Conspiracy theories in politics: fun shared hobby to "blame the liberals and elites"

 

Conspiracy theories are filling up social media. Alex Jones is happy. He lives for conspiracies.

I was mainly interested in how the use of them is tightly joined to the right at this time. Jewish space lasers? Green had specific ideas with that. Wikipedia even dug up a Jewish business connection. See under Marjorie Taylor Greene.

It did not have the right impact without the "Jewish" part. The purpose is to at first grab attention and spread like wildfire. But there are parts that the person inventing the conspiracy wants to hang on to. She gets her people to share their ideas and make fun of elites. "Owning the libs."

Trump himself seems to grab onto a new one every time he can. If you can attach a country or ethnic group to it, even better. Trump has no use for facts. He needs these things like he needs rallies. Material for his stand up routine. He does not need to explain it well, like Hannibal Lecter. It is just there for a joke. He needs the crowds and social media for the stuff. He is going to be so depressed when he is nothing in a few years and TV has gone past him and his weird hobbies.

To sum up: My take is that there are only two goals: 1 distract and throw doubt on something, get political support of the regular folks in doubting the elites 2 togetherness, sharing.

With Trump there is a big factor that is maybe in all the wacko category of MAGA polticians: secret message to the faithful followers suggesting something rather disgusting about a group (Jews, foreigners, libs) without actually using the word. "They are eating our cats and dogs." It was too good not to use.

Something common among all MAGA voters is the reaction to everything the government (CDC, FDA) tells us: "who are they to tell me what to do?" It is this thought that preceded the details of most popular conspiracy theories. A few were also about individuals (Hillary).

There is a more serious part to conspiracies outside of politics. These people are just there to make a few dollars, so they cast doubt on Covid medications and vaccines and use their web site to peddle a few health supplements. The same junk you can get in a variety of forms at your local health supplement store. Dr Mercola was a pioneer way back from the Nutrasweet days.

Conversations with Average Republican Congressman

 On his FB page.

Day 2

BACON IS PROUDLY BEHIND ISRAEL 100% (NO MENTION OF GAZA)

Most of the comments below that are not on Israel, more like "do your job." I've copied my posts and those of "Tim" and others:

Me: Congressman Bacon won by 5000 votes. He is sbout to steal Medicaid from 41 000 in his district.

Tim: Steal Medicaid? Get real. Freebies be disqualified isn’t stolen. It’s not deserved

Me: Dump the nursing home patients on the street then? 60% of those in Omaha nursing homes. Medicare does not cover it. They are not "able bodied adults." Beyond that, hundreds of Omahans are working full time and now can't afford insulin or similar daily drugs.

Tim: Sure you got all the numbers there little buddy . Cant take care of the world . But maybe worry about Finland .

Me: I do worry. But I have paid American income tax and property tax for 50 years. I've never worried about "wrong people" getting insulin paid by me.

Tim: The country voted massively to reduce waste. If you don’t think there is not massive waste in all government to bad . Move back

Me: There is not massive waste. The work force is reduced from its peak and seasonal projects are all contracted out. Compared to Western countries, our expense is in the low end. The US federal work force is huge, but so is the country. Being America, there is only waste in courts as the government sorts out issues. More planes will crash under Trump, FEMA will be scrapped. Wait for the next Nebraska floods in spring.

Brian: I never imagined the United States would align with authoritarian regimes. Under President Trump’s administration, our nation has joined Russia, North Korea, Iran, Belarus in opposing a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This marks a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy, distancing us from our traditional European allies. It’s a stark reminder of how fragile democratic alliances can be and a warning of the potential erosion of our nation’s moral leadership on the global stage.

Connie (note she does not mention tax cuts): Republicans in Nebraska are counting on you to vote Republican Mr Bacon and to vote to eliminate trillions of dollars of debt! Thanks!

Joseph: Are you willing to turn your self into authorities for your part in the government fraud waste and abuse that has been knowingly funded by you and legislative branch since you have taken office?

Alex: It’s really weird to brag about your support of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. You should be ashamed, but you’re not because you’re a soulless monster.

Jim: How about your role model selling out Ukraine?? Also, you are OK with a 40% reduction in the DOD budget over the next five years?? You've been awfully quiet lately!!!

Joan: when's your town hall Don? when are you going to explain to Nebraska why you sold us out to rapist, 34 time convicted felon. You may be scared of him, but you should be more afraid of the people you're selling out for a pat on the head

Democracy: a week gone and we are not doing so well

 

The Black Knight is optimistic. The stuff is just piling up day by day. Is there anything we can do? Sure, the voters WILL protest, espeecially in places like LA. In 2017 in congress there was good resistance to Trump. And his henchmen were incompetent. But so are Democrats now. My take is that the last hope they had of immediate action went with the Trump supreme court. After that there is nothing to do but wait. If we are lucky Trump will last 2 years. He only had a 1-2% win.

Well, the Democrats do not head any committees involved in any of this.

Anti-science

We had no idea. The MAGA folk are outraged at the whole world. We paid experts to invent and then get approval for a vaccine in record time. But...they were offended just by the fact that educated people told them to get vaccinated. If not for you (you are a tought guy) but the common good. But no, they have no need to do that. It is a zero sum world fot them. If he gets vaccinated, someone else but benefit from that.

I had this written up when the book came out. Now with RFK Jr inserting wacko ideas into healtcare, it is again relevant.

Peter Hotez's book describes how anti-science has become problematic. It can even prevent government funding of research.

Biology is still quite a mystery to the layman. Their approach to it is political and grassroots activism. You can read about politics and Fox News' campaign to oppose science in the name of freedom in other books. However, here the opponents of vaccines are described quite accurately. The factors you do not immediately see are also explained to some extent. Consumers are consumers of misinformation spread by a systematic machine. It is not worth basing your opinion solely on social media.

Who benefits from opposing vaccinations? Hotez mentions at least the trolls hired by Putin on social media. They spread false information about almost everything. Disinformation here and elsewhere, as well as the chaos of the pandemic, were Putin's goals. Local groups then seize on the false information to spread as facts. Scientists with important titles were also hired to come up with false information. The book mentions Jeffrey Singer, who wants to popularize all science. Scientists should no longer be in the role of "gatekeeper", but with the help of the Internet, a person could compile the information themselves and act on it. Even if a substance had been found to be ineffective against Covid, if it does not cause medical harm in a certain dose, a person would be allowed to try any substance on themselves.

There is also a large group of peddlers of fake medicines and “vitamins” circulating on the Internet. Hydroxychloroquine and a couple of others were popular during the corona pandemic. The criteria by which medicines and vaccines are tested and developed are not easy to read with the experience and education of a layperson. It is easy to grasp the simplest explanation. It is easy to exaggerate the risks of vaccines. In the case of Covid, it was not known that the mentioned risks and health problems in the Covid vaccines were the same, but more dangerous if you got Covid itself.

The functioning of the immune system is not understood by the layman. It is only understood that when you get the vaccine, you need to wait a while for the immune system to be ready to fight the virus. But at least that is clear. Those who have been vaccinated are starting to doubt whether the vaccine was of any benefit if you got Covid anyway. The statistics that support vaccines are tables, and they cannot be summarized in some Twitter-style message.

The book lists political groups that work in the healthcare sector. There is also a section on climate change and those who oppose anything related. All the January 6th rebellion groups, the Proud Boys and the like, are involved in sending threatening messages to Peter Hotez. He came into the picture during the pandemic and was even on television much more often than Anthony Fauci.

Anti-vaccine groups were ready since 2015 in Texas and California. When Donald Trump was elected president, opposition to science was in full swing. All government projects during the pandemic had to be modified stop depriving freedom. Public health in the US operates at the state level. State recommendations put in place, and in each state there is a person in public health leading that.

Public health operates at state and county level. Quarantines and tests were ordered. Now this was seen solely as the enemy of the individual and no compromise was made if there was even the slightest risk to the individual. Before the pandemic, there was misinformation about vaccines and autism in children.  Now the opponents had to come up with new claims. After all, the people being vaccinated were mostly adults.

At the local level, school parent councils first intervened in the use of masks because vaccines were not initially available to children. The same group of patents continues to operate and is now acting with the support of Governor DeSantis by restricting anything related to gender and minority groups in school textbooks and teaching.

Hotez explains exactly what happened during the pandemic in a few paragraphs. In the rest of the book, he continues to offer communication as a solution. He himself, although he is mainly a researcher in a large hospital system in Texas, has gone to the media as a defender of science. Hotez suggests a campaign in which prominent figures are hired to communicate with the media. They should be supported by organizations, so that the skeptical would agree to listen to the message for a moment. If the state hires them, they will not be believed.

There is hope: the young people

 I am as tired of the first week of Trump as we all are. Trump got in and his politics are summed up by exclusion. His voters wanted to exclude foreigners. That is happening. Now the process continues to exclude anybody but the most conservative and the wealthiest. Inclusiveness and democracy have no part in the Trump four years.

I had a lecture today from Roman Pryjomko. He has been involved in world politics since the 1990s. His one slide showed some hope. This is a South African, Fasija Hassan, who came into politics demanding in. "We will break down the door." Old men and women were holding all the power. Nelson Mandela quit at 80. He said the octagenarians have no right to govern. They cannot understand change.

If you want change, here is your chance. Quit following news from Facebook and TikTok. Find out what is going on. Get involved. I'll come out put up your yard signs. It is your turn.

A Tipping Point -- History has changed

                          

The first Trump term and now the 2nd will push the US in a certain direction. Trump will not get too much credit from the historians. It will be noted that there was a shift. The voters are not happy and part of it is that the US Constitution is no longer working for us citizens the way it did in the 1900s, even though the Reagan years.

 The result will be a US with a big army and some strength. But no longer keeping military bases all over the world and cruising aircraft carriers. Those were around for the purpose of providing a base in a place where there was not a lot of US support. Middle East, Asia, Russian neighbors. Aircraft carriers do not enter the Baltic as those are now all NATO countries. And they never did. The people with libertarian views saw this patrolling of the planet as waste. Now they will get what they want. Part of the America First idea. A zero-sum game of global scale. What  money goes abroad is away from my pocket. The problems that arise will pile up in the next few decades. Several epidemics will go out of control.

 The other trend that we will see is that red states are on their own. The South will be poor. Even federal highway money will be less and less. The blue states will continue as they did. They produce a lot of income and will take care of their own. They will invent their own healthcare.

 Healthcare will change. Traveling to a different state may require travel insurance, in case you get sick. The states will become little countries. Sharing only the military and the dollar. Federal spending will tighten and will run a lot like the EU. Some states will need to be bailed out from time to time. Catastrophes will need special laws for recovery, each one. Some kind of financial arrangements are made. Somehow the states will get independent economies. Don't ask how, I am not an economist.

ADDED 2-1-25

"It’s been clear for quite a while now that red America and blue America are becoming like two different countries claiming the same territory, with two different versions of the Constitution, economics, and American history. But Babel is not a story about tribalism; it’s a story about the fragmentation of everything. It’s about the shattering of all that had seemed solid, the scattering of people who had been a community. It’s a metaphor for what is happening not only between red and blue, but within the left and within the right, as well as within universities, companies, professional associations, museums, and even families," writes Jonathan Haidt.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369

Trump Explained

One factor that went in favor of Trump was that Trump had formed a bond with tens of millions of voters in 2016. That group was never going to flip. If you had a discussion with a 2016 Trump voter criticizing Trump and explaining how some thing was better under Biden, they were insulted. An accusation about Trump was insulting that voter personally. Harris on the other hand was "just a politician and a DEI hire."

Number one issue was: foreigners. Very well planned straw man from Trump, cats and dogs and all.

There is a general feeling of "the Democrats did nothing" among Trump voters doing poorly. I will address that at the end.

A second thing that has been a factor for decades that leads to people picking someone like Trump is a Foxnews related item. It has been around longer, but Fox has really capitalized on it an repeated it endlessly. It is the belief that the federal government does not work.

Those Trump voters are now anxiously waiting exactly that. Dismantling the federal government. "It does not do anyhing."

A number of things all came together to give Trump just some 1-2% more in a few states: inflation, vaccinations, wokeness and a good number more. It's kind of like the Santa Ana winds promoting fire. They just happened at the right time. Many of those will not be repeated in 2028, so let us look at some factors that DID make him the favorite among MAGA and the undecideds.

Donald Trump is a showman. He liked to be on stage, he likes audiences. He is at home at a Trump Rally. In fact he is still campaigning. He will do this for several months. His major plan to deport all the migrants that he labeled a danger will very likely start in 2025. The cost and details will need to be worked out. Laws covering immigrants have just border partol funding. Not deporting millions.

And he is a con man. None of that was convincing for me. I do not support mass deportations. Since I had no fear of immigrants, I also did not see it as an urgent issue to solve. So how did he create the intense fear of foreigners for tens of millions? Rejection of all culture not your own.

It took me a few books of MAGA type of politics and explanation of the support to learn one thing. The supporters do not see Trump as a politician. Somewhow that makes him on their side. The voters can "smell" a poltician right away, and that is what Harris and Biden are. Politicians who do not say exactly what the voter thinks are on "the other side."

I'm trying to see what 49% of voters saw in a man who is very clearly just an asshole. To most of us. And of his messages, only the hatred and deporting of aliens is a clear messge. How is he able to convince rather simple folk that tariffs on imports will fix their issue with prices? And how did they ever end up liking him? On the other hand Harris was as normal as you could imagine, and they went "I just don't believe she worked at McDonalds" or used some other trivial item to dismiss her.

He talks and talks. Migrants, Hannibal Lecter, tariffs, China. It did not really matter. There were 49% of voters that understood something that he said. It was probably not factual. But it was an outcome they wanted. A true demagogue. Trump appeared genuine to them, and the hatred of certain groups by Trump is genuine. Making fun of liberals appeared somewhat humorous, but these too are real threats. Also the cultural trends have gone quite a ways toward the left in the past few decades. All that needed to be erased too. In the Reagan era this was a big issue, that is why we did not get gay marriage till later.

So part of MAGA era support is for throwing out all the WOKE stuff. TV ads did focus on liberals allowing trans-gender people to identify as such and the schools then at least approving this. In fact, on the local level, schools have been a big issue for ten years. They think schools should teach basic skills. The other stuff, history and so on, cannot address race and gender issues. It was a platform issue due to all that happened during the pandemic. Federal funding for schools is at issue. It may be a lot for poor states. Other states fund themselves.

His opponent was relatively unknown. As VP she could not claim that she personally did some presidential deed. Biden was in on it. The voters also look at a candidate and immediately form a gut feel. The few people I talked to in person had no real feeling for Harris, other than a couple of them noted that "she sounds like a politician."

Voters are not able to make any statistical or financial estimate of anything they are deciding on. If Trump said something often enough, it was taken as the probale outcome or truth on any matter.

Trump also took credit for several things Biden or Obama did. I still hear MAGA folk repeating the thing about Child Tax Credit. That was 2021, not Trump.

Turning real threats such as climate change into conspiracy theories also made the MAGA folk almost a club. They now proudly say things out loud that they were afraid to. This also includes racism. "I'm never going to call a man in a skirt a woman."

And there are a good..half?...of people going to rallies that absolutely love Trump. For "shaking up things." For owning the libs. Woman in Milwaukee on Jordan Klepper video. In the video she has cackling laugh over it. "He showed them." And "he is one of us." Paraphrasing from a few minutes.

Biden did none of that, a few speeches here and there. But he was so in the back ground, so presidential, that in this social media world it looks like he did nothing. Fentanyl deaths are down under Biden, but nobodyd said a word about it this year.

Apart from Trump himself, the hatred of government produced the Trump cult. This is a decades old phenomenon.

One more aspect of being disgruntled is that the voters believe the "Democrats have done nothing for me." Biden actually improved healthacare costs and support. But I have to admit that despite ACA, the health care is still a mess in the US. The Democrats have done their best. But lobbyists are always there. Let us see how Trump does with that, but the promise is only to cut ACA. He intends to cut corporate tax. That will do absolutely nothing for MAGA folk. A few will lose some tax benefits, none will gain any.

The economy: Trump promised to "fix" the economy. That will not happen with tariffs. The tariffs might bring some jobs, but lose some. He was going to make things affordable. Well, they will be, once wages catch up with inflation. Prices will not come down. Nothing to do with Trump. It is just how inflation works.

Democrats

The collection of strawman issues the Trump dumped on democrats is largely false. There is a tiny bit of truth about  "the Democrats did nothing" that MAGA folks claim. Income disparity is large. This is the result of Democrats being unable to tax the wealthy. The income of the lower middle class is largely dictated by corporations which now run the country, no matter what party is in power. Democrats could offer regulated healthcare and safety nets. The income itself is by coporate standard. The support of corporations during the pandemic did almost nothing to you the worker. Both parties are resposnible. Trump was never the solution.

The European economy is such that you do not pay much for education and can get better jobs and earn a nice living. You are more independent while working. But as you retire, they are much the same as us. Life there is not so much about collecting wealth.

Democrats

We have a good number of young congress people that speak out about real issues and live in mostly blue districts. Those people are in the news often. AOC, Maxwell Frost, Jasmine Crockett and others.

But not all Democrats are as outspoken and will not discuss the Second Amendment much. And then there is the economy. Trickle down does not work, but voters are always confused and turned off when you bring up taxation. Benefits are easier to discuss. But even there, bring up benefits that everybody would get. Independent voters do not care much about Medicaid, for example. Just something they would need when they are old and poor.

The complaint about Democrats not doing anything for the working class may be true, but on the other hand voters have given them very slim majorities. Social Security reform (actually simple: tax higher income) cannot be done. Compare that to a Republican win. Social issues and scare tactics got Trump elected. The result is giving more power to corporations and the rich. This happens over and over, every GOP president and under Clinton. It is just inching year after year to extreme capitalism. They dictate many national policies now. The Supreme Court is also on their side now. Just a rubber stamp to strip down "big government."

Repeal of their own ACA healthcare by congress and replacement by extreme profit making insurance plans is one more thing that the MAGA voters voted for. Employers will still have some control of insurance gotten through them.

The other thing that rules politics is money. Many Democrats are forced to be rather centrist. Not their personal view, but they may be in a district that would go to the GOP if they did not have big money to spend in campaigns. To get the votes and the money (big corporations, lobbies) they are closer to the center. They can hold leftist views on social programs but taxing the rich is another matter.

Republicans

I have tried to summarize the election, indpendents, MAGA folk and Trump in a number of posts. To simplify things, let us look at just actual Republicans.

The general principles are:

1 government is bad, taxes are bad

2 if we have some programs that people could benefit from, the majority will be ripping off the honest tax payer. Entitlements are for lazy Democrats.

3 Science is bad, because Democrats run funding to it. Plus many things there clash with our beliefs, the Bible. There are no vaccinations in the Bible.

4 We have to keep some millitary. This is because the vast population of the world is not like us. They do not look like we do and think like we do. Keep them out. And the poor as well. We have our own poor.

5 To get rid of anything Democrats started, just cut funding. If it results in some disaster, blame them. Bring back minimal funding a year later in a quiet way. No news on this!

6 If there is some service the federal government does well, we must stop it. We do not want to give them ideas. BECAUSE:

7. Every problem from city to state to the federal level is better solved by the FREE MARKET. Privatize everything.

The Brainwashing of My Dad: How the Media Was Used for a Right-Wing Revolution

 A summary (it was originally in Finnish, so a few odd bits of grammar and vocabulary may remain).

Jen Senko's book was published 2021 and went unnoticed by many. After all, there were dozens of books in the wake of Trump's term that described the MAGA movement and Trump supporters. However, this book focuses more broadly on how the 2016 election came about, and how Fox News played a central role in it. They started their propaganda against the left some twenty years ago with a cable TV program that looked like a news channel. The movement was also helped by Rush Limbaugh and talk radio hosts like him. Rush could talk for hours on end without any guests.

The book describes the author's dad Frank in the midst of all this. His whole character became angry and racist for a long time. However, reading the book is rewarding, as Frank finally realizes his mistake at the age of about 90. The film of the same name, produced by Jen Senko, is available to watch on Amazon or YouTube. Frank's change began just when Rush Limbaugh began broadcasting his program to the entire national network. Frank did not discuss politics much with the family when he was younger and had always voted Democratic before that.

Now he had changed his mind almost immediately after retiring. There was time to listen. The whole talk radio industry was taking off from the mostly uncontrolled radio broadcasting that Reagan had allowed by the FCC. The technology was ready to broadcast AM broadcasts across the country, and Limbaugh had many competitors. Everyone was chasing the same audience, white males who had time to listen, and daily life might not have been so interesting. Limbaugh pointed out who was to blame for their situation: liberals, feminists, and foreigners. Rush also began to hate science, so there was no evidence that nicotine was a drug, or that smoking was a risk. He preached this and more to his followers.

The Democrats did not have a similar radio show to incite hatred against the right. The Tea Party was in full swing in politics, and libertarians even went as far as Congress to declare that the federal government had too much power. The book describes the target audience of Fox News. Cable television or satellite dishes reached all rural areas, and it became the only source of information for millions. Frank in the book got more content to follow in his life from Fox News. His wife had to flee to another part of their house while he spent hours blasting the programs.

The book emphasizes Fox's role during the pandemic. The misinformation it spread about vaccines and disease treatment reached Fox viewers, who tended to believe everything they heard. The Fairness Doctrine of radio and television was intended to give all parties a voice to broadcast, but here it was clearly detrimental to society. Fox owner Rupert Murdoch had gained quite a bit of power at that point. The Telecommunications Act, passed by Congress in 1996, allowed the same company to own newspapers, television, Hollywood film production, Internet news, everything possible under one roof. They could each have a CEO, but Murdoch controlled them all. When the target audience is the same, the company is in a monopoly position.

Much of the country has other channels available. But when news channels started reporting what Trump said on Fox, for example, they unknowingly boosted Fox's ratings and revenue.

 Senko's book focused on this single Fox News viewer. The role of the media in manipulating well planned political concepts was made clear in the book. But what makes people believe in conspiracies in general? Jan-Willem Van Proojien has written a book on the subject called “The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories”.

The short book goes through familiar examples from the right and other more violent single-issue groups. The general idea is of our own group and its opponent, a powerful and secret conspiracy that controls our lives. Humanity has always had a tendency to do this. We look for some kind of factor, an “agent,” if we cannot otherwise explain some events. Fear is also always present when conspiracies are invented. Something in life makes a person afraid of an external entity that they can do nothing about. People who preach the threat of conspiracies spread fear. If the conspiracy is not stopped, the victim/believer is depicted as committing some type of violence themselves.

The left may have its own conspiracy theories. It happens in South American countries, for example, where there is a dictatorship, and everything negative that happens in a country must somehow be blamed on the dictatorship.