriel Gatehouse, producer Lucy Proctor and Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Oxford University, in front of a live audience at the BBC’s Radio Theatre.
As the team emerges from series 2, what have we learned about the future of democracy in an age of technological change and split realities?
Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound design and mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon Script consultants: Richard Fenton-Smith and Afsaneh Gray Commissioning editor: Dan Clarke Original music: Pete Cunningham ..read more
The Coming Storm
4M ago
In the 1990s a group of futurist thinkers meet on one of the world’s first email lists. The Extropians imagine a world of augmented human bodies, nanotechnology, cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence.
Now, some of the thinkers on that email list are turning that AI future into a reality. But others are now worried - what if the AI ends up in charge of us all?
As we head into an epochal shift for humanity, questions about democracy and tyranny run through the debates about how fast or slow to move forward. Because we don’t want to end up living in the Matrix…
Producer: Lucy Proctor Sound ..read more
The Coming Storm
4M ago
In series one of this podcast we spent months investigating QAnon, a crazy conspiracy theory involving an elite cabal of paedophiles and child sex traffickers. And we never really grappled with… this actual convicted paedophile and sex trafficker, who was at the centre of a network of global financial cultural and political elites.
But the story of Jeffrey Epstein is more than a kernel of truth at the heart of Qanon. It connects the idea of a cabal of elite paedophiles to the wider conspiracy theory we’re looking into for series two, one that millions of Americans believe: that democracy is a ..read more
The Coming Storm
4M ago
Gabriel Gatehouse is on holiday with his family when he gets an invitation to an exclusive party in New York City from a group called Praxis. The tech start-up plans to create a new sovereign state somewhere on the Mediterranean coast, part of a new tech movement called ‘the network state’. The idea is that these statelets, governed not by a giant state bureaucracy but on the blockchain, will eventually replace the nation state. Gabriel meets crypto cowboys cheering on the end of democracy and tech bros hoping to replace the dollar with meme coins. It looks like kids playing around, larping as ..read more
The Coming Storm
4M ago
In the summer of 2023 a small budget thriller becomes a smash hit. Sound of Freedom is based on the true story of Tim Ballard, a former officer at the Department for Homeland Security, who spent years undercover busting child sex trafficking rings before he quit and set up his own organisation.
The film was linked to QAnon, the conspiracy theory about a satanic cabal of paedophiles secretly running America. Q, the anonymous figure who posted cryptic messages in online forums, isn’t mentioned in the film. He’s stopped posting and the movement has withered. But Q’s ideas have seeped into the mai ..read more
The Coming Storm
5M ago
A prank about pizza is the moment members of the Republican Party in Idaho realise the conspiratorial John Birch Society has burrowed into mainstream politics. These people are dredging up ideas from the past, about communist plots and hidden hands, and repurposing them for the 21st Century. An alliance is forming in the Pacific Northwest state between the John Birchers and another group of people who never trusted the federal government of America. Gabriel Gatehouse meets the leader of The Real 3%’ers of Idaho, anti-government activists who are part of the militia movement. He hears how a sta ..read more