Daily: How the fantasy religion VALKISM powers the Far Right

<p>Amid the chaos of the Capitol Invasion of January 6, keen observers could spot the iconography of <strong>Valkism</strong>, 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 <strong>Amil Khan</strong> 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.</p><ul><li><em>“Some of these people want to create an alternative reality where their political fantasies can play out.” –&nbsp;</em><strong><em>Amil Khan</em></strong></li><li><em>“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.” – </em><strong><em>Arthur Snell</em></strong></li><li><em>“We like think that we’re stable, rational people and the nutters must be from somewhere else. Well, the US Capitol riots disproved that.”</em><strong><em> – Amil Khan</em></strong></li><li><em>“We tend to see extremism as a foreign problem... But this is a British problem, because it feeds off our problems at home.”</em><strong><em> –&nbsp;Amil Khan</em></strong></li></ul><p><em>Presented by Arthur Snell. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. </em><strong><em>The Bunker is a Podmasters Production</em></strong></p> &#10;&nbsp;<br /><hr><p style='color: grey; font - size: 0.75em; '>See <a style='color: grey; ' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.</p>