Conspiracy Theories and American Politics

When people talk politics, and define the groups in the opposition, they often bring up conspiracy theories. The point of the argument is to label the opposition as flakes who support these theories that have never been proven. You could make an argument against liberals or conservatives. I am not going to argue against liberals, but you can easily find theories made up by liberals that seem ridiculous. You can google for them. Alex Jones is an entertaining conspiracy theory spinner as well. And of course Trump himself, making the claim that the entire media group outside of Fox news is a vast conspiracy.

On the right, there are several groups that like to come up with theories, though they never are proven. That is the point of conspiracy theories. The opposite is so clever with the hiding of facts that only hints of this conspiracy can be found. The thousands of climate scientists that support global warming as an explanation to many climate events are allegedly part of a “vast left-wing conspiracy” against fossil fuel producers. That is an endless debate and actually requires some science to explain, beyond the scope of this blog.

Currently we have the Roy Moore election ongoing, so we have to address that here. To those outside the US, it is difficult to explain the forces pushing this unpopular person to the Senate. There are two tools that religious right-wingers always bring up. One is the gay agenda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_agenda

The other is abortion. Alabama is in the Bible Belt, so these two are always going to be in the back of the mind of voters there. Up to 50% of Alabama voters agree with all the moral views stated by Moore. He is the one who had a stone Ten Commandments monument installed in front of the Alabama Supreme Court. The monument was removed, and so was Moore from office. But in the Trump era, he has returned to fight for the religious right. His views are racist as well, but the abortion fight is up front. He states: "Now we have blacks and whites fighting, reds and yellows fighting, Democrats and Republicans fighting, men and women fighting. What’s going to unite us? What’s going to bring us back together? A president? A Congress? No. It's going to be God." 

The attack against abortion seems to be about driving Planned Parenthood out of as many states as possible and defunding it on the national level. Where is the leftist conspiracy? It is apparently everywhere, but mostly in the liberal agenda that runs our education system. Except that all the school boards throughout the Bible Belt are in the hands of Republicans. It must be in college, then, where the liberals brainwash our children to treat fetuses as fetuses. The court system is apparently stacked against Christians as well. In polls, nearly 50% of adult voters in Alabama share the evangelical views of Roy Moore. Homeschooling of children is common among evangelicals, though religious schools (Catholic, Christian) are available as well. The current secretary of education Betsy DeVoss promotes charter schools. This is where you take public funds and run a school with the parents of the students deciding the curriculum. No more atheist science! It is not necessary to prove any conspiracy. Once you bring up the liberal agenda, white Christians have at least felt they are some kind of victims of the system.

Outside of religion, it is the libertarians that come up with conspiracies blamed on the left. Many involve “taking away guns” and all ideas expanding government are labeled socialist. Even healthcare has now become a dangerous socialist idea with its "death panels." And schools again are involved, as well as a drive to get the federal government out of states.  Federal lands should be privatized. The feds are there to spy on you too, so agencies are involved.  Endless books are written by Ann Coulter, G. Gordon Liddy and other right-wing radio hosts and pundits. According to Liddy, the left-wing conspiracy has taken over media, entertainment, academia, courts and administrations of all the blue states. Taxes and entertainment are his favorite leftist ideas to attack.

The 2016 election seemed to be about Hillary’s emails, Hillary’s liberal ideas and Trump announcing his plan to attack foreigners, foreign countries and the liberal elite, who run the country through their culture wars (approving gays, taking religion out of public life etc.). Some voters were convinced of actual conspiracies. Others had some doubts about the extent of the conspiracy (After all, any doubt one way or another is a goal of the people putting forward the theories! The doubt merely brings this agenda into the election), but Trump would be the man to root out all this liberal agenda and bring in patriotism as well. There was no doubt in their mind when they voted. Culture wars were up there in the top five issues, and the so called pro-business stance was important as well. These were after all Republicans who oppose tax. If the tax is used to push leftist agenda in schools, colleges and other institutions, there was no loss in cutting that funding. And abortions!