When Conspiracy Theories Are No Longer Theories...They Move On

I am taking a class for seniors with the "down the rabbit hole" phrase in the title. My third class on conspiracy theory was a bit off topic. We of course think of the CIA as something of a conspiracy, but the professor wrote a book on ISIS etc. outfits recruiting Somali boys in Minnesota to go fight in Somalia and Syria. The conspiracy part is not quite the same, though the recruiters had to act in secret. Standard spy/propaganda recruitment efforts. Almost the same as is used to recruit boys to the US army. The political angle is much of the weight here. You utilize culture, beliefs and even religion to convince young men, anxious to show bravery for a cause, to go fight for your side, or "democracy."

But all this is outside the attractive side of conspiracy theories on social media. The aspects of life that relate to the government, or government sponsored or supported science (vaccines, climate change) are the most popular items to toss in with details of your own. You can also track the funding of various things to locate the conspirators. From my side, all things funded by Heritage Foundation are by definition a conspiracy.

The conspiracy theory has to be at the theory level for a long time. This is when it gets followers. When Russians hacked Podesta emails and released them through Wikileaks, it was no longer a theory, it was a Democratic conspiracy. Few bothered with the details and only read tweet sized bits of the emails. They had moved on to other theories.

The political angle of the conspiracy is certainly one factor for the believers, but much more important is the outrage that someone, a secret organization or a known one (FBI/CIA) is manipulating your opinions. The secret nature produces the outrage. "Deep state" included.

I'm interested in the process that leads so many to these theories in such a devoted, deep way. All of the Trump era there were endless little details coming from Trumpsters and their beliefs. It is based on their belief in small government, but the people stay there as long as it is a smallish club, not main stream, and the theory is a a theory. I have not finished this small book. But I suspect there is a lack of education behind much of it and the skills to use the Internet (the dreaded critical thinking.).

Twilight of Democracy

The book covers Poland, the UK and Spain well. She also knows Putin's Russia better than most of us. She speaks Polish. But the US is now alien to her.

The writer associated with right wing intellectuals and wrote articles in their publications all through the Bush era. She describes a few still active people from that era such as Ingraham well. They may have had democratic ideals back then. But Trump is rather superficially covered in the US chapter and she really has no idea about Steve Bannon or talk radio hosts. Even conspiracy theorists would be new to her.

The idea that the left has equally authoritarian ideas is outdated. That went out pretty much with the Vietnam era. The left is seen as elitist now, and the Trump base of uneducated voters that choose a candidate on gut feel is never going to pick one that does not speak in their terms. That is the one thing that Trump was good at.