America through the looking glass - enter a world where nothing is as it seems.
As America heads into a presidential election, Gabriel Gatehouse dives back into the labyrinthine rabbit warren of American conspiracy culture. Whilst liberals across the world worry about a possible return of Donald Trump, millions of Americans are convinced that their democracy has already been highjacked - by a sinister Deep State cabal. How did this happen? And who is behind it? That's the story that Gabriel Gatehouse is investigating in this series of The Coming Storm.
The search for the origins of this story takes Gabriel inside a paranoid political group that tried to build its own Deep State during the Cold War, now back in fashion in the conservative backwaters of western mountain states. Gabriel meets the January 6 rioters running for office who see their detention as political imprisonment in gulags, and the militia men convinced the CIA and FBI are working against the American people. In the background lurk the tech utopian ideologues, using their vast wealth and power to fund conspiracy flavoured content as they work to create sovereign states free of all government control. And online, amateur finance bros foment distrust of government, central banks and giant financial institutions to millions of followers.
What were once fringe ideas have burst into the mainstream. Conspiracy theories have become central planks of Trump's Republican Party, while Democrats run on dark warnings about the end of democracy. With both sides convinced the other is an existential threat, what are the prospects for the survival of the American political system?
Latest episodes
Showing 20 · updated from the feed
8. The Last Election…?
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 R
Oct 30 2024 54 min
7. Wonderland
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, cryptocu
Oct 23 2024 39 min
6. Kompromat
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 nev
Oct 16 2024 33 min
5. The Photocopier
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 c
Oct 9 2024 36 min
4. The Jump
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 Home
Oct 2 2024 35 min
3. The Enemy Within
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 peop
Sep 25 2024 38 min
2. Flight 007
America through the looking glass - enter a world where nothing is as it seems.
As Gabriel Gatehouse travels around America in the run-up to the 2024 Presidential elect
Sep 18 2024 36 min
1. The Yogi
America through the looking glass - enter a world where nothing is as it seems.
As America heads into a presidential election, Gabriel Gatehouse dives back into the lab
Sep 18 2024 40 min
Welcome Back
A vast new conspiracy movement has gripped America. That weird story we were looking into last time - about Hillary Clinton and a cabal of satanic paedophiles – that’s mo
Sep 4 2024 2 min
The Louis Theroux Interview
Louis Theroux interviews Gabriel Gatehouse about the aftermath of the 2021 Capitol riots, QAnon, and the latest twists in the plot to break reality.
Producer: Lucy Procto
Nov 17 2022 54 min
The Mid-Terms: 2. The Regime
When Gabriel Gatehouse is reporting on the aftermath of the presidential election in 2020, and trying to understand the motivations behind QAnon, he comes across people w
Nov 13 2022 55 min
The Mid-Terms: 1. Groomers
As America goes out to vote for the first time since the tumultuous aftermath of the 2020 election, Gabriel Gatehouse is back in the deep undergrowth of the US political
Nov 6 2022 42 min
8. Epilogue
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
Gabriel Gatehouse has something to confess. Throughout the making of the series he’s been developing his own conspiracy theory. It
Feb 22 2022 38 min
7. Welcome to the Future
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
The Q Shaman, the man with the furs and horns who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, is in jail. The movement he came to symb
Jan 4 2022 37 min
6. The Usual Suspects
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
Donald Trump’s fantasy about a vast conspiracy to steal the 2020 election merges with the fantasy of QAnon, about a looming showdo
Jan 4 2022 42 min
5. Blowback
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
A British spy is hired to dig dirt on Donald Trump’s Russia connections. His sources tell him Trump is a Russian agent, a puppet o
Jan 4 2022 34 min
4. Q Drops
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
In Oct 2017 Donald Trump says something weird in a room full of military figures: “Maybe this is the calm before the storm.”
A f
Jan 4 2022 35 min
3. The Basement
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
A severely disabled boy from upstate New York is shocked when his online community of video game fans is flooded with porn. He get
Jan 4 2022 31 min
2. Sex, Lies, and… a Videotape
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
Gabriel Gatehouse discovers a real conspiracy called The Arkansas Project. The aim is to inject lurid tales about the Clintons int
Jan 4 2022 34 min
1. The Dead Body
QAnon and the plot to break reality...
When a mob storms the Capitol in Washington DC, reporter and presenter Gabriel Gatehouse sees someone he recognises: a man draped
Jan 4 2022 33 min
Chart trend
Position in the Government chart (US), last 90 days.
#1#94#186JulAugSep
#37
all-time peak
11
days in the top 50 since Jul 2026
Chart positions
Where The Coming Storm ranks today in each Apple Podcasts chart (US, Sep 22, 2026).
A curated, balanced selection of Apple Podcasts reviews.
Just finished the second season a few minutes ago. I’m a Brit who has lived in the states for the past 13 years. I actively avoid US media. The first season was a tight and well-researched investigation with excellent interviews of key actors in the run-up to Jan 6. The second season is a bit different, casting a wider net. It has some killer interviews too, but the last few episodes start to unravel a little. No spoilers but there is a surprising final episode that ambitiously tries to weave together the multiple theories into one conspiracy theory of everything’.
Even if I disagree with some of the conclusions made, there is no doubt this is a compelling, really well-produced couple of series, and I rarely listen to podcasts at all. A lot of the pleasure is in the journey, making the connections with the presenter, and seeing how disparate events reported in the news cohere into narratives. It’s quite dense, so you can’t be distracted for too long when you listen. And there are links between people within each season and between seasons. So some episodes bear repeated listening to make the most out of it. The resulting book will help with this.
Oh and ignore the one-star review bombing morons who don’t like it because it’s the BBC and not ‘Merica.
Marco Polo Mint · Nov 2024
From start to finish, an excellent podcast.
It’s a sad commentary on US politics and reporting that the best podcast I’ve listened to about all the various conspiracy theories comes from the BBC rather than from US sources. Well done!
I truly hope that a 3rd season isn’t necessary.🙂
Revans50 · Nov 2024
Really enjoyed the approach. It does feel like the only agenda here is to understand what is happening in America right now. A podcast that can easily be listened to multiple times.
Hmmmmm…. · Oct 2024
Any podcast that needs a rabbit hole warning is a good one and this series could force you to take a couple of “sick days” off from work. Great perspectives on the totality of the movement and the breakdown of the major players are chilling at times to say the least. The only complaint I have is that the show topic isn’t fiction.
mjwilkes74 · Dec 2022
It felt like the announcer was putting together a puzzle with giant pieces by fumbling around in the dark. Not only were the pieces too big to get any kind of nuance, but it seemed like he had a superficial understanding of American society (despite the time he’s spent in it). Further, he treated his comparison between the internet and the printing press as somehow novel, and couldn’t stop talking about how he met the “Q shaman” once but didn’t film the interview (a mistake which also speaks to his clumsiness with American politics in general). Unclear how this podcast deserved the giant platform (and funding) of the BBC when there’s so many talented people & teams out there.
quicapeeka · Jun 2022
I’ve voted for both sides. Heard of but didn’t know Q-anon before this. His mocking tone while agreeing with many of the assumptions and cover ups is biased. Also he never once says the real name of the Mormon church correctly which seems either biased again or as though he doesn’t thoroughly research enough to get a very basic and clear fact correct.
Petey428782 · Oct 2024
We strive to present a balanced view by showing a diverse range of reviews from Apple Podcasts.
More podcasts like The Coming Storm
Popular shows in Government, for your next listen.
Here you find the Apple Podcasts chart positions of The Coming Storm, its latest episodes to listen to directly, and reviews from listeners. Rankings are updated daily for the United States.
