So, let’s chat about conspiracy theories in general.
Do people believe their own conspiracy theories?
First, there are conspiracy theorists who believe their own conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists who do not. Many, although not all, conspiracy theories arise when nasty people create and spread false information for evil purposes. A famous example is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This is a fake document that the Russian secret police forged more than 100 years ago to justify an anti-Semitic purge. The Protocols present an imaginary conspiracy of Jewish elders plotting to control the world.
Don’t miss the obvious: the Russian secret police knew perfectly well that The Protocols was a forgery. They knew because they forged it themselves. That didn’t stop a great many other conspiracy theorists from believing it. Hitler believed The Protocols and used the document to justify his heartless oppression of Jews.
So, Dr. Fiona Hill pointed out during yesterday’s impeachment hearings that the Russian government had fabricated a conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 United States election. There is no truth to it, and the Russians who created it obviously knew that it was untrue. Hill said: “Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country—and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.” Some things, history teaches us, never change. And yet Republicans, who belong to what was historically the most anti-Russia political party in American history, embrace this conspiracy theory with both arms.
The Ukraine conspiracy theory is not dying out just because Fiona crushed it like a bug. No! It is alive and well! Back to life like a zombie! South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has now announced a Senate investigation to look into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and maybe implicate former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden. Does Graham believe the nonsense that he is spreading? Probably not. But plenty of Americans will.
Conspiracy theories are not fringe beliefs
Nothing is more wrong than to think that only a tiny fringe of people believe conspiracy theories. So, my second point is that millions of people believe in ridiculous conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are not fringe beliefs. Something that a great many people believe cannot possibly be a fringe. That is mathematically impossible. A YouGov poll last year found that 25% of Trump voters and 9% of Clinton voters believed that the government was hiding information about the dangers of vaccines. And 47% of Trump voters but only 2% of Clinton voters believed that human-caused global warming was a hoax. Worse, 23% of Trump voters and 13% of Clinton voters thought that an international cabal was controlling the world behind the scenes. (I read a book about the so-called cabal when I was in college called None Dare Call It Conspiracy, written by John Bircher Gary Allen and his co-author Larry Abraham.) Frankly, I am horrified that anyone, whether a Trump voter or a Clinton voter, believes such nonsense. The number of people who believe that kind of rubbish should be zero. What is going to become of us if people think that reality is a communist plot?
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| Devin Nunes, U.S. Congress |
Conspiracy theorists present mountains of irrelevant evidence
The third point about conspiracy theorists is that they present a mountain of evidence that has nothing to do with the conspiracy. Read, if you have a strong stomach, Allen and Abraham’s book. They give painstaking detail about the Rockefeller family, the Chase Manhattan Bank’s origins, and details about membership on the Council on Foreign Relations. They include photos of American political leaders meeting with Russian political leaders. Their key point, which was that the Chase Manhattan Bank controls the world communist conspiracy, was totally unsupported. What they were hoping, I imagine, is that the reader would be so impressed by all the irrelevant but well-proven details that no one would notice that their key point was completely made-up.
We've had conspiracy theories for centuries
Fourth, conspiracy thinking has a long history in the United States. A wonderful book by Michael William Pfau details how Abraham Lincoln and other Republicans of the mid-19th century sometimes used conspiracy rhetoric.
Not all government conspiracies are false. The Watergate conspiracy was true and well proven. Lincoln’s slave power conspiracy might very well have been true. (I’m still reading the pros and cons of that one.) American military officers really did plan a goofy conspiracy called Operation Northwoods to justify an invasion of Cuba.
But governments often lead us to mistrust them!
Alas, fifth, every time government officials lie to us, manipulate us behind the scenes, or concoct foolish conspiracies for no-good purposes, they cause people to mistrust the United States government. Indeed, people learn to mistrust government in general. So, while the conspiracy theories that Republicans propounded during this week’s impeachment hearings were silly, ludicrous, unproven, self-serving, and stupid, the Republicans use these conspiracy theories to appeal to people who have, not without reason, come to believe that the United States government is not to be trusted. Most people will eventually figure out that the Republicans are lying through their teeth. And the Republicans on the Intelligence Committee are part of the government, are they not? By spreading nonsense, they further spread mistrust in government – and mistrust of themselves. That is an unfortunate side effect of their unsound strategy.
Truth hurts, but there is much to be said in its favor.
Click here to read my other posts about conspiracy theory speeches.
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