#2976: Dan Happel

Dan Happel is a Montana-based speaker, self-declared political analyst, and radio host at Connecting the Dots with Dan Happel on Patriot Soapbox. Yes, as the name of his radio program suggests, Dan Happel is a conspiracy theorist. It is worth mentioning that he was also a delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention and member of the Ted Cruz 2016 campaign’s Montana LeadershipTeam.

 

Happel is perhaps most famous for his promotion of Agenda 21 conspiracy theories, and he believes that Agenda 21 – a several decades old, nonbinding sustainable development initiative from the UN – is actually a Stalinist plot to create a one-world government to ensure that “private property can be increasingly controlled and ultimately eliminated” because that’s what the superrich really want. In particular, according to Happel, Agenda 21 will “involve relocating most Montanans to some large city, like Seattle, where they would be housed like sardines in compact housing developments, deprived of automobiles, and basically held hostage to some job in the city. Meanwhile vast areas of land would be reclaimed for wilderness to be used by the rich oligarchy.” And you should be worried, for as Happel sees it – completely falsely – Agenda 21 (at least prior to Trump) “drives 90 percent of federal legislation”.

 

But Happel might not be a mere one-trick pony, however. During COVID, he was one of the most influential pushers of COVID-related misinformation in Montana, and in September 2021 he was chair of the “second annual Red Pill Expo” in Rapid City devoted mostly (but not exclusively) to COVID-related conspiracy theories: “We’re going to be talking about the vaccine programs and what the vaccine programs are about,” said Happel about the event. “We’re going to be talking about COVID, we're going to be talking about Agenda 21. We're going to be talking about globalism and the push to create a one world global government …” so ok, he is a one-trick pony. But he is also anti-vaccine; as he lays it out in his post “VACCINE HESITANCY aka COMMON SENSE!”, “not only were these ‘vaccines’ [the COVID ones] not adequately tested, they became a political football to outlaw the use of inexpensive, time tested and verifiably safer drugs like hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin.”

 

Diagnosis: Although his Red Pill Expo was nominally arranged to “help truth seekers understand how the world really works,” Happel is evidently among the worst possible guides you could have. He has an audience, but we doubt he has much power to win new converts.