Horseshoe Politics and the 'Hidden Hand' - The Dispatch

Theory Briefing

• Antisemitism, the article argues, is at its core a single conspiracy theory — a belief in a secret hand controlling economic and political life.
• Far-left and far-right versions of this conspiracy theory converge on the same core claim, despite their apparent ideological opposition.
• The horseshoe theory predicts that political extremes mirror each other more than they resemble their own moderate wings — antisemitism is offered as a test case.
• Shared conspiratorial logic across ideological lines raises the question of whether the real divide is left vs. right or conspiratorial vs. reality-based thinking.