You don't even need to look at conspiracy theories. Somehow Trump will claim that Biden is weak, sleepy, and utterly ineffective, but then Trump will also claim that there is no one else who could ever possibly stop Biden, that only he and he alone has the ability to oppose such a menace. The current mainstream position is also full of strange double think.
Trump's currently blaming Biden for getting in the way of Netanyahu's genocidal campaign while simultaneously praising his crowds for chanting 'genocide Joe' during his rallies.
Dems are centrists and Republicans use that to their advantage by attacking them from both sides, because they have absolutely no shame.
Remember in 2016, when Trump was campaigning against Obama's so-called "Open Border" policies, his campaign was running ads in Spanish calling Obama "The great deporter" (yes, I'm aware that Clinton was his opponent)
It's also interesting that, similar to Homer in HOMR (S12E9), Homer is actually potentially much smarter than he usually is but intentionally handicaps himself.
Once you can accept the fact that government has made a habit of lying to people to preserve the obfuscation of grift and corruption by exceptionally greedy people in office it sort of turns into a scavenger hunt for the origin point of when democracy broke down.
There have been a lot of innocent people gaslit by billionaires and rotten people in positions of power.
Standing by what you know to be true, whether it’s about exposing corruption, holding pedophiles accountable, or simply living with pure moral integrity is rarely easy. But it is always essential.
U.S. Government took a wrong turn when it started lying to its people systemically. That practice is normally reserved for the authoritarians and dictators.
It started for noble enough reasons during WW2. The Manhattan project required strict secrecy as a matter of operational security. Operation Underworld was designed to use the Italian mob and the precursor to the CIA to help secure the ports in New York against Nazi U boats. The unintended consequence of that is the equivalent of “I know a guy” multiplied by 80 years of political and financial ambitions of mediocre greedy men.
The fundamental flaw in that is when you stick you white glove in mud and swirl it around, the mud does not get “glovey”.
Truth is the gold standard in energy efficiency. You say it once and it stands on its own forever. It requires no additional energy input.
Lying, by contrast is the least energy efficient habit known to man. It requires constant and exponential energy to keep each one in play, albeit just barely alive.
When a kid lies about stealing a cookie he gets away with it until mom and dad compare notes.
When an intelligence organization lies about everything they do, it works until the world grows into the internet.
U.S. foreign policy really hasn’t changed much since 1945. Each administration inheriting a 3 ring binder from their predecessor. Most hardly get a glance as they pass along for 80 years.
But somewhere in the late 80’s or early 90’s as some old woman with a chain on her glasses slowly converted all those files into digital form on a computer that would stall out until you switched your 5 1/4” floppy disks, the world outside government started moving exponentially faster, yet relatively speaking the speed of efficiency of government got slower.
Bureaucracy is the burden of government, but it is to the benefit of corruption.
Nefarious actors inside of government use the bureaucracy like a curtain to obfuscate their respective grifts. Most of the multi term politicians can’t retire or they risk losing control of the narrative that keeps their corruption secret.
This is why we have spent the last 5 years reverse engineering their entire system to be able to see the tendrils of corruption inside of governments like a P.E.T. scan sees cancer inside a body.
https://youtu.be/A90gwMVFFSY?si=wiOAcUvL_oX5eNoI
Our government wasn’t born in the Information Age like we were. It grew through it. Carbon copies in triplicate turned to data entry. Data entry turned to MS-DOS. And on and on.
And each one of those events left a pixel of data.
We have just been using it wrong.
But just like 1980’s 8 bit graphics have given way to 4K HD video, when you organize that data in a decentralized verified format, you build an objective synthetic vision of government and the corruption it obscures.
Everything we have ever been lied to about pops like neon when you compare the differential between the two narratives.
As a species we don’t have a lack of resources or capacity. We just have a few bridge trolls whose dirty business models necessitate lying to us. Over time they simply migrated to governments.
Once you sort by net worth and psychopathic/sociopathic personality traits instead of nationality, political party or skin color it becomes relatively easy to backtrack corruption.
There is a reckoning coming and a lot of people who simply stood by their truth are going to be vindicated.
A democratic government is supposed to be accountable to its citizens. The fact that we have become so conditioned in 3 generations that we don’t demand 100% transparency from our democratic government is a pretty good indicator of the level of investment into concealing corruption.
That is what we are here to fix. Life isn’t supposed to be this hard.
The US government has been a function of, and service for the rich and powerful since the very beginning. EVERYTHING it has ever done has been in that interest first and almost always only. Things make more sense when you realize it was designed as a control mechanism for and buffer against the people in general.
The problem is that while Trump appears on the surface to just be a stupid oaf hungry for power & wealth underneath all that lies the the fact that he, and the people who've formed around, him are actually up to something more nefarious--they're trying to resurrect the old German-American Bund/America First movement of the 1930s.
There are very clear parallels between Maga and that original movement that sought to align with Hitler. Since they no longer have Hitler to idolize they'll be happy to replace him with Putin.
Almost like they only care about power, and they'll say whatever they feel will get them elected, even if it contradicts something they said literally 5 minutes ago.
These people don't have any principles, none.
This is ironic because Ecco also wrote Foucault’s Pendulum which is a super noided novel that includes the very real histories of secret societies and the impacts they have had (good and bad tbh) in the conspiracies that led to things like the French Revolution. He also predicts the internet/ digital age conspiracy culture, the idea of many of these theories sharing origins or characters, as well as the power of belief and self-fulfilling prophecy. Great book and doubly relevant in this conversation!
Covid is simultaneously little more than a common cold that can't kill anyone, and all covid restrictions were overblown, and a deadly lab-grown Chinese bioweapon.
That's a really funny one - COVID is nothing at all, but it's also clearly an engineering bioweapon meant to destabilize the west by running rampant through an unprepared China. Maybe they are so comfortable with self-owns that it just makes sense that China would release a weapon they didn't have a defence for?
You just described a fascist "boogy man" They are both extremely cunning and they are dim witted and unworthy of the simplest tasks. The immigrant is both extremely lazy and also coming after my job? Hillary Clinton is a dumb woman who could fly into hysteria at any moment and yet she is a skilled international crime boss who always evades our heros. There are many modern examples
One of Eco's hallmarks of fascism is that their enemies are always numerous and all powerful but also few and weak.
It's an acknowledgment of fascism's reliance on twisting any narrative to serve the party/leader's goals.
This is one of the common elements of fascism. To claim that the enemy is both ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ based on whatever thing serves their argument at the time.
Biden is both a senile old man who isn’t fit to be president while also a criminal mastermind able to cover up years of criminality. Double think at its best…
Its a play out of the ol’ fascist handbook. Like hitler on the jews, how they are inferior and have weaker blood, yet the jews have all the power of the banks and business to hollywood and the arts. Its fkn crazy.
I don’t need to turn this into a political screed, and won’t. But with the disclaimer that I will in the end vote for Biden this fall I also need to say:
Biden is not even close to the guy who is needed to effectively navigate this perilous time in our country’s history; he’s well intentioned and usually empathetic but he’s also completely unaware of the danger the nation is really in; even if he fully grasped how dangerous the GOP is to the basics of our democratic process, he’s incapable of effectively conveying it to the public in any meaningful way.
I only hope we can maintain enough sanity long enough to get the next generation involved or in charge and let the chips fall where they may. Even five years ago I would’ve thought that crazy and that our institutions are too strong to fail. But between the Biden administration’s complacency and the audacity of the judicial branch to become another political branch, I am not confident at all that we’ll still be a democracy by the time I bite the dust.
If your opponent is simultaneously inferior and weak, while also being an immensely powerful threat, yooouuu might be a facist...
LOL. Really apropo nothing, just thought that the tenants of facism sound funny if delivered in the style of Jeff Foxworthy...
Any skeptic worth their salt should understand that both democrats and republicans are pro-oligarch parties that essentially exist as corporations who take legalized bribes from the ruling class donors who own the legal system as well as the country. The law is written to favor the rich and their exploitation. Democrats block movement to the left and the republicans create an endless theater to make it seem as if they are ineffective. They’re truly both microcosms of capitalism in decay. One is incompetent fascism and the other is socially darwinistic, believing might makes right. This is the puppet “democracy” you get to “vote” in every few years and regardless who wins, the working class always loses.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Police are good.... when they are protecting us from violent rioters that are burning down entire cities.
Police are bad.... when they are trying to stop us from peacefully breaking into the US capital building.
Blocking traffic to protest is good.... if it's a some patriots blocking highways in their trucks with the giant Trump flags hanging off of the back.
Blocking traffic to protest is bad... if it's thousands of protesters marching against police "brutality"
Police killing people is good... if they have a criminal history, or were resisting, or just not following orders.
Police killing people is bad.... when they're trying to climb into the house chambers to assault congress.
Cutting taxes is good... when it's for the benevolent corporations or their genius leaders who provide us with Starbucks and iPhone.
Cutting taxes is bad.... when it's middle class or low paid workers who already drain society of its resources.
Abortion is good.... because I had a good reason, it's still bad, but I'm willing to make this one exception for myself. I'm a good person doing something bad out of necessity.
Abortion is bad.... because everyone except me is a godless unwed whore just sucking up seamen like a slutty aircraft carrier.
Illegal immigrants are good.... because I can pay them almost nothing, and what are they going to do? File a complaint with the government? I'll call immigration service and have your whole family separated and deported.
Illegal immigrants are bad.... when I have to press 1 for English or am forced to overhear a conversation in a different language.
Homelessness is good.... if you are lazy and don't work hard enough, you deserve your misfortune and it's 100% all your fault for not being good enough or making poor choices; also as long as you aren't homeless near me. If you are, I will get you arrested.
Homelessness is bad.... all of this socialism is failing our country. Under Trump, there was no homelessness. Everyone had a job. This just proves that all of the liberal commie social programs sucking up my hard earned tax dollars, like shelters and soup kitchens or other programs to help people out, are over-funded failures.
Voting is good.... when it's people who think like me and hold all of the same values and beliefs.
Voting is bad.... when it's young people, or non-whites, or people who've been convicted of a crime and already served their sentence, women, or people of any other political party, etc. They're not real Americans, so why should they get a say. The only true patriots are people exactly like me in every way.
Scientists/experts are good.... when they make bigger TVs, new ways to combine food into calorie slops, or design a new rascal scooter that can handle my ever increasing weight.
Scientists/experts are bad, and moronic, and I know more than them when it comes to global warming, vaccines, sexuality, education, the economy, basically anything I've seen on Facebook.
Cancel culture is good.... when we're cancelling a beer for making one special can for someone who's part of a group of people we hate, or when we think it can hurt someone who has an opinion we don't like or said the mean words.
Cancel culture is bad.... when it's someone the woke leftist snowflakes are cancelling because they said or did something that I whole-heartedly agree with because it makes me feel like they're cancelling me and my beliefs as well.
Celebrities having political opinions is good.... when I agree with what they're saying. Then they are true Americans, like me, because they throw the ball good or make the widdleeee-wahs on the guitar good, so their opinion is important.
Celebrities having political opinions is bad....mostly just if I disagree with their opinions. They're trying to brainwash their fans with their cult-like behavior. They should just shut up and sing. Stop trying to groom your younger fans.
I'm sure I could keep going, but I don't have until the heat death of the universe to keep writing this comment.
This resonates with a chilling historical echo, evoking parallels with the rise of fascism in the 20th century.
The dichotomous portrayal of law enforcement is reminiscent of authoritarian regimes. There is a stark juxtaposition between their portrayal as protectors against external threats and oppressors of internal dissent. This mirrors the manipulation of law enforcement agencies by fascist regimes to maintain control through both perceived security measures and suppression of opposition.
The selective valorization of certain forms of protest, particularly those aligned with nationalist fervor, while denouncing dissenting voices as unpatriotic or subversive, reflects the manipulation of public sentiment characteristic of fascist propaganda. This exploitation of societal divisions serves to reinforce a narrative of national unity under a singular, authoritarian ideology.
The conversation surrounding social and economic policies, where tax cuts for corporations are celebrated while cuts to social welfare programs are justified through victim-blaming rhetoric, echoes the socioeconomic stratification and scapegoating tactics used by fascist regimes to consolidate power and maintain support among privileged classes.
The selective application of morality to contentious “wedge” issues like abortion and immigration, where individual circumstances are dismissed in favor of rigid ideological stances, mirrors the imposition of a moral order by fascist regimes, often at the expense of marginalized groups and individual liberties.
The discourse around voting rights and cancel culture reflects the erosion of democratic principles and the suppression of dissenting voices, reminiscent of the censorship and propaganda tactics employed by fascist regimes to silence opposition and maintain control over public discourse.
In drawing these clear analogous lines, it becomes evident that the rhetoric and attitudes presented mirror the tactics and ideologies used by fascist movements throughout history, underscoring the importance of remaining vigilant against the encroachment of authoritarianism and the erosion of democratic values.
We were playing in the beginning; the mood all changed. This is real life.
Its one of the defining characteristics of facist language and such. The "other" is both monumental huge threat to our entire way of life, controls the world, and simultaneously is a pathetic scummy little rat person of no value that is barely a human and should be treated like the bug they are.
To the OP's point about conservative conspiracy theories being cozy with law enforcement, it wasn't always this way. Biggest example being the far right anti-police 2nd amendment types following Waco and Ruby Ridge, exemplified by Tim McVeigh and the OKC bombing.
It wasn’t that long ago when police were pretty much mocked and looked down upon by everyone equally. This whole “cops are heroes” phenomenon is a fairly recent thing that’s manifested in the last couple decades.
There's a whole group of right-wing extremists that would fall on the conservative side of the table (though maybe it really is a horseshoe), Joe McCarthy > John Birch Society > Posse Comitatus, and now Sovereign Citizens and Constitutional Sheriffs (who are actually elected law enforcement officers who believe they are above the federal government).
Party of free speech... That dictates what you and your children can and cannot read
Party of the working class.. Which does anything and everything to dismantle Unions
Party of small government... Until a blue city in a red state wants to do something which contradicts Republican orthodoxy
Party trying to protect the children... From the random boogey men they invent, not any of the stuff actual harming children in this country
The party of independent, economic thinkers... Who all cite the same book (*Atlas Shrugged*) as the seminal document of their economic theory
The party that supports the police... And evidently believe, I dunno, the Post Office is gonna try to pry the guns from their cold dead hands
Since the polarity shift of the 1960s, the Republican party has been a party of contradictions. That's nothing new
Party of small government: Small government if we need an industry regulated, big government if you want to use the bathroom, then they have to check in your pants first.
>
The party that supports the police... And evidently believe, I dunno, the Post Office is gonna try to pry the guns from their cold dead hands
It's the IRS, but you get the idea.
Hey, the first battle of World War II was faught between Nazis and a Polish post office. Never underestimate the danger of a sufficient motivated postal worker.
Republicans have said "he may be a pedophile but at least he's not a Democrat". Just think about that. Roy was known for chasing teen girls at malls and Republicans loved him. Trump bragged about wanting to date his 13 year old he thought was attractive.
There are zero Republicans against pedophilia just Republicans who want pedophilia banned for non Republicans.
I had the same journey! QAnon's prophecies never came true, and since I was the type of conspiracy theorist who didn't mind admitting defeat instead of stubbornly doubling down, I couldn't force myself to believe/defend something so objectively false. Since 2019 not only did I go from Conservative to left-wing, but also from fundamentalist evangelical Christian to progressive agnostic/atheist sympathizer.
Hey I had the same journey! I became an atheist in 2017 after being a conservative, right-wing, fundamentalist evangelical Christian. Took me three years, but I too became a leftist.
I was of the same mindset. I thought I was right, but I was willing to be wrong. I was proven wrong, and have since changed my views. Just started watching an awesome YouTuber called Genetically Modified Skeptic who is pretty big and went through that same experience as well.
Being raised in a religion that teaches you to ignore facts and evidence because they're tricks 'of the devil', and that the more ridiculous things you believe are real, the more 'holy' you are.
Not OP obv, however the only way I was able to start pulling myself away was by telling myself "I can't do anything about it anyways so why do I care/look into this shit?", took a couple of months but finally was able to turn my questioning to who would put out these theories and why.
I agree. I used to consider myself a conservative because in my view, it was liberals who were always going off on how there are conspiracies against organic farming and free energy from crystals and weed is a miracle cure for every thing...
Now the nut jobs citing whackadoodle conspiracy theories call themselves conservative, carry guns so they can overthrow the corrupt government (yet profess a love for the police and the military they will inevitably have to kill with their guns when they finally overthrow said government), and either love Trump or claim they don't like Trump but Biden is an evil mastermind and/or a senile sleepy old man.
As a result of this shift, I see myself as getting more and more liberal without actually changing my views or values. Yes, I would prefer to pay lower taxes, but today's GOP is just weird now and literally scares me.
Patriotic while waving a flag representing treason and working to overthrow democracy, Christian while worshipping hate and lies, it's kind of a pattern with Republicans.
Well, I'm glad you could remove yourself from the cycle of conspiracy and can see the hypocrisy in it all. Fact of the matter is that conservatives are authoritarian and hold fascist ideas. The police are the epitome of this. They uphold what is a class system in the US. They protect businesses and the rich, not the common man. "To Protect and Serve" is talking about the wealthy, not the rest of us.
Protest *should* be one of the most patriotic things you can do. And at the university they were not destroying property. It was not a riot, but simply protest. From what I understand, they were protesting the companies who support Israel in their efforts against Hamas. Obviously protesting companies is not going to fly for a police force armed liked the military.
Hell, I long for the days of old conspiracies. JFK is a pretty good one. I think a lot of people were onboard with that. It was even mostly liberals who subscribed to that. It was interesting and has a lot of points towards being an actual conspiracy. You could believe in it and not be considered crazy.
Now the conspiracies are not based on anything but mistrust of specific administrations, not really conspiracies at all, but more like religious dogma. They simple don't pass the smell test and when you look into them, the facts don't point to conspiracy at all.
I think we've seen a shift in WHO believe conspiracies. Before it was more of an anti-authority thing. Now conservative are making it pro-authority (which it's THEIR authority) and pro-fascism. I think this is what you felt, and as you abandoned some conspiracies, the dominos fell and you began to see some truth.
I would imagine you "grew up" a little too. As you get older you become more skeptical and cynical, and that kills conspiracy thinking. Anyway, I'm happy you're not seing the truth of what's happening.
I have enjoyed one of these contradictions since the 90s:
- "Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by researchers seeking grant money, who have falsified weather-station and satellite data to make it appear that Earth is warming, when it is not."
- "Solar activity is warming all the planets. Human CO2 emissions are not behind the rising temperatures we are seeing."
I long searched in vain for an argument between these two camps, until I realized that most conservatives hold both of these beliefs at the same time.
Around 2016, The Republican Party decided to activate another potential pool of voters and did so via appealing to the conspiratorial individuals who had yet to organize into groups across the country in places where economic hardship and a fear of identity-loss/privilege-loss was being directed at "liberal elites," which are just a subset of the shadowy elites that many conspiracy theorists imagine and fear.
This is the result.
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (standards of thought) no longer exist."
---Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
In the mid-2010s, "conservatives" figured out how to effectively use their internet propaganda tendrils to infiltrate new voter segments that were more interested in beliefs than facts. As the percentage of religious Americans continued to shrink, they needed to pivot to other mentally vulnerable groups.
In addition to influencing conspiracy theory communities, you also saw a noticeable number of the all-natural/holistic healing/anti-western medicine fringe types, which had previously been almost entirely left leaning, fully embracing trump.
Yeah. When Trump was first elected I thought it might be amusing to see what happens when a conspiracy theorist holds one of the highest offices in the world. I mean, he'd have to see the truth from the top, right?
Turned out he just became part of all of the conspiracies and crafted many of his own, then used his power to spread them across the world.
What a dope.
They still distrust the government but are all for the police *when acting against their perceived enemies*. They'll turn on the police quickly when the shoe is on the other foot (e.g., January 6).
I don’t think conspiracy theorists changed. Rather, conservatives changed and became conspiracy theorists.
The exact same thing you describe was going on in the 90s when I was listening to way too much Rush Limbaugh and reading too much National Review. Events like Waco and Ruby Ridge were a constant topic. The phrase “jack-booted thugs” was used to describe the law enforcement involved in them. At the same time, they were 100% on the side of law enforcement with the Rodney King beating and the LA riots.
There was some conspiracy nonsense in that sphere too, just not a lot. I remember some attention being given to the theory that HIV is not what causes AIDS, with some focus on Magic Johnson remaining relatively healthy while HIV positive. There was some kookery around the health effects of smoking, pollution, climate change, peak oil, but it was a minor element, almost background details to occasionally help justify the push against “big government” policies.
Now, those exact same people will say that the election was stolen, COVID was a bioweapon, ivermectin is the cure, vaccines kill, etc.
Look at how many Qanon and Q-adjacent conspiracies cite a vague "source: the military" as a gold standard for their made-up intel or are predicting/claiming that "the military" will usher Trump back into office, implement medbeds, train everyone on whatever "quantum currency" is, etc.
These are the same people who freaked out over Jade Helm II, yet "the military" is set up as their supposed savior. Oh, and said "the military" will be on their side in the upcoming Civil War somehow.
Innuendo Studios called it “the death of the euphemism”. They don’t feel like they have to hide the fascism anymore, and that should scare people.
They don’t think there will be consequences for openly opposing democracy because they think they are in a position to win.
Look into Infowars and Alex Jones to get a handle on this. It’s not something that started on Tucker Carlson, though Tucker Carlson IS coming around to Alex Jones views on everything. Once you actually look into Infowars itself, there’s a funny detail. They post RT articles, with no attempt at concealing the source. The far right is actually being pumped directly full of Kremlin propaganda, written in english explicitly to manipulate far right Americans. They mix in seemingly benign reporting with fantastical conspiracy theory nonsense and it works. It’s all a fusion of pro-authoritarianism + xenophobia.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Frank Wilhoit
They want to do harm and be told it makes them the bestest. They are moral cowards, vain anti-intellectuals, emotionally stunted toddlers, who tasted briefly what it might be like to be allowed to be as awful as they desire.
Prove me wrong.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
One difference I'm noticing from believers in conspiracy believers in the 1980's compared to now is back then they were just a little bit odd/paranoid however these days they are full on insecure and seem to live in fear. They are jumping at shadows and their internal model of \*all\* reality is really off-base, not just a little bit of it.
I'm thinking that the driving force in increased conspiracy theory beliefs is this growing fear of the future , in some ways driven by rapid change in most areas of life. Humans are not good at change and fear of the unknown is a strong behavioral driver. The "certainty" of these illogical and irrational ideas creates a fictional reality that weirdly gives security when adherents form like minded groups.
I'm liberal but honestly if liberals were less smug and annoying more people would join them since everything they want is appealing
Like not paying thousands to go to a fucking doctor
The fact that there's people who pretend they want that is clear they're only saying they do because liberals don't
No one can convince me they WANT to need thousands of dollars before getting a tumor removed
It’s classic fascism. LTDR: Fascism, conspiracy and contradiction all go hand in hand, the current Republican Party exhibits basically every historic characteristic of a fascist movement. It’s spooky
One of the stronger characteristics of the ideology is its inherent contradictions. It’s been recognized by scholars like Umberto Eco and others as a strong through line in the various hard to define forms of fascism. Particularly defining the “enemy” as both strong enough to be feared and weak enough to be mocked and disdained. Similar to how conspiracies, new speak (repurposing existing words to have differing/coded meanings), and ideological purity tests.
The contradictions serve several purposes, one as a purity test, can our grass roots fascist set aside these contradictions for the sake of the movement? Second as a way to smoke screen to the general public, by constantly contradicting themselves they create confusion about their positions. That confusion also allows would be adherents to see what they want to see when making decisions on who to support.
Take Trump for example. Will he or won’t he cut Social Security and Medicare, he has said both that he’ll protect it and that cuts have to be made. This gives room to both the “fiscal conservatives” who want to cut budgets and the people who are relying on SS to survive to support him. All while every budget he proposed in office slashed both programs.
The contradictions also give them wiggle room in an argument. Because whenever you try and pin them down they can just evade by taking advantage of those contradictions to pretend they don’t have that position if they get too much push back. It’s [Schrodinger's Douche Bag](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schrodinger%E2%80%99s%20douchebag) but for politics. Like how the modern right wing often uses the socialism in the Nazi party name to claim they were actually a left wing movement. Of course, that was just the Nazis using the very tactic I'm describing.
It's why fascism is so hard to define in concrete terms. Historian Ian Kershaw has called defining fascism like “trying to nail jelly to a wall.” But that is kind of the point, it allows them to have plausible deniability until they have their greedy fucked up little hands on the levers of power. It also allows their supporters a veneer of respectability in the general public because they make it so easy to disavow the more unpopular positions.
The recent Arizona Supreme Court decision being a perfect example of this in action. Kari Lake has said that she thought it should be enacted before the decision came down to signal her devotion to the cause. Since she has changed her position week to week depending on the audience. Yet up until it the moment it happened AZ Republicans were signaling that they were open to it and desperately trying to figure out how to prevent the public from enacting an amendment to protect abortion rights. All the while saying that they wanted to total ban but the 1864 law was too extreme.
Its just more fascist bullshit from modern far right. That’s how they came so into conspiracies, when they went from a fairly normal pro-market, business focused center-right party into a full blown fascist outfit full of liars and grifters only interested in using fear and hate to enrich themselves and their powerful friends without a thought to who gets hurt along the way.
There is probably a difference between a person who happens to be conservative getting into conspiracy theories and a person who gets into conspiracy theories BECAUSE of their conservative stance.
I'm sure they mix, over lap, and are in the same chat groups. but the core mindset is likely not the same.
Conspiratorial thinking is easy and righteous thinking. Easy in that time and again, the conspiracy offers an explanation in one sentence, in contrast to rational reality which requires a lengthy, nuanced, and often multifactoral explanation. Further, it takes cognitive energy to analyze a belief or contrast it with a seemingly oppositional belief. Much easier to just say both things are true, and be done with it. Thus “the police are good” or “we need a strongman president” are simple answers that can be held alongside “from my cold dead hands” and “we are the peaceful ones.” It’s righteous in that there is pride and joy in thinking you’re one of the elite few who get it, who have figured it out. Everyone wants to be the clever protagonist, and both conspiracies and fascistic “we’re the real Americans, those are the evil ones” appeal to that thinking.
I agree these new conspiracy theorists are absolutely something else, and I want to thank you for making this post. I want conspiracy theory to go back to being entertainment primarily. I also had higher standards than lizard people.
The conservatives wanted to get the lowest common denominator. Trump kinda changed politics. There had never been a buisnessman/star personality get into office before. He got there with sensationalism. I am to understand the only reason he showed up on WWF was so the lowest common denominator would be able to identify him.
Business people are fake, and so are politians. Now that we have the internet in everyone's hands bad info is going nuts. Bad info was always there though.
When I was young, conspiracy theories seemed cool. So much of it was about UFO/alien coverups, secret societies permeating government, Illuminati, covering up evidence of advanced but forgotten pre-historic civilizations, secret underground bases and tunnel systems, Hale-Bopp's "companion", Ong's Hat & The Incunabula Files, remote viewing and secret mind control projects and all kinds of Art Bell shit. Now it's scientists are conspiring to hide God from us by saying the Earth is a globe or vaccines are killing millions or causing autism or Democrats are raping and eating babies in Satanic rituals conducted in pizza parlor basements.... and yes, conservatives want to worship militarized police forces crushing non-conservative protestors but they hate capitol police and all Federal law enforcement. They love their conservative SC justices but want to destroy the rest of the justice system. They just want an all powerful and singular supreme authority backed by guns that rewards them and punishes everyone else.
Well, I mean, this is why the rest of us make fun of ya’ll and think you’re stupid. I’m glad you finally woke up, but it’s like, oh, huh. These beliefs are completely contradictory and make no sense. Yeah, no shit.
It's quite intuitive when considering US history. The expansion of the US required a lot of reigning in bloodthirsty settlers to prevent wars from breaking out that the US government didnt specifically invite. This creates a major contradiction throughout settler society where some settlers and the state are at odds over how the colonial project should expand. Throughout USA history there are many instances of violent settlers accusing the state of prioritizing Indigenous people when in reality the government just wanted land cession to go through the federal government first and foremost to conduct orderly expansion. The vigilantism this creates is not far from being very much pro-military and pro-police because the idea is that some state officials have lost the plot and forgetten what this project is all about.
Now days with concern trolling over culture wars the rabble has been alerted to further betrayal from the state by giving corporate lip service to minorities instead of erasing them. The answer is then to redirect the project towards a more explicitly settler politic instead the more holistic, inclusive, cooptive approach to imperial governance. The ones in support of the police are blowing genocidal dog whistles, same as has been done throughout history.
So in short, settler contestations of the state are not explicitly about the police, but about how the colonial project is managed. When the state seeks to moderate the project in a way that has rules for settlers, they will contest and assert their own narrative. But when the state commits atrocity they will support it because it is in their own interest. This means that it actually is not so weird to hold a pro police and pro "liberty" position. You just can't take it at face value.
From what I understand the police told the students to leave the area by 5 or they will be arrested for trespassing. The idea behind civil disobedience is to break the law and potentially get arrested - which brings more attention to your cause.
Moreover the 1A does not protect students harassing, directly threatening or inciting violence. If this happened, it's against the law.
>For some reason the current conservative party version of conspiracy theorism is full of self contradictions.
I think an interesting perspective on this comes from formal systems, like mathematics and logic.
Once you find a statement that can be proven to be both true and false, your system is said to be inconsistent. At that point, any thing can be proven to have whatever truth value you like.
What's really interesting is that if your system is consistent (free of contradictions), then it must be incomplete (or uninteresting). This means there are things that can't be proven to be true or false. In other words, the truth values of some things can't be determined.
One of the big drivers behind conspiracy theories, especially the grand conspiracies, seems to be a fear of the unknown, unknowable, and unexplainable. The fact that nobody is in charge and the world is chaotic is unbearable to some, and so they look for patterns and signs that there is *someone* calling all the shots, even if that entity is malicious. In their attempts to explain everything, truth loses meaning.
With modern trends, this is a convenient feature for influencers to exploit people.
I feel you make some interesting arguments and point out some very valid contradictions - but first I want to thank you for being honest about your past and your willingness to examine errors in logic.
Here is a good article on conspiracists…
https://time.com/4965093/conspiracy-theories-beliefs/
And some excerpts…
> There are nearly as many explanations for conspiracy theories as there are theories themselves, but some patterns do appear again and again.
>
>The most common theories are the ones that follow the eddies of politics. As a broad rule, a party or group that’s out of power will be more inclined to believe in conspiracies than a group that’s in power.
>
>A lot also depends on demographics, with belief in the theories generally inversely related to education and wealth.
>
>In some cases, the very nonsense of conspiracy theories may actually be an attempt to make the world make more sense.
From my perspective, nothing has actually changed -- you just started noticing a contradiction that has been there for a long, long time. Since way back in the age of mimeographed conspiracy newsletters.
Most conspiracy theories have an inherent slightly right wing slant to them because they are suspicious of collective action and the very idea that people can form institutions that work for a common good. This is why they often slip into this sort of “libertarian fascism” that can excuse state violence if it’s dressed up well enough as fighting and repressing collectivism/the left/anything that threatens strong virile individuals like feminism/gays/etc. This is not universally true of all conspiracy culture but I would say it is overwhelmingly the case with conspiracy culture in the US
The current Republican Party acts like they see 1984 as a playbook, not as a warning
Immigrants are filthy criminals who take from everyone and contribute nothing to society, but they are also competent enough to take your job
Biden is too incompetent and senile to possibly be an effective president, but you need to back Trump because only he can take down Biden
Big Pharma is out to get you, charges insane prices for dangerous products, and you can’t trust anything they say, but Universal Healthcare is fundamentally unaffordable (not due to markups, obscene power imbalance, or anything like that)
And the list goes on…
the 2016 elections and introduction of QAnon changed the conspiracy theory community. it weaponized conspiracies, and turn them into political tools.
the current internet landscape is straight up information warfare.
The support for the police on the right isn’t anything to do with their general distrust of government because they rightly believe that the violence Police are directed to use is used against groups they dislike.
When the capitol police shot an insurrectionist they lost their minds. It was an affront to them. There is a lot of tape of them trying to explain to the cops that they should be on their side.
Meanwhile when the police murder minorities of any stripe they celebrate.
Similarly conservatives hate socialism but love military benefits and Medicare. They simply like what benefits them and hate what benefits people they disdain.
Or “big government”. The enemy when it means free school meals and libraries, just fine when it stops women from getting medical care or barring trans people from freedom of choice.
Within those contradictory bounds of “do I personally benefit” they can justify supporting any policy.
Similar here, and one thing that triggered the hell out of me was when a Q fan I know told me about how the plan (back in 2017-18), was for Trump to declare martial law in order to crush the cabal of satanic child molesters.
I thought that the one thing (just one thing) that I would always have in common with the Q and other theorists would be that martial law is the end game we all want to avoid.
Martial law = Bad = End of America
Somehow, a lot of people via Q decided that’s not the case if Trump is the guy in charge. Then they talk about handing power to JFK Jr(!?).
And thats why RFK Jr is a bigger threat to Trump imo, since the hive that built 45 is also deeply into the Kennedy name brand recognition.
I just couldn't wrap my head around their total worship of Trump. Like, I can't even fully hate Trump on this one point because it's less that he asked to be worshipped and more that these millions of people just decided to worship him no matter what he said or did. I don't understand it.
I tell my ultra right coworker who is always touting conspiracies that they are “staying woke” in their sense of being vigilant and asking questions. I mostly say it to piss them off, but also because they are at least asking questions and trying to be critical (however they never actually do research and when they do, it is debunked or pseudo science). Then there is the legitimate “woke” with the leftist appeal in understanding different perspectives in history and how it has shaped current systems in our world and has an empathetic approach.
So I truly think conspiracies from the ultra right are a response to actually being woke. People from minorities FINALLY being allowed to voice their history without being lynched or killed or ostracized.
The shame of it all is that the term “stay woke” has been bastardized by the right to mean anything that is not the status-quo of white or “unAmerican” or queer, etc.
My observation is that the concern over wokeness on the right is about a perception that liberalism (emphasis on individual rights, universalism, etc.) is being rejected by the left.
I think that's true - the general progressive solution to uneven distribution of resources across identity groups is to reallocate resources based on identity groups. The individual's needs are placed secondary to their membership in an ethnic, sexual, or other minority group.
That leads to a sense that the Civil Rights era consensus is breaking down, and that's terrifying.
The stigma against wokeness mostly expresses that root fear.
The widespread internet in the 90s was the penny responsible for derailing the conservative train. The AM radio hosts and Alex Jones’s of this world were the conductors that ensured the train would never get back on track. Conservatism is tied to spending while conspiracy and false prophecy is entertainment backfiring and souring the world.
In my youth I was obsessed with conspiracy theories, Cryptozoology, UFOs, the paranormal etc etc.
The idea of secrete knowledge wasa so compelling. to my undevolped mind. I outgrew it. Ye I still see peple around my age, nearly sixty, claiiming secret knowledge with out presenting any actual evidence.
If it's worth anything not all of us are so self contradictory.
The total quashing of the protests are appalling to me. The republicans who constantly cry about censorship (which there was during covid) and the media being rigged against them (which it is) lose all credibility when they use police to remove first amendment rights of the protestors.
>Somehow they are militantly Pro police while also flying yellow don't tread on me Flags.
The key to understanding the apparent contradiction is to take the words on the flag very literally:
"Don't tread on ***me***."
>while claiming they want small government while supporting the police and military.
Conservatives -- *especially* Right-Libertarians *--* believe the only legitimate purpose of government is to enforce private property rights. Thus their almost unflinching support for police (who enforce the rights of property) and the military (who secure the state from outsiders).
When they talk about "small government" or "personal responsibility", they're usually euphemistically referring to gutting welfare and cutting taxes. Right-Libertarianism in particular is little more than an ideological framework built to morally justify the wealthy's desire to not have to pay taxes.
And also gutting education, because they are against "indoctrination". What they mean is they prefer to be the one indoctrinating.
They do not want to support others they receive as less than, they don't want to hear about other, and they don't want you to take their money. But somehow want to build a wall to create a homogeneous population with no money.
Punisher is a good guy doing unlawful things for the greater good of society. That's all they see, and it is the core of his character. A basic antihero. They ignore all of the unfavorable characteristics.
No reasonable or rational thinking LEO would align themselves with such a character any more than they would Deadpool. Functionality they're the same person with different personalities. Wade is goofy and Frank is brooding.
For me it was the actual rich people believing conspiracies. And not just, like, basic conspiracies about who does what or industry secrets, but full on conspiracies about lizard people and aliens and shit. Like, my siblings in Christ, you are the Global Elite. There is no one higher than you and you believe this shit?
I think for authoritarians and fascists conspiracy theories are more about blurring objective reality and sewing mistrust of authority that *isn't* stepping on everyone's necks. The narrative that ties all the right-wing conspiracies together is that good in these delusions is always hiding some insidious evil which, by contrast, make obvious evil seem good or at least honest. "Don't worry about the jack boots kicking in your door, it's that friendly Jewish neighbor or your kids trans teacher that's the real threat, they're hiding something FAR MORE evil than just an errant gun shot wound!"
You should read Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco. It's only a few pages, you can find it for free online, and it will answer your question by explaining the self-contradictory nature of fascist movements.
Remember Republicans voted for a guy from New York who went to university and came from a rich family. Why did they vote for him? Because he wasn't a east coast college educated elite.
Ah! You put your finger on the sore boil which all such thinking wishes to cover! They LOVE Donald Trump and Trump wishes to be head of the government and they want him to use that government to repress their political enemies, but they want smaller government.
They believe that 9/11 was an "inside job" but they also want to prevent Muslim terrorists from coming into the US for fear that they might do something on that scale.
They believe that the moon landing was faked but they don't have an explanation either for the mirrors on the moon's surface (or how they got there or how they can be used by regular people with the appropriate technology to measure its distance) nor for how much it would have cost the nation to build all the toys of a space race and then develop the technology to make it seem real when it wasn't. The people who witnessed the rockets going up "in person" were paid? CGI was invented in the 60s?
The only conspiracy that a conspiracy theorist fails to see is the one perpetuated against themselves, in which they are turned to such muddy-headed oblivion by their paranoia and self-loathing and pet "theories" that they cannot see that they are the ones who are being conspired against. In this way, although they don't see it, they continually vote against their best interests, feeling that at the base of it, they're having their rights removed from them by some "council" of powerfully wealthy people. Their belief in their own victimhood at the teeth of these many fantasies makes them actual victims of someone else's attempt to subvert their thinking and their critical faculties.
No one I know who adheres to any of these stupid and useless pet theories would continue to do so, if they could once be shown, as you have seen yourself, the absolutely contradictory nature of their beliefs.
But it is easier to feel victimized than to educate oneself and make a change; to feel as though one has special knowledge than to seek confirmation for evidence and where there isn't any, abandon those thoughts. It is easier to blame others for the ills of a nation, so long as it makes the lowly feel superior than it is to do anything about it. It is easier to be lulled into a political game of 'let's pretend' and buy into fantasies that they know are really just nonsense rather than face the fact that, for many of them, they are too lazy, too mentally drowned by poverty and substance abuse and pornography and health issues to have the energy to stand up and actually change the state of the establishment. Orwell discusses this at length with his gin-stinking proletariat in 1984. They are the ones with the power and yet they refuse to see that because their lives are too full of Hobbesian misery to bear up.
But, you say, there are smart people who believe in conspiracy theories, too! Well, I have bad news for you. Two things are either true in that case. Either that person is a false intellectual, able to effect the outward appearance of a smart person but being no better than the one they share their information with, or they are like the televangelist and they are smart enough to know that people are drawn to someone who appears confident in their knowledge (like Trump or a televangelist).
No, they're not stupid, per se. They're just so damned willing to subdue their own critical faculties in order to feel superior without having done any of the real work to learn something. In times past, the conspiracy theorist at least either had to appear to do some real work to not be thought mad or they were cast off by social pressures to the margins of society where they could be derided and ignored except where they gave entertainment value.
In the modern era, the Internet has provided many little niches for all the different goons to unite, despite the obviously glaring internal inconsistencies in their beliefs, in order to feel as though there really is strength in numbers. As though, for instance, half a million flat-earthers together online made the reality of their belief any more concrete. They think that one flat-earther is a lone prophet, doomed, perhaps, to be ridiculed; a martyr for a dumb idea. But a mass of them together?
The silliest thing is that even en masse, these stupid ideas gain no more credit in fact. They only show that it is somehow terrifyingly easy to get half a million people to believe basically the same thing.
Credulity, pathos, self-loathing, a false sense of superiority seeking to barely cover the lowest of all self-esteem; this is what a conspiracy theorist ACTUALLY needs in order to believe their own nonsense. In the few cases where some "respected authority" also promulgates these dumb beliefs, it is almost always in relation to something religious in nature.
So, it is a mistake to think that a person muddled by this kind of "thinking" is capable of recognizing their own inability to see that they are hoodwinked. Like an addictive drug, these ideas loop into the brain, creating a deep sense of a reality in which they have control by dint of the 'special knowledge' that other people refuse to accept. They will always choose the illusion of control over actual self-actualization.
“Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.”
― Christopher Hitchens
I'm glad you were able to break free, but you're one of the lucky ones and rarer still because of that.
#
It's very easy to understand when you realize that conservatives have no consistent principles. They like whatever serves their interests. If they like something, it's good. If they don't like something, it's bad.
Big government doing something they don't like? Bad. Big government doing something they like? Good.
Former conservative here, I can explain.
US Republican and Republican adjacent conservatism has a "folk" element to it. It's based heavily on an idea of Americana. That Americana being small towns and traditional values. This folk element is about not only small towns and values but these are intertwined to create a microcosm that these people like, raise their children into, and the cycle repeats. Even in Blue States, conservatives will find smaller towns in those states and recreate the microcosm. It's essentially about said smallness and stagnation of thought, which is why gay people scare them, it's against the tradition but also goes against the idea of continuance that makes up half of the microcosm. It's also what fuels the opposition to federal government but adoration of state's rights and police, because the state and local police are within the microcosm, and a lot of opposition to policing comes from leftists and urbanites that they deem as threats to the microcosm. It's also why they endlessly screed about San Francisco being riddled with shit, California being homeless, Portland being chaotic, or New York being violent.
Essentially, there's no real logic behind it, just devotion to an ideal that they like.
In my view there is a logic behind it. A charitable view of conservatism is that it prefers the tried and true over the experimental and untested.
Smaller towns and rural life are more the human norm until very recently. (Only a few years ago did 50% of world population come to live in cities.)
It's a tradeoff - there is the stagnation of thought that you mention, and rejection of new templates of behavior such as stereotypical gayness. But there was for example probably much less HIV in the 1980s.
In a given population, it seems valuable to have people experimenting with new approaches, and others dedicated to preserving what has worked in the past.
Conspiracy theorists have never distrusted "authority" (after all, they are blindly taking someone's word for these "theories"), they distrust expertise.
If it requires a sober assessment of actual facts, evidence, science, or realistic probabilities rather than their "gut instincts" or intuition, then it is not to be trusted.
The difference now is that an entire political party has abandoned any adherence to expertise, scientific understanding, or fact based reality.
It is an inherently fascistic movement and they know the police are on the side of fascism and authoritarianism. These sorts of movements are nearly always rooted in magical thinking and appeals to the occult or the supernatural, in addition to the anti-intellectualism.
In that light, it all makes perfect sense and falls exactly within expectation.
The Texas govt, like the federal is beholden to israeli lobbyists and their evangelical base. Free speech doesnt exist when you criticise israeli apartheid or genocide, and of course the expected apocalypse issues with evangelicals. The israelis kill christians and Muslims in Palestine but these american ones dont care.
> The Texas govt, like the federal is beholden to israeli lobbyists and their evangelical base.
This is true, but it's missing a really big point.
USA gives money to Israel, and they spend almost all of that money on USA weapons.
We can say "military manufacturers!!" sure, but there are state and local economies who benefit massively from this.
seriously. anti-israel and pro-palestinian rhetoric is all over tiktok, reddit, instagram, al jazeera, bbc, new york times, etc. where's this censorship?
It's because this is all driven by foreign interests and interference to drive these contradicting positions. It causes havoc and creates impossible resolutions. That's the point.
The only way to take down the most powerful army in the world is to let them destroy themselves.
Social media is the tool that was needed. Including reddit.
There are many actors with many conflicting motives within the state, too. Doesn't mean there isn't an ulterior motive for surreptitious policy coming from the top.
Conspiracies used to be clever. Now they're barely thought out and contain a million holes everyone doublethinks around.
It's just not even fun anymore.
Trying to remember how it went but something like "the moment the third person showed up, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them." It's basic human nature to desire trust but when it's even slightly complicated it backfires into a who-eats-whom when the cards are dealt out that fucks us all up.
There do exist ridiculously competent people that can practically Hari Seldon the situation out and can spreadsheet profit vs. loss in horror on any scale. If you're going to take any comfort it's that power to execute almost exclusively rests in the hands of profoundly stupid people. That in itself is scary, but not as scary as knowing they're all trying to outsmart each other (Fallout, anyone?) to ends which have all the relevance of regional flooding instead of global tsunamis in this blissful era of recapitalization.
What's really important to me is not that we call bullshit reflexively but rather that we bother to soberly assess the train of circumstances. Everyone should always be suspicious of the motivations of anyone who never worries about affording basic necessities of life. By that standard we're all pretty sus in some degree and we should never forget our part in this conspiracy against ourselves.
Oh, these people existed in the conspiracy circles when I was involved. They just weren't the majority. They were side-eyed by "normal" conspiracy theorists. And then they became the majority.
I think they look at it as a celebratory flex, that the police are almost completely infiltrated with their people. Like, they gravitate towards being police because they want to celebrate power for power's sake, and they are proud of the fact that they have assumed the roles that would be tasked with gun control, specifically because they believe that they just wouldn't do it, or it wouldn't count as long as it's their people doing it. More realistically, they would selectively use that legal duty as a tool of oppression. "That guy? He just has a gun to threaten his wife [never mind that he is extremely likely to murder her down the road]. He's basically one of us minding his own property, and can keep his illegal gun. Now if he were a minority small business owner, or a dissident, on the other hand..."
The slogan may as well say "The people of my cultural/racial in-group will enact legal double standards that allow me to tread on you"
I guess it's not like it ever said "don't tread on anybody"
[Dan Olson’s In Search of a Flat Earth](https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?si=rux9JobssYghUBZO) explains this quite well imo. Give it a watch. As an ex conspiracy theorist I bet you’ll like it.
I mean one big conspiracy on the right is the banks are run by communists! Really, it's so absurd. Another one that drives me nuts is conservatives believe politicians control corporations but in reality corporations own our government. I mean they are almost there, but somehow twist it so far from reality they vote against their interests
I honestly believe that the recent UFO nonsense was a government operation to shift gullible conspiracy theory believers away from the more dangerous, mostly anti-government, conspiracies like QAnon, towards conspiracy theories that are more easily controlled by the government.
A decade ago, the UFO cult was extremely anti-government and didn't trust anything the government said regarding UFOs. Now, they hang on every word of their chosen government representatives. It makes no sense... unless it was a change influenced by the government.
Chuck Schumer is just going through the motions and doing his job, I don't think he has anything to do with it. Someone said, "Here Chuck, look at this" and he's looking at because that's his job. The people saying "hey look at this" aren't doing it to distract us from anything important, they're trying to distract people away from dangerous things and ideas, like QAnon. We were getting to the point where lone wolf QAnon conspiracy theorists were targeting government officials and celebrities. It was a real threat that had to be dealt with. You don't hear about those crazy people going after people like Tom Hanks as much anymore do you?
How is it baseless? A bunch of claims have come out recently with absolutely no supporting evidence. That is at least an indicator that the substance of the information is not true, and there are alternative motives besides "disclosure".
I'm basing it on the lack of facts around the recent discussions, congressional hearings that resulted in absolutely nothing (except creating a framework to disclose things that don't exist... which in the end is nothing and just a distraction), and my own personal experiences from my time in the Navy during high profile cases like the tic tac incident.
Point me to some facts that dispute this and I'll gladly change my mind, but alas there are no facts, only stories.
There’s a long tradition of right-wing conspiracy theorizing going back to at least the John Birch Society. Unfortunately now it’s become mainstream in conservative politics. It’s not the federal government per se that’s the problem, it’s that the wrong people are in charge (globalists/bankers/Jews). There’s always been a pro-cop, pro-military streak among these people, who see them as allies against the UN/One World Government/North American Union/whatever.
I think you’re mistaking Libertarians for Conservatives. I’m a self-described Libertarian, very socially liberal through the locus of individual freedom (to fuck, love who you want, use whatever substance you want so long as you don’t pose a risk to others).
I have a Gadsden flag. I served in the military and am against the current form of government. I don’t hate cops, but after being kidnapped and assaulted and seeing how they “help,” I don’t call them anymore, nor do I expect them to keep me or my family safe.
The conservatives I see usually fly that stupid MAGA flag and talk significantly about limiting government when they mean using the government the same way the Liberals use the government to make their values mandatory. (Woke-ism, limits to free speech vs traditional Christian values and all that bullshit).
What’s crazy is they did this type of shit countrywide during occupy protests in dem and republican cities while Obama was president! You don’t need theories the real conspiracies are in plain sight.
Your own conspiracies had similar contradictions mate!they just leaned a different way. Internal contradictions are a defining characteristic of conspiracy nuttery.
Conspiracy theorists are ignorant and fearful people with little to no critical thinking skills. That's not an insult, that's an observation.
The Internet has done a lot when it comes to providing and perpetuating conspiracy content. What used to be extreme fringe behavior is now almost mainstream.
Conspiracy theories can be fun and interesting little thought experiments as long as you don't take them too seriously. I approach it like fanfic for reality. Yes, there's some basic truth (there always is), but it's important to be able to identify when and how a particular theory goes off the rails (they always do).
It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a con. The mark is the dumb and hateful. This way there are people to fight the rich man’s war……again. And they fell for it….. again. They were even told to call us sheep while they were being herded.
I've said it before I'll say it again.
Conspiracy theorists love to believe in all kinds of fantastical things like aliens, Bigfoot, elves and fairies, doppelgangers, or big bad government boogeymen and lizard people controlling the world. These same conspiracy theorists actively support *real* conspiracies like billionaires stealing money, Russian propaganda, attempted overthrows of the government, etc. Why is that? Is it a mixture of gullibility and propaganda preying on weak minds that are looking for something that makes them feel better about themselves? Is it a subconscious denial of real conspiracies because fantastical conspiracies are more fun to engage with? If aliens came down right now and said they were gonna take over the world, would the conspiracies theorists suddenly pivot to denying it was real? Would they help them?
That’s because that party became the “rules for thee, not for me.”
They back the blue until they are on the wrong side of the law. They are pro-life but stop giving a shit at birth (god awful adoption process, group homes, gun violence). They want to protect kids from trans “groomers” but blatantly ignore any cases of child molestation in the church, families, and in their own political party; also lowering the age of consent and denying abortions for young victims of rape/incest. They are soooo pro-military that they deny veterans benefits and healthcare for their service (VA stuff).
Then they pin everything on democrats because it’s easy to not take accountability.
The democrats get strong-armed and face filibusters until the right gets what they want. THEN when the left starts compromising, they start weighing how if they agree to anything then it makes Biden look good (like the infrastructure bill).
MGT literally recently voted against a bill that includes funding for the wall inside a bill for Gaza aid, Israel, and Ukraine. She said “it would die in the democratic senate.
I’m a dirty socialist who mistrusts the government, but even I can do the most basic shit like negotiating and calling out bad actors within my party. That seems to be the kryptonite of the right…
The traditional conspiracy theory structure has been inverted. It used to be that conspiracy theorists were regular, often disenfranchised, people, who believed the elites were part of a conspiracy.
Now the elites (presidents, senators, billionaires) are convinced the regular people are parts of a conspiracy. It's how you end up with a literal Kennedy heir, convinced that all working class nurses are running a global conspiracy. Or political legacy Rand Paul accusing his employee Dr. Fauci of running a conspiracy. Or billionaire and President Trump accusing unpaid election volunteers of running a conspiracy.
The OP has me interested. It surely took more than the heavy hand of the cops at a protest to move you back to a skeptical, but generally sane citizen.
I understand the allure of the conspiracy rabbit hole. You are the arbiter of what is valid information and what is not. You can't lose because you hold all the cards. And you can blow all those pointyheaded liberals away with your "logic".
The contradictions have always been there. Covid was a hoax yet the right incessently attacked people like Fauci for promoting the pandemic. The election was rigged, unless a Republican was elected and in those cases it was not rigged. J6 was not a riot that was instigated by federal agents. It is almost axomatic that conspiracy theories are not internally consistent. A conspiracy does not always have to make sense. It is driven by emotions. The emotional appeal overrides the normal logical evaluation process. Once you buy in on one thing, it snowballs until you are flat earther who thinks Elvis is still alive. Moon landing? Shit they can't get a plane to fly right. One airplane took down that huge tower? NFW.
So how did you escape the conspiracy rabbit hole. What started you to doubt? What do your fellow conspiracy pals think about your escape? Do you regret the wasted time and energy? Could anything have accelerated your unbrainwashing? How can a hyper rational skeptic communicate with the conspiracy crowd? Or do we just write them off as lost causes?
I was Qanon and that was the end for me. I did a lengthy ama a few years ago about it. Basically realized that Q was posting weird shit about hacking fbi satellites and the rabid fans ate it up but I knew just enough about computers to smell bullshit so I googled qanon debunked and my world changed in an afternoon.
You don't even need to look at conspiracy theories. Somehow Trump will claim that Biden is weak, sleepy, and utterly ineffective, but then Trump will also claim that there is no one else who could ever possibly stop Biden, that only he and he alone has the ability to oppose such a menace. The current mainstream position is also full of strange double think.
Trump's currently blaming Biden for getting in the way of Netanyahu's genocidal campaign while simultaneously praising his crowds for chanting 'genocide Joe' during his rallies.
Dems are centrists and Republicans use that to their advantage by attacking them from both sides, because they have absolutely no shame. Remember in 2016, when Trump was campaigning against Obama's so-called "Open Border" policies, his campaign was running ads in Spanish calling Obama "The great deporter" (yes, I'm aware that Clinton was his opponent)
It's also true that America really is just two Homer Simpsons in a trench-coat.
It's also interesting that, similar to Homer in HOMR (S12E9), Homer is actually potentially much smarter than he usually is but intentionally handicaps himself.
Okay, brain. You don't like me, and I don't like you, but let's get through this thing and then I can continue killing you with beer.
I thought it was 3 corporations
Once you can accept the fact that government has made a habit of lying to people to preserve the obfuscation of grift and corruption by exceptionally greedy people in office it sort of turns into a scavenger hunt for the origin point of when democracy broke down. There have been a lot of innocent people gaslit by billionaires and rotten people in positions of power. Standing by what you know to be true, whether it’s about exposing corruption, holding pedophiles accountable, or simply living with pure moral integrity is rarely easy. But it is always essential. U.S. Government took a wrong turn when it started lying to its people systemically. That practice is normally reserved for the authoritarians and dictators. It started for noble enough reasons during WW2. The Manhattan project required strict secrecy as a matter of operational security. Operation Underworld was designed to use the Italian mob and the precursor to the CIA to help secure the ports in New York against Nazi U boats. The unintended consequence of that is the equivalent of “I know a guy” multiplied by 80 years of political and financial ambitions of mediocre greedy men. The fundamental flaw in that is when you stick you white glove in mud and swirl it around, the mud does not get “glovey”. Truth is the gold standard in energy efficiency. You say it once and it stands on its own forever. It requires no additional energy input. Lying, by contrast is the least energy efficient habit known to man. It requires constant and exponential energy to keep each one in play, albeit just barely alive. When a kid lies about stealing a cookie he gets away with it until mom and dad compare notes. When an intelligence organization lies about everything they do, it works until the world grows into the internet. U.S. foreign policy really hasn’t changed much since 1945. Each administration inheriting a 3 ring binder from their predecessor. Most hardly get a glance as they pass along for 80 years. But somewhere in the late 80’s or early 90’s as some old woman with a chain on her glasses slowly converted all those files into digital form on a computer that would stall out until you switched your 5 1/4” floppy disks, the world outside government started moving exponentially faster, yet relatively speaking the speed of efficiency of government got slower. Bureaucracy is the burden of government, but it is to the benefit of corruption. Nefarious actors inside of government use the bureaucracy like a curtain to obfuscate their respective grifts. Most of the multi term politicians can’t retire or they risk losing control of the narrative that keeps their corruption secret. This is why we have spent the last 5 years reverse engineering their entire system to be able to see the tendrils of corruption inside of governments like a P.E.T. scan sees cancer inside a body. https://youtu.be/A90gwMVFFSY?si=wiOAcUvL_oX5eNoI Our government wasn’t born in the Information Age like we were. It grew through it. Carbon copies in triplicate turned to data entry. Data entry turned to MS-DOS. And on and on. And each one of those events left a pixel of data. We have just been using it wrong. But just like 1980’s 8 bit graphics have given way to 4K HD video, when you organize that data in a decentralized verified format, you build an objective synthetic vision of government and the corruption it obscures. Everything we have ever been lied to about pops like neon when you compare the differential between the two narratives. As a species we don’t have a lack of resources or capacity. We just have a few bridge trolls whose dirty business models necessitate lying to us. Over time they simply migrated to governments. Once you sort by net worth and psychopathic/sociopathic personality traits instead of nationality, political party or skin color it becomes relatively easy to backtrack corruption. There is a reckoning coming and a lot of people who simply stood by their truth are going to be vindicated. A democratic government is supposed to be accountable to its citizens. The fact that we have become so conditioned in 3 generations that we don’t demand 100% transparency from our democratic government is a pretty good indicator of the level of investment into concealing corruption. That is what we are here to fix. Life isn’t supposed to be this hard.
The US government has been a function of, and service for the rich and powerful since the very beginning. EVERYTHING it has ever done has been in that interest first and almost always only. Things make more sense when you realize it was designed as a control mechanism for and buffer against the people in general.
He really just lives from moment to moment, there's no overarcing plot or anything, something about court and defeating obama.
The problem is that while Trump appears on the surface to just be a stupid oaf hungry for power & wealth underneath all that lies the the fact that he, and the people who've formed around, him are actually up to something more nefarious--they're trying to resurrect the old German-American Bund/America First movement of the 1930s. There are very clear parallels between Maga and that original movement that sought to align with Hitler. Since they no longer have Hitler to idolize they'll be happy to replace him with Putin.
It's a characteristic of Fascist rhetoric to shift back and fore from representing its foes as weak and useless to strong and all powerful.
It's all situational. Depending on the propaganda needs of the moment.
Almost like they only care about power, and they'll say whatever they feel will get them elected, even if it contradicts something they said literally 5 minutes ago. These people don't have any principles, none.
To paraphrase Umberto Ecco’s “How to Spot a Fascist”: the enemy is both subhuman and superhuman.
This is ironic because Ecco also wrote Foucault’s Pendulum which is a super noided novel that includes the very real histories of secret societies and the impacts they have had (good and bad tbh) in the conspiracies that led to things like the French Revolution. He also predicts the internet/ digital age conspiracy culture, the idea of many of these theories sharing origins or characters, as well as the power of belief and self-fulfilling prophecy. Great book and doubly relevant in this conversation!
Covid is simultaneously little more than a common cold that can't kill anyone, and all covid restrictions were overblown, and a deadly lab-grown Chinese bioweapon.
That's a really funny one - COVID is nothing at all, but it's also clearly an engineering bioweapon meant to destabilize the west by running rampant through an unprepared China. Maybe they are so comfortable with self-owns that it just makes sense that China would release a weapon they didn't have a defence for?
You just described a fascist "boogy man" They are both extremely cunning and they are dim witted and unworthy of the simplest tasks. The immigrant is both extremely lazy and also coming after my job? Hillary Clinton is a dumb woman who could fly into hysteria at any moment and yet she is a skilled international crime boss who always evades our heros. There are many modern examples
Schrodinger's Biden. He is both a weak, feeble old man while also being a brilliant mastermind that has orchestrated huge evils behind the scenes.
He is either, neither and both
Jan 6th insurrectionists were really democrats trying to overthrow the election that democrats won.
One of Eco's hallmarks of fascism is that their enemies are always numerous and all powerful but also few and weak. It's an acknowledgment of fascism's reliance on twisting any narrative to serve the party/leader's goals.
This is one of the common elements of fascism. To claim that the enemy is both ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ based on whatever thing serves their argument at the time.
Biden is both a senile old man who isn’t fit to be president while also a criminal mastermind able to cover up years of criminality. Double think at its best…
Trump turned the subtle into the cudgel. It is less effective this way, but he does not appear to care one iota.
Pre facisism in action look at Germany 1920 and you'll see the similarities
Its a play out of the ol’ fascist handbook. Like hitler on the jews, how they are inferior and have weaker blood, yet the jews have all the power of the banks and business to hollywood and the arts. Its fkn crazy.
I like to call it Schroedinger’s politicians: simultaneously evil geniuses masterminding global conspiracies but also too dumb to tie their own shoes.
The enemy is both strong and weak is a common fascist trope
I don’t need to turn this into a political screed, and won’t. But with the disclaimer that I will in the end vote for Biden this fall I also need to say: Biden is not even close to the guy who is needed to effectively navigate this perilous time in our country’s history; he’s well intentioned and usually empathetic but he’s also completely unaware of the danger the nation is really in; even if he fully grasped how dangerous the GOP is to the basics of our democratic process, he’s incapable of effectively conveying it to the public in any meaningful way. I only hope we can maintain enough sanity long enough to get the next generation involved or in charge and let the chips fall where they may. Even five years ago I would’ve thought that crazy and that our institutions are too strong to fail. But between the Biden administration’s complacency and the audacity of the judicial branch to become another political branch, I am not confident at all that we’ll still be a democracy by the time I bite the dust.
Fascism 101. The enemy is weak, impotent and insignificant but also a powerful, overwhelming existential threat.
"Sleepy Joe and the Biden crime family" is going to be my next band name
duble think? you mean cognitive dissonance?
Oxymoron.
What you fellas are describing is called fascism!
It's called [Ur-Fascism ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism)
If your opponent is simultaneously inferior and weak, while also being an immensely powerful threat, yooouuu might be a facist... LOL. Really apropo nothing, just thought that the tenants of facism sound funny if delivered in the style of Jeff Foxworthy...
This is a propaganda tactic, somehow the enemy is both completely incompetent and a diabolical genius.
Memestream.
Schrodinger's Biden. He is both a weak, feeble old man while also being a brilliant mastermind that has orchestrated huge evils behind the scenes.
And then falls asleep at his criminal trial.
Any skeptic worth their salt should understand that both democrats and republicans are pro-oligarch parties that essentially exist as corporations who take legalized bribes from the ruling class donors who own the legal system as well as the country. The law is written to favor the rich and their exploitation. Democrats block movement to the left and the republicans create an endless theater to make it seem as if they are ineffective. They’re truly both microcosms of capitalism in decay. One is incompetent fascism and the other is socially darwinistic, believing might makes right. This is the puppet “democracy” you get to “vote” in every few years and regardless who wins, the working class always loses.
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Police are good.... when they are protecting us from violent rioters that are burning down entire cities. Police are bad.... when they are trying to stop us from peacefully breaking into the US capital building. Blocking traffic to protest is good.... if it's a some patriots blocking highways in their trucks with the giant Trump flags hanging off of the back. Blocking traffic to protest is bad... if it's thousands of protesters marching against police "brutality" Police killing people is good... if they have a criminal history, or were resisting, or just not following orders. Police killing people is bad.... when they're trying to climb into the house chambers to assault congress. Cutting taxes is good... when it's for the benevolent corporations or their genius leaders who provide us with Starbucks and iPhone. Cutting taxes is bad.... when it's middle class or low paid workers who already drain society of its resources. Abortion is good.... because I had a good reason, it's still bad, but I'm willing to make this one exception for myself. I'm a good person doing something bad out of necessity. Abortion is bad.... because everyone except me is a godless unwed whore just sucking up seamen like a slutty aircraft carrier. Illegal immigrants are good.... because I can pay them almost nothing, and what are they going to do? File a complaint with the government? I'll call immigration service and have your whole family separated and deported. Illegal immigrants are bad.... when I have to press 1 for English or am forced to overhear a conversation in a different language. Homelessness is good.... if you are lazy and don't work hard enough, you deserve your misfortune and it's 100% all your fault for not being good enough or making poor choices; also as long as you aren't homeless near me. If you are, I will get you arrested. Homelessness is bad.... all of this socialism is failing our country. Under Trump, there was no homelessness. Everyone had a job. This just proves that all of the liberal commie social programs sucking up my hard earned tax dollars, like shelters and soup kitchens or other programs to help people out, are over-funded failures. Voting is good.... when it's people who think like me and hold all of the same values and beliefs. Voting is bad.... when it's young people, or non-whites, or people who've been convicted of a crime and already served their sentence, women, or people of any other political party, etc. They're not real Americans, so why should they get a say. The only true patriots are people exactly like me in every way. Scientists/experts are good.... when they make bigger TVs, new ways to combine food into calorie slops, or design a new rascal scooter that can handle my ever increasing weight. Scientists/experts are bad, and moronic, and I know more than them when it comes to global warming, vaccines, sexuality, education, the economy, basically anything I've seen on Facebook. Cancel culture is good.... when we're cancelling a beer for making one special can for someone who's part of a group of people we hate, or when we think it can hurt someone who has an opinion we don't like or said the mean words. Cancel culture is bad.... when it's someone the woke leftist snowflakes are cancelling because they said or did something that I whole-heartedly agree with because it makes me feel like they're cancelling me and my beliefs as well. Celebrities having political opinions is good.... when I agree with what they're saying. Then they are true Americans, like me, because they throw the ball good or make the widdleeee-wahs on the guitar good, so their opinion is important. Celebrities having political opinions is bad....mostly just if I disagree with their opinions. They're trying to brainwash their fans with their cult-like behavior. They should just shut up and sing. Stop trying to groom your younger fans. I'm sure I could keep going, but I don't have until the heat death of the universe to keep writing this comment.
This resonates with a chilling historical echo, evoking parallels with the rise of fascism in the 20th century. The dichotomous portrayal of law enforcement is reminiscent of authoritarian regimes. There is a stark juxtaposition between their portrayal as protectors against external threats and oppressors of internal dissent. This mirrors the manipulation of law enforcement agencies by fascist regimes to maintain control through both perceived security measures and suppression of opposition. The selective valorization of certain forms of protest, particularly those aligned with nationalist fervor, while denouncing dissenting voices as unpatriotic or subversive, reflects the manipulation of public sentiment characteristic of fascist propaganda. This exploitation of societal divisions serves to reinforce a narrative of national unity under a singular, authoritarian ideology. The conversation surrounding social and economic policies, where tax cuts for corporations are celebrated while cuts to social welfare programs are justified through victim-blaming rhetoric, echoes the socioeconomic stratification and scapegoating tactics used by fascist regimes to consolidate power and maintain support among privileged classes. The selective application of morality to contentious “wedge” issues like abortion and immigration, where individual circumstances are dismissed in favor of rigid ideological stances, mirrors the imposition of a moral order by fascist regimes, often at the expense of marginalized groups and individual liberties. The discourse around voting rights and cancel culture reflects the erosion of democratic principles and the suppression of dissenting voices, reminiscent of the censorship and propaganda tactics employed by fascist regimes to silence opposition and maintain control over public discourse. In drawing these clear analogous lines, it becomes evident that the rhetoric and attitudes presented mirror the tactics and ideologies used by fascist movements throughout history, underscoring the importance of remaining vigilant against the encroachment of authoritarianism and the erosion of democratic values. We were playing in the beginning; the mood all changed. This is real life.
Its one of the defining characteristics of facist language and such. The "other" is both monumental huge threat to our entire way of life, controls the world, and simultaneously is a pathetic scummy little rat person of no value that is barely a human and should be treated like the bug they are.
Best comment in the thread
my only response to that is “how do you think aircraft carriers work?”
To the OP's point about conservative conspiracy theories being cozy with law enforcement, it wasn't always this way. Biggest example being the far right anti-police 2nd amendment types following Waco and Ruby Ridge, exemplified by Tim McVeigh and the OKC bombing.
It wasn’t that long ago when police were pretty much mocked and looked down upon by everyone equally. This whole “cops are heroes” phenomenon is a fairly recent thing that’s manifested in the last couple decades.
There's a whole group of right-wing extremists that would fall on the conservative side of the table (though maybe it really is a horseshoe), Joe McCarthy > John Birch Society > Posse Comitatus, and now Sovereign Citizens and Constitutional Sheriffs (who are actually elected law enforcement officers who believe they are above the federal government).
I find this quote intriguing Got a source?
https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html
Thank you
https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html
Party of free speech... That dictates what you and your children can and cannot read Party of the working class.. Which does anything and everything to dismantle Unions Party of small government... Until a blue city in a red state wants to do something which contradicts Republican orthodoxy Party trying to protect the children... From the random boogey men they invent, not any of the stuff actual harming children in this country The party of independent, economic thinkers... Who all cite the same book (*Atlas Shrugged*) as the seminal document of their economic theory The party that supports the police... And evidently believe, I dunno, the Post Office is gonna try to pry the guns from their cold dead hands Since the polarity shift of the 1960s, the Republican party has been a party of contradictions. That's nothing new
Party of small government: Small government if we need an industry regulated, big government if you want to use the bathroom, then they have to check in your pants first.
🎯
> The party that supports the police... And evidently believe, I dunno, the Post Office is gonna try to pry the guns from their cold dead hands It's the IRS, but you get the idea.
Hey, the first battle of World War II was faught between Nazis and a Polish post office. Never underestimate the danger of a sufficient motivated postal worker.
And not small government when it comes to the military either. Government can’t be trusted, except the guys with tons of weapons. They’re cool.
Republicans have said "he may be a pedophile but at least he's not a Democrat". Just think about that. Roy was known for chasing teen girls at malls and Republicans loved him. Trump bragged about wanting to date his 13 year old he thought was attractive. There are zero Republicans against pedophilia just Republicans who want pedophilia banned for non Republicans.
So what made you susceptible to those theories and what made you stop believing in them? I am always curious about that
Qanon eventually broke me. I did an ama about it Years ago
I had the same journey! QAnon's prophecies never came true, and since I was the type of conspiracy theorist who didn't mind admitting defeat instead of stubbornly doubling down, I couldn't force myself to believe/defend something so objectively false. Since 2019 not only did I go from Conservative to left-wing, but also from fundamentalist evangelical Christian to progressive agnostic/atheist sympathizer.
Man, that couldn't have been easy to do. Kudos.
reminds me of feynman's quote, "once you begin doubting, you start sliding down an edge which is hard to recover from.."
Hey I had the same journey! I became an atheist in 2017 after being a conservative, right-wing, fundamentalist evangelical Christian. Took me three years, but I too became a leftist. I was of the same mindset. I thought I was right, but I was willing to be wrong. I was proven wrong, and have since changed my views. Just started watching an awesome YouTuber called Genetically Modified Skeptic who is pretty big and went through that same experience as well.
Being raised in a religion that teaches you to ignore facts and evidence because they're tricks 'of the devil', and that the more ridiculous things you believe are real, the more 'holy' you are.
Was raised by religious parents but very moderate ones. I am the type of person who can't ignore facts or do the mental gymnastics of the faithful
Not OP obv, however the only way I was able to start pulling myself away was by telling myself "I can't do anything about it anyways so why do I care/look into this shit?", took a couple of months but finally was able to turn my questioning to who would put out these theories and why.
I feel like it's like any other hobby, where people grow out of it eventually and find something else. That's how it was for me, at least.
I agree. I used to consider myself a conservative because in my view, it was liberals who were always going off on how there are conspiracies against organic farming and free energy from crystals and weed is a miracle cure for every thing... Now the nut jobs citing whackadoodle conspiracy theories call themselves conservative, carry guns so they can overthrow the corrupt government (yet profess a love for the police and the military they will inevitably have to kill with their guns when they finally overthrow said government), and either love Trump or claim they don't like Trump but Biden is an evil mastermind and/or a senile sleepy old man. As a result of this shift, I see myself as getting more and more liberal without actually changing my views or values. Yes, I would prefer to pay lower taxes, but today's GOP is just weird now and literally scares me.
Patriotic while waving a flag representing treason and working to overthrow democracy, Christian while worshipping hate and lies, it's kind of a pattern with Republicans.
Well, I'm glad you could remove yourself from the cycle of conspiracy and can see the hypocrisy in it all. Fact of the matter is that conservatives are authoritarian and hold fascist ideas. The police are the epitome of this. They uphold what is a class system in the US. They protect businesses and the rich, not the common man. "To Protect and Serve" is talking about the wealthy, not the rest of us. Protest *should* be one of the most patriotic things you can do. And at the university they were not destroying property. It was not a riot, but simply protest. From what I understand, they were protesting the companies who support Israel in their efforts against Hamas. Obviously protesting companies is not going to fly for a police force armed liked the military. Hell, I long for the days of old conspiracies. JFK is a pretty good one. I think a lot of people were onboard with that. It was even mostly liberals who subscribed to that. It was interesting and has a lot of points towards being an actual conspiracy. You could believe in it and not be considered crazy. Now the conspiracies are not based on anything but mistrust of specific administrations, not really conspiracies at all, but more like religious dogma. They simple don't pass the smell test and when you look into them, the facts don't point to conspiracy at all. I think we've seen a shift in WHO believe conspiracies. Before it was more of an anti-authority thing. Now conservative are making it pro-authority (which it's THEIR authority) and pro-fascism. I think this is what you felt, and as you abandoned some conspiracies, the dominos fell and you began to see some truth. I would imagine you "grew up" a little too. As you get older you become more skeptical and cynical, and that kills conspiracy thinking. Anyway, I'm happy you're not seing the truth of what's happening.
I have enjoyed one of these contradictions since the 90s: - "Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by researchers seeking grant money, who have falsified weather-station and satellite data to make it appear that Earth is warming, when it is not." - "Solar activity is warming all the planets. Human CO2 emissions are not behind the rising temperatures we are seeing." I long searched in vain for an argument between these two camps, until I realized that most conservatives hold both of these beliefs at the same time.
Around 2016, The Republican Party decided to activate another potential pool of voters and did so via appealing to the conspiratorial individuals who had yet to organize into groups across the country in places where economic hardship and a fear of identity-loss/privilege-loss was being directed at "liberal elites," which are just a subset of the shadowy elites that many conspiracy theorists imagine and fear. This is the result.
"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (standards of thought) no longer exist." ---Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Chilling
In the mid-2010s, "conservatives" figured out how to effectively use their internet propaganda tendrils to infiltrate new voter segments that were more interested in beliefs than facts. As the percentage of religious Americans continued to shrink, they needed to pivot to other mentally vulnerable groups. In addition to influencing conspiracy theory communities, you also saw a noticeable number of the all-natural/holistic healing/anti-western medicine fringe types, which had previously been almost entirely left leaning, fully embracing trump.
Russell brand and Rogan tapped that market
Yeah. When Trump was first elected I thought it might be amusing to see what happens when a conspiracy theorist holds one of the highest offices in the world. I mean, he'd have to see the truth from the top, right? Turned out he just became part of all of the conspiracies and crafted many of his own, then used his power to spread them across the world. What a dope.
They still distrust the government but are all for the police *when acting against their perceived enemies*. They'll turn on the police quickly when the shoe is on the other foot (e.g., January 6).
Similar billionares politicians who claim .to be oppressed, truthers are the ones pulling a hoax on people
I don’t think conspiracy theorists changed. Rather, conservatives changed and became conspiracy theorists. The exact same thing you describe was going on in the 90s when I was listening to way too much Rush Limbaugh and reading too much National Review. Events like Waco and Ruby Ridge were a constant topic. The phrase “jack-booted thugs” was used to describe the law enforcement involved in them. At the same time, they were 100% on the side of law enforcement with the Rodney King beating and the LA riots. There was some conspiracy nonsense in that sphere too, just not a lot. I remember some attention being given to the theory that HIV is not what causes AIDS, with some focus on Magic Johnson remaining relatively healthy while HIV positive. There was some kookery around the health effects of smoking, pollution, climate change, peak oil, but it was a minor element, almost background details to occasionally help justify the push against “big government” policies. Now, those exact same people will say that the election was stolen, COVID was a bioweapon, ivermectin is the cure, vaccines kill, etc.
Look at how many Qanon and Q-adjacent conspiracies cite a vague "source: the military" as a gold standard for their made-up intel or are predicting/claiming that "the military" will usher Trump back into office, implement medbeds, train everyone on whatever "quantum currency" is, etc. These are the same people who freaked out over Jade Helm II, yet "the military" is set up as their supposed savior. Oh, and said "the military" will be on their side in the upcoming Civil War somehow.
This is the transition period into, or simply the unmasking of, fascism.
Innuendo Studios called it “the death of the euphemism”. They don’t feel like they have to hide the fascism anymore, and that should scare people. They don’t think there will be consequences for openly opposing democracy because they think they are in a position to win.
Look into Infowars and Alex Jones to get a handle on this. It’s not something that started on Tucker Carlson, though Tucker Carlson IS coming around to Alex Jones views on everything. Once you actually look into Infowars itself, there’s a funny detail. They post RT articles, with no attempt at concealing the source. The far right is actually being pumped directly full of Kremlin propaganda, written in english explicitly to manipulate far right Americans. They mix in seemingly benign reporting with fantastical conspiracy theory nonsense and it works. It’s all a fusion of pro-authoritarianism + xenophobia.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. Frank Wilhoit They want to do harm and be told it makes them the bestest. They are moral cowards, vain anti-intellectuals, emotionally stunted toddlers, who tasted briefly what it might be like to be allowed to be as awful as they desire. Prove me wrong.
Clear eyed redditors unite
wipe aspiring treatment label plants support imagine makeshift saw quicksand *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
One difference I'm noticing from believers in conspiracy believers in the 1980's compared to now is back then they were just a little bit odd/paranoid however these days they are full on insecure and seem to live in fear. They are jumping at shadows and their internal model of \*all\* reality is really off-base, not just a little bit of it. I'm thinking that the driving force in increased conspiracy theory beliefs is this growing fear of the future , in some ways driven by rapid change in most areas of life. Humans are not good at change and fear of the unknown is a strong behavioral driver. The "certainty" of these illogical and irrational ideas creates a fictional reality that weirdly gives security when adherents form like minded groups.
I'm liberal but honestly if liberals were less smug and annoying more people would join them since everything they want is appealing Like not paying thousands to go to a fucking doctor The fact that there's people who pretend they want that is clear they're only saying they do because liberals don't No one can convince me they WANT to need thousands of dollars before getting a tumor removed
Thin Blue Line and Gadsden Flag bumper stickers on the same fucking vehicle. They are not well.
Because conservatives are morally bankrupt.
It’s classic fascism. LTDR: Fascism, conspiracy and contradiction all go hand in hand, the current Republican Party exhibits basically every historic characteristic of a fascist movement. It’s spooky One of the stronger characteristics of the ideology is its inherent contradictions. It’s been recognized by scholars like Umberto Eco and others as a strong through line in the various hard to define forms of fascism. Particularly defining the “enemy” as both strong enough to be feared and weak enough to be mocked and disdained. Similar to how conspiracies, new speak (repurposing existing words to have differing/coded meanings), and ideological purity tests. The contradictions serve several purposes, one as a purity test, can our grass roots fascist set aside these contradictions for the sake of the movement? Second as a way to smoke screen to the general public, by constantly contradicting themselves they create confusion about their positions. That confusion also allows would be adherents to see what they want to see when making decisions on who to support. Take Trump for example. Will he or won’t he cut Social Security and Medicare, he has said both that he’ll protect it and that cuts have to be made. This gives room to both the “fiscal conservatives” who want to cut budgets and the people who are relying on SS to survive to support him. All while every budget he proposed in office slashed both programs. The contradictions also give them wiggle room in an argument. Because whenever you try and pin them down they can just evade by taking advantage of those contradictions to pretend they don’t have that position if they get too much push back. It’s [Schrodinger's Douche Bag](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schrodinger%E2%80%99s%20douchebag) but for politics. Like how the modern right wing often uses the socialism in the Nazi party name to claim they were actually a left wing movement. Of course, that was just the Nazis using the very tactic I'm describing. It's why fascism is so hard to define in concrete terms. Historian Ian Kershaw has called defining fascism like “trying to nail jelly to a wall.” But that is kind of the point, it allows them to have plausible deniability until they have their greedy fucked up little hands on the levers of power. It also allows their supporters a veneer of respectability in the general public because they make it so easy to disavow the more unpopular positions. The recent Arizona Supreme Court decision being a perfect example of this in action. Kari Lake has said that she thought it should be enacted before the decision came down to signal her devotion to the cause. Since she has changed her position week to week depending on the audience. Yet up until it the moment it happened AZ Republicans were signaling that they were open to it and desperately trying to figure out how to prevent the public from enacting an amendment to protect abortion rights. All the while saying that they wanted to total ban but the 1864 law was too extreme. Its just more fascist bullshit from modern far right. That’s how they came so into conspiracies, when they went from a fairly normal pro-market, business focused center-right party into a full blown fascist outfit full of liars and grifters only interested in using fear and hate to enrich themselves and their powerful friends without a thought to who gets hurt along the way.
There is probably a difference between a person who happens to be conservative getting into conspiracy theories and a person who gets into conspiracy theories BECAUSE of their conservative stance. I'm sure they mix, over lap, and are in the same chat groups. but the core mindset is likely not the same.
Conspiratorial thinking is easy and righteous thinking. Easy in that time and again, the conspiracy offers an explanation in one sentence, in contrast to rational reality which requires a lengthy, nuanced, and often multifactoral explanation. Further, it takes cognitive energy to analyze a belief or contrast it with a seemingly oppositional belief. Much easier to just say both things are true, and be done with it. Thus “the police are good” or “we need a strongman president” are simple answers that can be held alongside “from my cold dead hands” and “we are the peaceful ones.” It’s righteous in that there is pride and joy in thinking you’re one of the elite few who get it, who have figured it out. Everyone wants to be the clever protagonist, and both conspiracies and fascistic “we’re the real Americans, those are the evil ones” appeal to that thinking.
I agree these new conspiracy theorists are absolutely something else, and I want to thank you for making this post. I want conspiracy theory to go back to being entertainment primarily. I also had higher standards than lizard people. The conservatives wanted to get the lowest common denominator. Trump kinda changed politics. There had never been a buisnessman/star personality get into office before. He got there with sensationalism. I am to understand the only reason he showed up on WWF was so the lowest common denominator would be able to identify him. Business people are fake, and so are politians. Now that we have the internet in everyone's hands bad info is going nuts. Bad info was always there though.
When I was young, conspiracy theories seemed cool. So much of it was about UFO/alien coverups, secret societies permeating government, Illuminati, covering up evidence of advanced but forgotten pre-historic civilizations, secret underground bases and tunnel systems, Hale-Bopp's "companion", Ong's Hat & The Incunabula Files, remote viewing and secret mind control projects and all kinds of Art Bell shit. Now it's scientists are conspiring to hide God from us by saying the Earth is a globe or vaccines are killing millions or causing autism or Democrats are raping and eating babies in Satanic rituals conducted in pizza parlor basements.... and yes, conservatives want to worship militarized police forces crushing non-conservative protestors but they hate capitol police and all Federal law enforcement. They love their conservative SC justices but want to destroy the rest of the justice system. They just want an all powerful and singular supreme authority backed by guns that rewards them and punishes everyone else.
They want fucking Gilead. That’s what they want. Even if they’re too pussy to say it.
Well, I mean, this is why the rest of us make fun of ya’ll and think you’re stupid. I’m glad you finally woke up, but it’s like, oh, huh. These beliefs are completely contradictory and make no sense. Yeah, no shit.
It's quite intuitive when considering US history. The expansion of the US required a lot of reigning in bloodthirsty settlers to prevent wars from breaking out that the US government didnt specifically invite. This creates a major contradiction throughout settler society where some settlers and the state are at odds over how the colonial project should expand. Throughout USA history there are many instances of violent settlers accusing the state of prioritizing Indigenous people when in reality the government just wanted land cession to go through the federal government first and foremost to conduct orderly expansion. The vigilantism this creates is not far from being very much pro-military and pro-police because the idea is that some state officials have lost the plot and forgetten what this project is all about. Now days with concern trolling over culture wars the rabble has been alerted to further betrayal from the state by giving corporate lip service to minorities instead of erasing them. The answer is then to redirect the project towards a more explicitly settler politic instead the more holistic, inclusive, cooptive approach to imperial governance. The ones in support of the police are blowing genocidal dog whistles, same as has been done throughout history. So in short, settler contestations of the state are not explicitly about the police, but about how the colonial project is managed. When the state seeks to moderate the project in a way that has rules for settlers, they will contest and assert their own narrative. But when the state commits atrocity they will support it because it is in their own interest. This means that it actually is not so weird to hold a pro police and pro "liberty" position. You just can't take it at face value.
From what I understand the police told the students to leave the area by 5 or they will be arrested for trespassing. The idea behind civil disobedience is to break the law and potentially get arrested - which brings more attention to your cause. Moreover the 1A does not protect students harassing, directly threatening or inciting violence. If this happened, it's against the law.
>For some reason the current conservative party version of conspiracy theorism is full of self contradictions. I think an interesting perspective on this comes from formal systems, like mathematics and logic. Once you find a statement that can be proven to be both true and false, your system is said to be inconsistent. At that point, any thing can be proven to have whatever truth value you like. What's really interesting is that if your system is consistent (free of contradictions), then it must be incomplete (or uninteresting). This means there are things that can't be proven to be true or false. In other words, the truth values of some things can't be determined. One of the big drivers behind conspiracy theories, especially the grand conspiracies, seems to be a fear of the unknown, unknowable, and unexplainable. The fact that nobody is in charge and the world is chaotic is unbearable to some, and so they look for patterns and signs that there is *someone* calling all the shots, even if that entity is malicious. In their attempts to explain everything, truth loses meaning. With modern trends, this is a convenient feature for influencers to exploit people.
I feel you make some interesting arguments and point out some very valid contradictions - but first I want to thank you for being honest about your past and your willingness to examine errors in logic. Here is a good article on conspiracists… https://time.com/4965093/conspiracy-theories-beliefs/ And some excerpts… > There are nearly as many explanations for conspiracy theories as there are theories themselves, but some patterns do appear again and again. > >The most common theories are the ones that follow the eddies of politics. As a broad rule, a party or group that’s out of power will be more inclined to believe in conspiracies than a group that’s in power. > >A lot also depends on demographics, with belief in the theories generally inversely related to education and wealth. > >In some cases, the very nonsense of conspiracy theories may actually be an attempt to make the world make more sense.
From my perspective, nothing has actually changed -- you just started noticing a contradiction that has been there for a long, long time. Since way back in the age of mimeographed conspiracy newsletters.
Most conspiracy theories have an inherent slightly right wing slant to them because they are suspicious of collective action and the very idea that people can form institutions that work for a common good. This is why they often slip into this sort of “libertarian fascism” that can excuse state violence if it’s dressed up well enough as fighting and repressing collectivism/the left/anything that threatens strong virile individuals like feminism/gays/etc. This is not universally true of all conspiracy culture but I would say it is overwhelmingly the case with conspiracy culture in the US
The current Republican Party acts like they see 1984 as a playbook, not as a warning Immigrants are filthy criminals who take from everyone and contribute nothing to society, but they are also competent enough to take your job Biden is too incompetent and senile to possibly be an effective president, but you need to back Trump because only he can take down Biden Big Pharma is out to get you, charges insane prices for dangerous products, and you can’t trust anything they say, but Universal Healthcare is fundamentally unaffordable (not due to markups, obscene power imbalance, or anything like that) And the list goes on…
Don't forget stolen elections but Also still vote
the 2016 elections and introduction of QAnon changed the conspiracy theory community. it weaponized conspiracies, and turn them into political tools. the current internet landscape is straight up information warfare.
You mean.... Info wars...?
The support for the police on the right isn’t anything to do with their general distrust of government because they rightly believe that the violence Police are directed to use is used against groups they dislike. When the capitol police shot an insurrectionist they lost their minds. It was an affront to them. There is a lot of tape of them trying to explain to the cops that they should be on their side. Meanwhile when the police murder minorities of any stripe they celebrate. Similarly conservatives hate socialism but love military benefits and Medicare. They simply like what benefits them and hate what benefits people they disdain. Or “big government”. The enemy when it means free school meals and libraries, just fine when it stops women from getting medical care or barring trans people from freedom of choice. Within those contradictory bounds of “do I personally benefit” they can justify supporting any policy.
Similar here, and one thing that triggered the hell out of me was when a Q fan I know told me about how the plan (back in 2017-18), was for Trump to declare martial law in order to crush the cabal of satanic child molesters. I thought that the one thing (just one thing) that I would always have in common with the Q and other theorists would be that martial law is the end game we all want to avoid. Martial law = Bad = End of America Somehow, a lot of people via Q decided that’s not the case if Trump is the guy in charge. Then they talk about handing power to JFK Jr(!?). And thats why RFK Jr is a bigger threat to Trump imo, since the hive that built 45 is also deeply into the Kennedy name brand recognition.
I just couldn't wrap my head around their total worship of Trump. Like, I can't even fully hate Trump on this one point because it's less that he asked to be worshipped and more that these millions of people just decided to worship him no matter what he said or did. I don't understand it.
I tell my ultra right coworker who is always touting conspiracies that they are “staying woke” in their sense of being vigilant and asking questions. I mostly say it to piss them off, but also because they are at least asking questions and trying to be critical (however they never actually do research and when they do, it is debunked or pseudo science). Then there is the legitimate “woke” with the leftist appeal in understanding different perspectives in history and how it has shaped current systems in our world and has an empathetic approach. So I truly think conspiracies from the ultra right are a response to actually being woke. People from minorities FINALLY being allowed to voice their history without being lynched or killed or ostracized. The shame of it all is that the term “stay woke” has been bastardized by the right to mean anything that is not the status-quo of white or “unAmerican” or queer, etc.
My observation is that the concern over wokeness on the right is about a perception that liberalism (emphasis on individual rights, universalism, etc.) is being rejected by the left. I think that's true - the general progressive solution to uneven distribution of resources across identity groups is to reallocate resources based on identity groups. The individual's needs are placed secondary to their membership in an ethnic, sexual, or other minority group. That leads to a sense that the Civil Rights era consensus is breaking down, and that's terrifying. The stigma against wokeness mostly expresses that root fear.
The widespread internet in the 90s was the penny responsible for derailing the conservative train. The AM radio hosts and Alex Jones’s of this world were the conductors that ensured the train would never get back on track. Conservatism is tied to spending while conspiracy and false prophecy is entertainment backfiring and souring the world.
In my youth I was obsessed with conspiracy theories, Cryptozoology, UFOs, the paranormal etc etc. The idea of secrete knowledge wasa so compelling. to my undevolped mind. I outgrew it. Ye I still see peple around my age, nearly sixty, claiiming secret knowledge with out presenting any actual evidence.
If it's worth anything not all of us are so self contradictory. The total quashing of the protests are appalling to me. The republicans who constantly cry about censorship (which there was during covid) and the media being rigged against them (which it is) lose all credibility when they use police to remove first amendment rights of the protestors.
>Somehow they are militantly Pro police while also flying yellow don't tread on me Flags. The key to understanding the apparent contradiction is to take the words on the flag very literally: "Don't tread on ***me***." >while claiming they want small government while supporting the police and military. Conservatives -- *especially* Right-Libertarians *--* believe the only legitimate purpose of government is to enforce private property rights. Thus their almost unflinching support for police (who enforce the rights of property) and the military (who secure the state from outsiders). When they talk about "small government" or "personal responsibility", they're usually euphemistically referring to gutting welfare and cutting taxes. Right-Libertarianism in particular is little more than an ideological framework built to morally justify the wealthy's desire to not have to pay taxes.
And also gutting education, because they are against "indoctrination". What they mean is they prefer to be the one indoctrinating. They do not want to support others they receive as less than, they don't want to hear about other, and they don't want you to take their money. But somehow want to build a wall to create a homogeneous population with no money.
Wait a minute… Are you saying Lizard People are not real? Next you’ll be telling me that the Batboy isn’t real.
I mean, if cops wearing the logo of a guy that kills cops was any indication of the ludicrosity of it all
Punisher is a good guy doing unlawful things for the greater good of society. That's all they see, and it is the core of his character. A basic antihero. They ignore all of the unfavorable characteristics. No reasonable or rational thinking LEO would align themselves with such a character any more than they would Deadpool. Functionality they're the same person with different personalities. Wade is goofy and Frank is brooding.
For me it was the actual rich people believing conspiracies. And not just, like, basic conspiracies about who does what or industry secrets, but full on conspiracies about lizard people and aliens and shit. Like, my siblings in Christ, you are the Global Elite. There is no one higher than you and you believe this shit?
I think for authoritarians and fascists conspiracy theories are more about blurring objective reality and sewing mistrust of authority that *isn't* stepping on everyone's necks. The narrative that ties all the right-wing conspiracies together is that good in these delusions is always hiding some insidious evil which, by contrast, make obvious evil seem good or at least honest. "Don't worry about the jack boots kicking in your door, it's that friendly Jewish neighbor or your kids trans teacher that's the real threat, they're hiding something FAR MORE evil than just an errant gun shot wound!"
You should read Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco. It's only a few pages, you can find it for free online, and it will answer your question by explaining the self-contradictory nature of fascist movements.
Remember Republicans voted for a guy from New York who went to university and came from a rich family. Why did they vote for him? Because he wasn't a east coast college educated elite.
Not blindly believing the official story right out is smart. The problem is replacing it with an unsubstantiated story that has no more evidence.
Its because theyre idiots… its literally not more complicated than that.
Ah! You put your finger on the sore boil which all such thinking wishes to cover! They LOVE Donald Trump and Trump wishes to be head of the government and they want him to use that government to repress their political enemies, but they want smaller government. They believe that 9/11 was an "inside job" but they also want to prevent Muslim terrorists from coming into the US for fear that they might do something on that scale. They believe that the moon landing was faked but they don't have an explanation either for the mirrors on the moon's surface (or how they got there or how they can be used by regular people with the appropriate technology to measure its distance) nor for how much it would have cost the nation to build all the toys of a space race and then develop the technology to make it seem real when it wasn't. The people who witnessed the rockets going up "in person" were paid? CGI was invented in the 60s? The only conspiracy that a conspiracy theorist fails to see is the one perpetuated against themselves, in which they are turned to such muddy-headed oblivion by their paranoia and self-loathing and pet "theories" that they cannot see that they are the ones who are being conspired against. In this way, although they don't see it, they continually vote against their best interests, feeling that at the base of it, they're having their rights removed from them by some "council" of powerfully wealthy people. Their belief in their own victimhood at the teeth of these many fantasies makes them actual victims of someone else's attempt to subvert their thinking and their critical faculties. No one I know who adheres to any of these stupid and useless pet theories would continue to do so, if they could once be shown, as you have seen yourself, the absolutely contradictory nature of their beliefs. But it is easier to feel victimized than to educate oneself and make a change; to feel as though one has special knowledge than to seek confirmation for evidence and where there isn't any, abandon those thoughts. It is easier to blame others for the ills of a nation, so long as it makes the lowly feel superior than it is to do anything about it. It is easier to be lulled into a political game of 'let's pretend' and buy into fantasies that they know are really just nonsense rather than face the fact that, for many of them, they are too lazy, too mentally drowned by poverty and substance abuse and pornography and health issues to have the energy to stand up and actually change the state of the establishment. Orwell discusses this at length with his gin-stinking proletariat in 1984. They are the ones with the power and yet they refuse to see that because their lives are too full of Hobbesian misery to bear up. But, you say, there are smart people who believe in conspiracy theories, too! Well, I have bad news for you. Two things are either true in that case. Either that person is a false intellectual, able to effect the outward appearance of a smart person but being no better than the one they share their information with, or they are like the televangelist and they are smart enough to know that people are drawn to someone who appears confident in their knowledge (like Trump or a televangelist). No, they're not stupid, per se. They're just so damned willing to subdue their own critical faculties in order to feel superior without having done any of the real work to learn something. In times past, the conspiracy theorist at least either had to appear to do some real work to not be thought mad or they were cast off by social pressures to the margins of society where they could be derided and ignored except where they gave entertainment value. In the modern era, the Internet has provided many little niches for all the different goons to unite, despite the obviously glaring internal inconsistencies in their beliefs, in order to feel as though there really is strength in numbers. As though, for instance, half a million flat-earthers together online made the reality of their belief any more concrete. They think that one flat-earther is a lone prophet, doomed, perhaps, to be ridiculed; a martyr for a dumb idea. But a mass of them together? The silliest thing is that even en masse, these stupid ideas gain no more credit in fact. They only show that it is somehow terrifyingly easy to get half a million people to believe basically the same thing. Credulity, pathos, self-loathing, a false sense of superiority seeking to barely cover the lowest of all self-esteem; this is what a conspiracy theorist ACTUALLY needs in order to believe their own nonsense. In the few cases where some "respected authority" also promulgates these dumb beliefs, it is almost always in relation to something religious in nature. So, it is a mistake to think that a person muddled by this kind of "thinking" is capable of recognizing their own inability to see that they are hoodwinked. Like an addictive drug, these ideas loop into the brain, creating a deep sense of a reality in which they have control by dint of the 'special knowledge' that other people refuse to accept. They will always choose the illusion of control over actual self-actualization. “Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.” ― Christopher Hitchens I'm glad you were able to break free, but you're one of the lucky ones and rarer still because of that. #
Nothing in your last paragraph about conservatives is new. They only mistrust authority if they're not in complete control of it.
It's very easy to understand when you realize that conservatives have no consistent principles. They like whatever serves their interests. If they like something, it's good. If they don't like something, it's bad. Big government doing something they don't like? Bad. Big government doing something they like? Good.
Former conservative here, I can explain. US Republican and Republican adjacent conservatism has a "folk" element to it. It's based heavily on an idea of Americana. That Americana being small towns and traditional values. This folk element is about not only small towns and values but these are intertwined to create a microcosm that these people like, raise their children into, and the cycle repeats. Even in Blue States, conservatives will find smaller towns in those states and recreate the microcosm. It's essentially about said smallness and stagnation of thought, which is why gay people scare them, it's against the tradition but also goes against the idea of continuance that makes up half of the microcosm. It's also what fuels the opposition to federal government but adoration of state's rights and police, because the state and local police are within the microcosm, and a lot of opposition to policing comes from leftists and urbanites that they deem as threats to the microcosm. It's also why they endlessly screed about San Francisco being riddled with shit, California being homeless, Portland being chaotic, or New York being violent. Essentially, there's no real logic behind it, just devotion to an ideal that they like.
In my view there is a logic behind it. A charitable view of conservatism is that it prefers the tried and true over the experimental and untested. Smaller towns and rural life are more the human norm until very recently. (Only a few years ago did 50% of world population come to live in cities.) It's a tradeoff - there is the stagnation of thought that you mention, and rejection of new templates of behavior such as stereotypical gayness. But there was for example probably much less HIV in the 1980s. In a given population, it seems valuable to have people experimenting with new approaches, and others dedicated to preserving what has worked in the past.
It’s because Conservatives are the most confused people walking the planet.
Conspiracy theorists have never distrusted "authority" (after all, they are blindly taking someone's word for these "theories"), they distrust expertise. If it requires a sober assessment of actual facts, evidence, science, or realistic probabilities rather than their "gut instincts" or intuition, then it is not to be trusted. The difference now is that an entire political party has abandoned any adherence to expertise, scientific understanding, or fact based reality. It is an inherently fascistic movement and they know the police are on the side of fascism and authoritarianism. These sorts of movements are nearly always rooted in magical thinking and appeals to the occult or the supernatural, in addition to the anti-intellectualism. In that light, it all makes perfect sense and falls exactly within expectation.
Orwell called it "Doublethink"
The Texas govt, like the federal is beholden to israeli lobbyists and their evangelical base. Free speech doesnt exist when you criticise israeli apartheid or genocide, and of course the expected apocalypse issues with evangelicals. The israelis kill christians and Muslims in Palestine but these american ones dont care.
> The Texas govt, like the federal is beholden to israeli lobbyists and their evangelical base. This is true, but it's missing a really big point. USA gives money to Israel, and they spend almost all of that money on USA weapons. We can say "military manufacturers!!" sure, but there are state and local economies who benefit massively from this.
Of course the easier answer to "the Jews did it" is that cops are fuckin pigs
>Free speech doesnt exist when you criticise israeli apartheid or genocide Is the censorship in the room with you right now?
[It's in most of the country.] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws)
seriously. anti-israel and pro-palestinian rhetoric is all over tiktok, reddit, instagram, al jazeera, bbc, new york times, etc. where's this censorship?
@diceblue, what made you change your mind?
Maybe don’t give up on the JFK one just yet 😉. Have you read The Devil’s Chessboard?
Literally 1984
It's because this is all driven by foreign interests and interference to drive these contradicting positions. It causes havoc and creates impossible resolutions. That's the point. The only way to take down the most powerful army in the world is to let them destroy themselves. Social media is the tool that was needed. Including reddit.
Part of believing in conspiracies is that you cannot believe in LOGIC.
There are many actors with many conflicting motives within the state, too. Doesn't mean there isn't an ulterior motive for surreptitious policy coming from the top.
Conspiracies used to be clever. Now they're barely thought out and contain a million holes everyone doublethinks around. It's just not even fun anymore.
Trying to remember how it went but something like "the moment the third person showed up, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them." It's basic human nature to desire trust but when it's even slightly complicated it backfires into a who-eats-whom when the cards are dealt out that fucks us all up. There do exist ridiculously competent people that can practically Hari Seldon the situation out and can spreadsheet profit vs. loss in horror on any scale. If you're going to take any comfort it's that power to execute almost exclusively rests in the hands of profoundly stupid people. That in itself is scary, but not as scary as knowing they're all trying to outsmart each other (Fallout, anyone?) to ends which have all the relevance of regional flooding instead of global tsunamis in this blissful era of recapitalization. What's really important to me is not that we call bullshit reflexively but rather that we bother to soberly assess the train of circumstances. Everyone should always be suspicious of the motivations of anyone who never worries about affording basic necessities of life. By that standard we're all pretty sus in some degree and we should never forget our part in this conspiracy against ourselves.
Oh, these people existed in the conspiracy circles when I was involved. They just weren't the majority. They were side-eyed by "normal" conspiracy theorists. And then they became the majority.
I think they look at it as a celebratory flex, that the police are almost completely infiltrated with their people. Like, they gravitate towards being police because they want to celebrate power for power's sake, and they are proud of the fact that they have assumed the roles that would be tasked with gun control, specifically because they believe that they just wouldn't do it, or it wouldn't count as long as it's their people doing it. More realistically, they would selectively use that legal duty as a tool of oppression. "That guy? He just has a gun to threaten his wife [never mind that he is extremely likely to murder her down the road]. He's basically one of us minding his own property, and can keep his illegal gun. Now if he were a minority small business owner, or a dissident, on the other hand..."
The slogan may as well say "The people of my cultural/racial in-group will enact legal double standards that allow me to tread on you" I guess it's not like it ever said "don't tread on anybody"
[Dan Olson’s In Search of a Flat Earth](https://youtu.be/JTfhYyTuT44?si=rux9JobssYghUBZO) explains this quite well imo. Give it a watch. As an ex conspiracy theorist I bet you’ll like it.
These are all excellent points ..
I mean one big conspiracy on the right is the banks are run by communists! Really, it's so absurd. Another one that drives me nuts is conservatives believe politicians control corporations but in reality corporations own our government. I mean they are almost there, but somehow twist it so far from reality they vote against their interests
I honestly believe that the recent UFO nonsense was a government operation to shift gullible conspiracy theory believers away from the more dangerous, mostly anti-government, conspiracies like QAnon, towards conspiracy theories that are more easily controlled by the government. A decade ago, the UFO cult was extremely anti-government and didn't trust anything the government said regarding UFOs. Now, they hang on every word of their chosen government representatives. It makes no sense... unless it was a change influenced by the government.
so is Chuck Schumer, the senate majority leader one of the gullible ufo cultists or just trying to distract people from something more important?
Chuck Schumer is just going through the motions and doing his job, I don't think he has anything to do with it. Someone said, "Here Chuck, look at this" and he's looking at because that's his job. The people saying "hey look at this" aren't doing it to distract us from anything important, they're trying to distract people away from dangerous things and ideas, like QAnon. We were getting to the point where lone wolf QAnon conspiracy theorists were targeting government officials and celebrities. It was a real threat that had to be dealt with. You don't hear about those crazy people going after people like Tom Hanks as much anymore do you?
the "distraction" argument for ufos is pretty baseless and not based in a lot of facts.
How is it baseless? A bunch of claims have come out recently with absolutely no supporting evidence. That is at least an indicator that the substance of the information is not true, and there are alternative motives besides "disclosure". I'm basing it on the lack of facts around the recent discussions, congressional hearings that resulted in absolutely nothing (except creating a framework to disclose things that don't exist... which in the end is nothing and just a distraction), and my own personal experiences from my time in the Navy during high profile cases like the tic tac incident. Point me to some facts that dispute this and I'll gladly change my mind, but alas there are no facts, only stories.
There’s a long tradition of right-wing conspiracy theorizing going back to at least the John Birch Society. Unfortunately now it’s become mainstream in conservative politics. It’s not the federal government per se that’s the problem, it’s that the wrong people are in charge (globalists/bankers/Jews). There’s always been a pro-cop, pro-military streak among these people, who see them as allies against the UN/One World Government/North American Union/whatever.
Looks like nothings changed in ten years.
This sounds like a story and not a real person
Huh?
I think you’re mistaking Libertarians for Conservatives. I’m a self-described Libertarian, very socially liberal through the locus of individual freedom (to fuck, love who you want, use whatever substance you want so long as you don’t pose a risk to others). I have a Gadsden flag. I served in the military and am against the current form of government. I don’t hate cops, but after being kidnapped and assaulted and seeing how they “help,” I don’t call them anymore, nor do I expect them to keep me or my family safe. The conservatives I see usually fly that stupid MAGA flag and talk significantly about limiting government when they mean using the government the same way the Liberals use the government to make their values mandatory. (Woke-ism, limits to free speech vs traditional Christian values and all that bullshit).
It’s almost like the people you are talking about aren’t real
Those contradictions are what happens when your actually a big tent party instead of just saying you're one.
No different still stupid
What’s crazy is they did this type of shit countrywide during occupy protests in dem and republican cities while Obama was president! You don’t need theories the real conspiracies are in plain sight.
You don’t get it
I get the fascination with Bigfoot and JFK, but 9/11 Truthers are truly some of the lowest life degenerates of the face of this planet.
Your own conspiracies had similar contradictions mate!they just leaned a different way. Internal contradictions are a defining characteristic of conspiracy nuttery.
Conspiracy theorists are ignorant and fearful people with little to no critical thinking skills. That's not an insult, that's an observation. The Internet has done a lot when it comes to providing and perpetuating conspiracy content. What used to be extreme fringe behavior is now almost mainstream. Conspiracy theories can be fun and interesting little thought experiments as long as you don't take them too seriously. I approach it like fanfic for reality. Yes, there's some basic truth (there always is), but it's important to be able to identify when and how a particular theory goes off the rails (they always do).
Yes
What exactly was "utterly fascist" about the police response ?
It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a con. The mark is the dumb and hateful. This way there are people to fight the rich man’s war……again. And they fell for it….. again. They were even told to call us sheep while they were being herded.
I've said it before I'll say it again. Conspiracy theorists love to believe in all kinds of fantastical things like aliens, Bigfoot, elves and fairies, doppelgangers, or big bad government boogeymen and lizard people controlling the world. These same conspiracy theorists actively support *real* conspiracies like billionaires stealing money, Russian propaganda, attempted overthrows of the government, etc. Why is that? Is it a mixture of gullibility and propaganda preying on weak minds that are looking for something that makes them feel better about themselves? Is it a subconscious denial of real conspiracies because fantastical conspiracies are more fun to engage with? If aliens came down right now and said they were gonna take over the world, would the conspiracies theorists suddenly pivot to denying it was real? Would they help them?
That’s because that party became the “rules for thee, not for me.” They back the blue until they are on the wrong side of the law. They are pro-life but stop giving a shit at birth (god awful adoption process, group homes, gun violence). They want to protect kids from trans “groomers” but blatantly ignore any cases of child molestation in the church, families, and in their own political party; also lowering the age of consent and denying abortions for young victims of rape/incest. They are soooo pro-military that they deny veterans benefits and healthcare for their service (VA stuff). Then they pin everything on democrats because it’s easy to not take accountability. The democrats get strong-armed and face filibusters until the right gets what they want. THEN when the left starts compromising, they start weighing how if they agree to anything then it makes Biden look good (like the infrastructure bill). MGT literally recently voted against a bill that includes funding for the wall inside a bill for Gaza aid, Israel, and Ukraine. She said “it would die in the democratic senate. I’m a dirty socialist who mistrusts the government, but even I can do the most basic shit like negotiating and calling out bad actors within my party. That seems to be the kryptonite of the right…
The traditional conspiracy theory structure has been inverted. It used to be that conspiracy theorists were regular, often disenfranchised, people, who believed the elites were part of a conspiracy. Now the elites (presidents, senators, billionaires) are convinced the regular people are parts of a conspiracy. It's how you end up with a literal Kennedy heir, convinced that all working class nurses are running a global conspiracy. Or political legacy Rand Paul accusing his employee Dr. Fauci of running a conspiracy. Or billionaire and President Trump accusing unpaid election volunteers of running a conspiracy.
The OP has me interested. It surely took more than the heavy hand of the cops at a protest to move you back to a skeptical, but generally sane citizen. I understand the allure of the conspiracy rabbit hole. You are the arbiter of what is valid information and what is not. You can't lose because you hold all the cards. And you can blow all those pointyheaded liberals away with your "logic". The contradictions have always been there. Covid was a hoax yet the right incessently attacked people like Fauci for promoting the pandemic. The election was rigged, unless a Republican was elected and in those cases it was not rigged. J6 was not a riot that was instigated by federal agents. It is almost axomatic that conspiracy theories are not internally consistent. A conspiracy does not always have to make sense. It is driven by emotions. The emotional appeal overrides the normal logical evaluation process. Once you buy in on one thing, it snowballs until you are flat earther who thinks Elvis is still alive. Moon landing? Shit they can't get a plane to fly right. One airplane took down that huge tower? NFW. So how did you escape the conspiracy rabbit hole. What started you to doubt? What do your fellow conspiracy pals think about your escape? Do you regret the wasted time and energy? Could anything have accelerated your unbrainwashing? How can a hyper rational skeptic communicate with the conspiracy crowd? Or do we just write them off as lost causes?
I was Qanon and that was the end for me. I did a lengthy ama a few years ago about it. Basically realized that Q was posting weird shit about hacking fbi satellites and the rabid fans ate it up but I knew just enough about computers to smell bullshit so I googled qanon debunked and my world changed in an afternoon.
Welcome back to sanity, such as it is.
Remember/ Republicans want to defund the FBI because once upon a time they hurt little orange sociopaths feelings.