Charges of conspiracy (“fake news,” “rigged elections,” “deep state”) flow from the Trump White House constantly. They are disseminated by fast, broad-ranging, technologies, facilitated by media co-conspirators, and assented to by elected representatives who know better but remain silent.
Today, conspiracism is not, as we might expect, the last resort of permanent political losers but the first resort of winners. Trump refuses to accept the terms of his own victory and incessantly conjures machinations against him, including from within his own administration.
Muirhead and Rosenblum
In their book, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum explain and document a phenomenon that they call “the new conspiracism.” Essentially, this new method to attract attention and gain followers boils down to “conspiracy without the theory.”
Traditional conspiracy theory starts with the assumption that things are not what they seem. It then seeks out supposedly “hidden” information that “explains” what the conspiracists believe “is really going on.” Of course if the hidden information cannot be found, it is often made up, but, still, there is an attempt to document the conspiratorial belief. An example of this would be the various conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination.
In the new conspiracism, the documentation is left out. Instead of documentation, real or invented, the new conspiracism gets its validation through frequent repetition. (Thus, Trump’s “evidence” for his assertions is simply “a lot of people are saying”).
The new conspiracism — all accusation, no evidence — substitutes social validation for scientific validation: if a lot of people are saying it, to use Trump’s signature phrase, then it is true enough.
Muirhead and Rosenblum
You don’t have to believe it to support it
Here’s how it works. Donald Trump, or someone on Fox News, makes a ridiculous, false, claim (“largest inauguration crowd ever”) Then it is repeated many times on conservative media and social media. When the claim is challenged, the propagandists do not back down. They just call it “alternative facts” (as if that was legitimate) or they change the subject by insulting the challenger (“You’re fake news”).
An interesting twist about this process is that even Trump’s fans don’t actually have to “believe” the alternative facts. They just have to “assent to them.” This means Trump fans don’t necessarily believe what he says, but they assent to (or allow) what he says as the price of being a part of the club.
What they are assenting to is that they will not question what he says, or ask him for supporting evidence for his claims, or ever doubt his honesty.
This twisted, illogical, passive acceptance of outrageous lies and accusations (not to mention nutty, ill-informed, opinions) drives educated, rational people crazy. What rational people need to understand is that Trump fans are not only OK with angering and frustrating us, that is a big part of the attraction. They love it when Trump “sticks it to the libtards.”
Trump fans support him no matter what he says or does. They voluntarily give up any ability they may have once had to think clearly, analytically, and critically about him. They abandon mature, logical, thought and replace it with hero worship — a developmental stage more appropriate to middle childhood.
Ignorance is strength
The new conspiracism is Trump’s contribution to the polarization of America and the breakdown of public discourse fomented by Fox News since 1996. To them, logic is to be mistrusted, evidence is to be ignored, questions are to be evaded, and reality is whatever they say it is.
Claims without documentation, accusations without evidence, proposals without logic — these are nothing more than immature fantasies. Our government is breaking down because the people in charge are no longer dealing in facts. Effective government policy cannot be based on fantasy (witness the Federal coronavirus response under Trump).
In this upcoming election, the American people have a serious decision to make. We will either decide to reestablish the importance of truth and reality in our government, or we will accelerate the current destructive collapse of our society.
Image Note: “Ignorance is Strength” is one of the slogans of the authoritarian, mind-controlling, government in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984.
Sources: Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2019.
Mahita Gajanan, “‘What You’re Seeing … Is Not What’s Happening.’ People Are Comparing This Trump Quote to George Orwell,” Time, July 24, 2018.
I agree with what you say in this piece. I do wonder, however, if there examples taken from the left as well. Certainly, there are extremists on both sides? Crazy picks up on extremes wherever it can.
I agree with you about the examples from the left. There seems to be a certain one-sidedness in the discussion about extremes of Trump and his so-called devotees. The craziness (at least to this trying-to-be-rational person) is on at least both sides, and other fringe places.
Yeah.. and again I’m reminded of the concepts of Epistemic Bubbles (not hearing the other side) and of Echo Chambers (not trusting the other side). The current protests and marches are notable for showing that many people are both hearing and trying to be heard (I just saw the news of Romney marching with Black Lives Matter marchers in Washington DC), and that some others in Trumptopia are simply tuning out voices that say things they don’t want to hear. Too much of Nibley’s “Victoriosa Loquacitas: The Rise of Rhetoric and the Decline of Everything Else” comes to mind. “The rhetoricians business is to make an irresistable impression immediately on large numbers of people: his message must be grasped and his persuasion succeed on the first hearing- cool deliberation and the gathering of facts would be fatal for his profession. He has no choice but to pour it on.” (CWHN 10, 267). On the other hand, we have Joseph Smith saying that “truth cuts its own way.” And that reality, both in Covid-19 and the marches have been having their way with the vain rhetoric.
Well done!
But still the silence of the Church’s public sheet, the Deseret News, on these matters is deafening. If you want to know what the Church wants you to believe is safe to think you must read the Deseret News regularly!