Who are the people peddling and believing in conspiracy theories?

What is a conspiracy theory?

A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy by powerful and sinister groups, often political in motivation when other explanations are more probable.

America’s Rabbit Hole Maze
Data suggests crimes motivated by conspiracy theories are escalating. Lahaina, Hawaii, is devastated days after Maui’s August wildfires. Conspiracy theorists claim that the fires were set using “energy weapons” developed by the U.S. military. Rick Bowmer/AP

By David Klepper Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Days after Maui’s wildfires killed scores of people and destroyed thousands of homes last August, a shocking claim spread with alarming speed on YouTube and TikTok: The blaze on the Hawaiian island was set deliberately, using futuristic energy weapons developed by the U.S. military.

Claims of “evidence” emerged: video footage on TikTok showing a beam of white light, too straight to be lightning, zapping a residential neighborhood and sending flames into the sky.

The video was shared many millions of times, amplified by neo-Nazis, anti-government radicals, and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, and presented as proof that America’s leaders had turned on the country’s citizens.

“What if Maui was just a practice run?” one woman asked on TikTok. “So that the government can use a direct energy weapon on us?”

The TikTok clip had nothing to do with the Maui fires. It was a video of an electrical transformer explosion in Chile earlier in the year.

But that didn’t stop a TikTok user with a habit of posting conspiracy videos from using the clip to sow more fear and doubt. It was just one of several similar videos and images doctored and passed off as proof that the wildfires were no accident.

Who supports neo-Nazis? Who supports QAnon?

Neo-Nazis: This past summer, hundreds of white supremacists and neo-Nazis mobilized in Charlottesville, Virginia to prove a point — that they were always here and were here to stay.

With anti-Semites, fascists, and racists gathering at the “Unite the Right” rally on the University of Virginia’s campus and racial tensions flaring between white supremacists and counter-protesters, many reactions to the racist violence at Charlottesville were of disgust and sadness.

Even in the wake of contentious partisan politics, both Republicans and Democrats condemned the actions of white supremacists and even called for President Donald Trump to take a stand against their egregious behavior.

Two days later, Trump begrudgingly gave his take on Charlottesville. His position would not only be a lack of condemnation of white supremacy, but he “blamed both sides” for the violence, stating, “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent.

“Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.” Trump also added: “Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”

Trump’s lukewarm response to the events at Charlottesville and, subsequently, his defense of white supremacy was so shocking to many that journalist Jonathan Cait in New York Magazine wrote, “What is new and even shocking is the intermingling of Republican politics with open white supremacy.”

Increasingly a new constituency for the GOP — one that’s fired up like the rest of the MAGA movement, warring with tech giants and ready to battle through Election Day on behalf of a struggling President Trump.

It no longer is a question of who is the primary support for conspiracy theories but why — why has the Republican party turned so sharply to conspiracy theories as its method of communication? Tucker Carlson, QAnon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, FOX News. All make their living peddling nuttiness.

While politicians of all parties have been infamous for lying, two changes have taken place in the Republican party:

1. The lies are more extreme, bordering on insane.
2. When facts emerge, the conspiracy theorists double down, aren’t embarrassed, and continue to promulgate the same lies even after losing lawsuits.

Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, says it tries to remove extremist content. Platforms such as X, formerly Twitter, Telegram, and far-right sites like Gab allow it to flourish.

Federal election officials and some lawmakers have suggested regulations governing AI, including rules requiring political campaigns to label AI-generated images used in their ads.

But those proposals wouldn’t affect the ability of extremist groups or foreign governments to use AI to mislead Americans.

Meanwhile, U.S.-based tech platforms have rolled back their efforts to root out misinformation and hate speech, following the lead of Elon Musk, who fired most of the content moderators when he purchased X.

“There’s been a big step backward,” said Evan Hansen, the former editor of Wired.com who was Twitter’s director of curation before leaving when Musk bought the platform.

“It’s gotten to be a very difficult job for the casual observer to figure out: What do I believe here?”

And that is the whole point. Conspiracy theorists and their apologists engage in “bothsidesism,” the claim that both sides lie, so conspiracy theories are no worse than facts.

The disinformation spread by extremist groups and even politicians, such as former President Donald Trump, can create the conditions for violence by demonizing the other side, targeting democratic institutions, and convincing their supporters that they’re in an existential struggle against those who don’t share their beliefs.

Trump has spread lies about elections, voting, and his opponents for years. Building on his specious claims of a deep state that controls the federal government, he has echoed QAnon and other conspiracy theories and encouraged his followers to see their government as an enemy.

He even suggested that now-retired Army Gen. Mark Milley, whom Trump nominated to be the top U.S. military officer during his administration, was a traitor and deserved execution.

Milley said he has had to take security precautions to protect his family.

Groups, where any conspiracy theory emanating from such as Trump, FOX, Carlson, et al. is accepted without question, are called “cults.” MAGA is such a cult where the belief comes not from reality but from the personality of the theory’s issuer.

The list of incidents blamed on extremists motivated by conspiracy theories is growing.

The Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, attacks on vaccine clinics, anti-immigrant fervor in Spain, and anti-Muslim hate in India:

All were carried out by people who believed conspiracy theories about their opponents and decided violence was an appropriate response.

To believers, the facts don’t matter.

“You can create the universe you want,” said Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who studies online harassment and extremism.

“If the truth doesn’t matter, and there is no accountability for these false beliefs, then people will start to act on them.”

(“Bothsidesism”) claims that U.S. elected leaders and media cannot be trusted feature heavily in many conspiracy theories with ties to extremism.

In 2018, a conspiracy theorist from Florida mailed pipe bombs to CNN, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other top Democrats; the man’s social media feed was littered with posts about child sacrifice and chemtrails — the debunked claim that airplane vapor clouds contain chemicals or biological agents being used to control the population.

In another act of violence tied to QAnon, a California man was charged with using a spear gun to kill his two children in 2021.

He told an FBI agent that he had been enlightened by QAnon conspiracy theories and had become convinced that his wife “possessed serpent DNA and had passed it on to his children.”

With its attendant social isolation, the pandemic created ideal conditions for new conspiracy theories as the virus spread fear around the globe.

Vaccine clinics were attacked, and doctors and nurses were threatened. 5G communication towers were burned as a theory spread, claiming they were used to activate microchips hidden in the vaccine.

Fears about vaccines led one Wisconsin pharmacist to destroy a batch of the highly sought-after immunizations, while bogus claims about supposed COVID-19 treatments and cures led to hospitalizations and death.

Trump claimed hydroxychloroquine and bleach as cures for COVID.

He rejected vaccines while boasting that he had helped develop the COVID vaccines and even has been vaccinated. Despite the contradiction, his cult followers continue to believe.

Few recent events, however, display the power of conspiracy theories like the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, when thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, vandalized the offices of Congress, and fought with police in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election.

More than 900 have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.

Many of those charged said they had bought into Trump’s conspiracy theories about a stolen election.

“We, meaning Trump supporters, were lied to,” Jan. 6 defendant Robert Palmer wrote in a letter to a judge, who later sentenced him to more than five years for attacking police.

“They kept spitting out the false narrative about a stolen election and how it was ‘our duty’ to stand up to tyranny.”

That narrative continues among Trump’s MAGA followers despite 60+  losing lawsuits and other investigations proving otherwise. As with virtually all cults, counter-facts only harden the belief in the conspiracy theory.

“Who was the bigger spreader of COVID misinformation: some guy with four followers on Twitter or the president of the United States? The problem is our politicians,” Uscinski said.

“January 6 happened, and people said: ‘Oh, this is Facebook’s fault.’

No, the president of the United States told his followers to be at this place, at this time, and to fight like hell.”

Tom Fishman, CEO of the nonprofit Starts With Us, said, “We can look at the window and see a foreshadowing of what could happen if we don’t (defeat conspiracy theories): threats to a functioning democracy, threats of violence against elected leaders.”

Conspiracy theories have always been with us. But why are they so prevalent now, and more so with the Republican Party? The reason: Donald Trump, like most cult leaders, is a proven psychopath, but being President of the United States, he has a louder microphone than any cult leader in history.

Trump meets all twenty criteria for psychopathy (See: The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised”), and his mental condition allows him to lie — and even be caught lying — without a pang of conscience.

He is focused on what is best for him and seemingly oblivious to the consequences to anyone else. He is the perfect conspiracy theory machine.

As a psychopath, Trump attracts fearful people, those who feel threatened by the dangerous world they live in. Trump repeats their fears of non-whites, foreigners, non-Christians, gays, the poor, criminals, and women, then tells then only he can protect them.

They so desperately want to believe, they ignore the incongruity and cruelty of his claims and solutions. He becomes the drug they cannot survive without. He defends every lie, never admits being wrong, and attacks those who tell the truth by claiming his misdeed actually is theirs.

If he tells them something as absurd as “a famous politician is kidnapping children, torturing them, raping them, storing them in the basement of a fast-food restaurant, then selling them,” the frightened followers will believe.

Cults are mental drugs. They are addictive. Even when members know the preaching isn’t true, their emotions tell them to believe. You cannot convince an addict or a cult member. There is no outside cure for an addict or cult member,

They can be cured only if they want to be.

Trump was right when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any followers. They are hooked.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
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