Why Did Jay Sekulow Propound So Many Conspiracy Theories? Why Are Conspiracy Theories Persuasive? I Have Some Scary Thoughts about Those Questions.

US Senate Chamber, via Wikimedia Commons

Jay Sekulow’s January 28 speech defending President Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial pandered to fearful people by disseminating discredited conspiracy theories. I’ve been blogging about that speech for a few days. Sekulow’s ludicrous arguments claimed that the Mueller investigation illegally destroyed evidence and FBI agents conspired against Trump in Operation Crossfire. Even if he had made truthful arguments, which he didn’t, his complaints had no bearing on the legality of Trump’s Ukraine phone call, which occurred years after those events. Since Sekulow is not a complete idiot, he surely knew that. So what was the point? That’s simple! His point was to show that the impeachment investigation was only one part of a massive effort to smear President Trump. This is incredibly bad argumentation, but bad conspiracy theories often persuade people. Let’s look at why.

What are conspiracy theorists doing? What is their purpose? What do they accomplish – rhetorically speaking – by espousing far-fetched or discredited conspiracy theories? And why did Sekulow say such ridiculous things at such length?

First, the conspiracy theorist works from tiny bits of evidence that are often relevant but insufficient, or that might be completely fabricated, to establish a claim that otherwise cannot be proven. For example, Sekulow noted that FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s cell phones were wiped (which turned out to be routine FBI procedure) and concluded, without any further evidence, that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had obstructed justice. The evidence – the fact that the FBI repurposed the phones – is real, but it is not enough to prove the conclusion. FactCheck.org found that the accusation was “baseless.” They concluded that “There is no evidence that Mueller — or anyone else — illegally deleted text messages sent or received by Strzok and Page.”

Second, the conspiracy theorist deflects responsibility. By all accounts, President Trump abused his authority, and many people recognize this, but Republicans want to keep him in office anyway. The conspiracy theorist implies that the accusations, however well-supported, are part of a larger conspiracy, a cabal of evil to disrupt our government. Thus, Sekulow’s theme; he repeatedly cried out this phrase: “danger, danger, danger.” To the conspiracy theorist, it is not the lawbreaker who threatens us, but the people who want to bring the lawbreaker to justice. Conspiracy theory creates a complete moral reversal.

Third, continuing to deflect responsibility, the conspiracy theorist diverts attention from the real issue to fear-inducing but imaginary problems. Page and Strzok, Robert Mueller, and Operation Crossfire all occurred years earlier. Perhaps the facts show that President Trump engaged in grossly improper behavior. But Sekulow wanted his audience to think that impeachment was part of a partisan conspiracy. That is the best way to understand the main point that Sekulow made in his speech, which was this:

“But if partisan impeachment based on policy disagreements, which is what this is, and personal presumptions or newspaper reports and allegations in an unsourced—maybe this is in some-body’s book who is no longer at the White House—if that becomes the new norm, future Presidents, Democrats and Republicans, will be paralyzed the moment they are elected, before they can even take the oath of office. The bar for impeachment cannot be set this low.”

If impeachment was based on massive evidence (which it obviously was), Sekulow’s arguments meant nothing. Sekulow’s main point, however, was that the process was entirely partisan, and he presented conspiracy theories to reinforce that theme. He wanted to put impeachment in the larger context, which was, he wanted deceive people into thinking, that mysterious, behind-the-scenes forces – what Trump would call “the swamp” – were behind the entire process. His thin, inaccurate, and distorted evidence therefore took on a pretense of meaning. If impeachment emerged from a conspiracy, Sekulow wanted us to believe, he could imply that the Democrats’ documents, sworn testimony, and video recordings were just part of the massive anti-Trump conspiracy. Since he could not prove that there was anything wrong with the Democrats' evidence, he instead tried to prove that impeachment fell into a conspiratorial context. "You can't view this case in a vacuum," he said.

Fourth, the conspiracy theorist takes advantage of the fact that real conspiracies occur all the time. In fact, the House managers presented an enormous amount of evidence, including sworn testimony, documents, and videos, to prove that President Trump was engaged in a conspiracy. The Watergate conspiracy was real. Organized crime conducts conspiracies every day. But conspiracies are secret, which makes it hard to ferret them out. Very few conspirators are foolish enough to do what President Trump did, which was to conduct a conspiracy in front of several honest witnesses. The public doesn’t necessarily expect to hear a lot of evidence for conspiracy, because we all know that conspiracies are secret and that conspirators routinely destroy evidence. Thus, extremely suspicious people could think that Sekulow’s onion skin-thin arguments were persuasive.

Fifth, many people fear that the world is spiraling out of control. Change is happening faster than we can keep up. Maybe this is inevitable. However, the ever-suspicious conspiracy theorist worries that changet is a result of sinister forces working behind-the-scenes for evil purposes. People like Sekulow appeal to those fears.

Six, Sekulow’s argument was not directed to the Senate. Very few senators are stupid enough to believe the silly things that he was saying. His argument was directed to President Trump – who does seem to believe these things – and Mr. Trump’s base voters – who also believe them.

Indeed, a massive Cambridge University study found that 41% of Trump voters believe that immigration is part of what they think is a replacement conspiracy to displace white people. They also found that Trump voters were “more likely to believe that climate change is a hoax, vaccines are harmful, and that a group of people ‘secretly control events and rule the world together.’” To people who think rationally, that’s all silly. But Sekulow knew his audience and he knew that Trump voters could be persuaded to reject impeachment if he could tie impeachment to conspiracy theories that circulate in conservative media.

Seventh, most obviously, fear causes people to believe in unproven conspiracies. That is why Sekulow kept repeating "danger, danger, danger" all through his speech. Fearful people believe that conspiracies control them.

Many mainstream media writers and some of my academic colleagues like to pretend that conspiracy theories are fringe beliefs. If that is what they think, they are badly deluded. Conspiracy theories are not fringe beliefs. There are historical times when paranoia – unjustified fear – rules the world, and we seem to be living in one.  We all know that Trump’s presidency flows from conspiracy theories, but it is still a shame to hear a famous person like Sekulow speak such nonsense on the United States Senate floor. Too bad.

Click this link to read Sekulow’s speech, which begins on page S622.

Previous posts:

• Sekulow's conspiracy theories. This post gives details about the conspiracy theories in the same speech.

• Sekulow's science fiction-ish language. Danger, Will Robinson! This post looks at Sekulow's fear-inducing language.

• An oldie, but one of my most popular posts: "Speeches about Conspiracies: How Can We Tell Whether A Conspiracy Is Real?"

P.S.: I have been citing fact-checking websites the last several months. These websites, especially FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, and the Washington Post's Fact Checker, do a wonderful job. The AP Fact Check website has been working hard. There are, however, plenty of unreliable fact checkers out there, so, reader beware! Alas, conspiracy theorists pretend to care about facts even though they really don't.