'I've lost two brothers over this': How American politics is tearing families apart
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The News Agents travel to Indiana to speak to voters on both sides of US politics, and hear wild conspiracy theories from both sides.
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In brief...
- In the Republican state of Indiana, voters tell The News Agents about conspiracy theories about Republicans and Democrats.
- Some voters also speak about losing family relationships to MAGA "radicalisation".
- Lewis Goodall says people on opposite sides look at the same situations, but come to entirely different conclusions.
"I think Donald Trump is actually Hitler reincarnated.”
That’s what one Indiana resident told The News Agents when they took the hour drive from Chicago, where the Democratic National Conference was held, to meet the people who’d be voting in the November election in the towns of Chesterton and Hobart.
Chesterton has a population of less than 15,000, Hobert just under 30,000, and Indiana has a Republican governor.
Here, Lewis Goodall found Democrats, Republicans – and a whole lot of conspiracy theories, about both sides of the political coin.
"Hitler died in 1945 Trump was born in '47,” the local man said.
“That gave the devil two years to come up with a soul to steal, and he found Donald Trump."
One man in Hobart claimed that Kamala Harris "slept her way to where she's at", another claimed she "doesn't even know her own name".
'Kamala Harris probably has a lot of what the country needs'
But not all the theories are as extreme as that.
Others claimed the current US government is unelected, and that all the money it spends is on "student loans".
One local business owner called Laura said Republicans in Indiana are so conservative, women won't be able to own a business under their own name, if Donald Trump wins at the November election.
"Trump can't win. He just can't, because the way this country would be going would be backwards to the 1950s," she said.
"We won't be able to have a credit card in our own name."
"Trump's not running this. He's dumb as a box of rocks. He's just the figurehead. It's all the people behind him."
Lewis says he's found conspiracy theories to be one of the "cardinal features" of modern American politics, and the "instant resort" of many people when discussing the election.
"Whether it is Trump or whether it's Biden or whoever it is, that political elites aren't doing their own bidding. They're always being controlled by somebody else," he says.
But among some of the conspiracy theories, The News Agents also met a couple whose family had been torn apart by political loyalties, and claimed relatives had been "radicalised" by Donald Trump and his MAGA rhetoric.
"I've lost two brothers over this," said a Hobart local named Ron.
"We can't even talk about normal politics, not that we ever did. We never talked politics 10 years ago. But now we sit down and we're drawing lines in the sand."
His wife Sue says the family can't spend time together, because of these differences.
"They didn't come to the family reunion, because we just cannot get together and have just a normal family reunion. It's very sad," she says.
She describes Donald Trump as a "quasi-Nazi", and says Kamala Harris "probably has a lot of what the country needs."
But Ron suggests that no matter who wins, the damage may already be done when it comes to the long-lasting effects of Donald Trump and his time in politics.
"America has deep rooted conservative radicalism, and Trump has brought that out," he says.
"He flushed these guys out, and now they have an agenda, and they control the media through Fox News. They sell their agenda, and they have no plan for the country.
"You listen to Trump, he just doesn't like people. He doesn't like how they look."
What's The News Agents' take?
"This is a country of complete parallel, not just worlds, but realities," says Lewis, commenting how some of these opposing views were given just feet apart from each other in the same Indiana bar.
"They internalize and think about reality, historical and political events in a completely different way from each other.
"They see the same thing, and they get a different result each and every time."
Lewis adds that when the cameras stopped rolling, more people told The News Agents about family divides over political allegiances, while one of the people who spoke asked if Nancy Pelosi had sent the team to "embarrass" them.
"In this country, no matter what happens, it is cliche to say that there are two Americas, but what there is beyond that – because there's always been that are two American realities – and I don't really know what you begin, how you even begin to deal with that."
Listen in full on The News Agents.
