Dec 13, 2024
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Conspiracy Theory Patterns in the Trump Era
by Doniphan Blair
Senator Joseph McCarthy (rt) and his main assistance, lawyer Roy Cohn, circa 1954 Senate hearingsPLEASE support our GoFundMe campaign to cover research expenses for our articles and rebuilding the cineSOURCE site.
WE LIVE IN A GOLDEN AGE OF
conspiracy theories, from Donald Trump's siren song about stolen election to radio host Alex Jones’s three decades of hoarse yelling about “deep state attacks” on the Twin Towers and Sandy Hook, or basketball player Kyrie Irving’s towering confusion about the shape of the earth. But are there any rules governing their propagation and can we learn to slow or stop them?
Conspiratorial conjecture can be a fun parlor game, of course, since anything not vetted by science or journalism can be labelled—or mislabeled—a conspiracy theory, and speculating about your neighbors’ or government’s secrets is innately human. Indeed, it is cousin to police work, novel writing and even science.
If storytellers keep to hypotheticals or areas where they have experience or expertise, like their communities or professions, conjecture and even allegation are normal. But when narrative leaders insinuate that far-flung claims are facts, or they try to establish the conspiracy mongers’ standard ground rules—by stating some form of “Things are not what they seem,” “Secret enemies are plotting,” and “Only I can save you,” usually in that chronology—they are expertly weaponizing people’s imaginations, a central strategy of fascism and violation of human relations.
Enshrining a lie is a coup d’etat of the mind, in fact, the very opposite of the civilized values of truth and justice but also almost all tribal or warrior codes, which often start with a version of “A human’s word is their bond.” Violating that fundamental social agreement leads not only to mistrust and societal breakdown but irrationalism, scapegoating and mob rule as well as, if left to fester, mass psychosis and, inevitably, mass murder.
Conspiracy theories have been with us since Socrates warned against politicians acting like sweet shop proprietors who provide what people want to hear. In addition to their ancient provenance, such subterfuges are inherently modern, and always accelerate after leaps in communications technology, when early adopters can take full advantage. After the invention of the printing press, Protestant fanatics initiated centuries of witch hunting. After the 18th century success of the newspaper and novel, pseudo-historians exploited their tropes to report that a handful of liberal Germans, who called themselves the Illuminati, organized and managed the French Revolution, a conspiracy theory which 15% of American voters still believe, according to a 2019 Business Insider poll.
Also still with us are “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which was concocted in 1903 by the Russian secret police but elevated to a core belief by Nazis exploiting the new technology of radio. Hitler listed his conspiracist rules in “Mein Kampf” (1925), notably the “big lie,” while Goebbels emphasized repetition. Also abiding the primary conspiracist dictums, Hitler insisted bourgeoise reality is false, Jews and communists are plotting, and he’s Germany’s savior, but his magnum opus was: lie so large average folk simply can’t fathom you’re prevaricating.
“Agitations” was an old term for conspiracy theories revived by German scholars of the Frankfurt School, who fled the Nazis to Chicago, to describe the accusations of American populists, like the isolationist and antisemitic Nazi-sympathizer Father Charles Coughlin. In the 1950s, the CIA adopted “active measures,” a pro-active conspiracism popular among intelligence agencies, especially Soviet, which involved sneaking theories or alternative worldviews into regular media or culture.
The Soviet’s great active measures achievement was feeding false reports about AIDS being a CIA bio-weapon to kill people of color to Indian and Italian newspapers, from where they eventually spread. The CIA’s: publishing a subtly anti-Soviet Russian novel, “Doctor Zhivago”, and placing copies where they would be found by Soviet diplomats and artists visiting Europe, which turned it into a bestseller both at home and in the West, not to mention a Nobel Prize for its author, Boris Pasternak.
Modern American conspiracism arrived with Coughlin, whose weekly radio show had 16 million devoted listeners, but he was dwarfed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, who eventually used the new medium of television, although the camera didn't love him. McCarthy fomented four years of fearmongering with his claim that “Communists are out to destroy us and are hiding everywhere,” including throughout the U.S. Army. He even went so far as to accuse the revered General George Marshall, a consummate application of the big lie theory, which he mastered studying “Mein Kampf.”
McCarthy’s fellow Republicans had the backbone to terminated his reign of terror in 1954, and he duly drank himself to death. But his methods were continued by his assistant, Roy Cohn, although they disagreed on some CT law. The under-educated, small-town McCarthy, also an avid gambler and morphine addict, felt that to fully establish a theory one had to first convince oneself. The highly educated and cynical Cohn rejected that, maintaining that the master conspiracist should only roleplay belief, in order to adjust the theory as needed but also avoid losing touch with reality.
There have been many conspiracist movements since the McCarthy Era, from the moon landing hoax and Satanic Panic in 1980s to the 9/11 “Truthers” and today’s QAnon, which remains popular, even though its anonymous leader largely stopped communicating after acknowledging Trump lost the 2020 election. The most successful conspiracy theory in American history, however, is the election rigging claim and anti-deep state movement started and led by Trump.
Trump’s expertise derives directly from Cohn, who came to serve as counsel for high society New York figures and Mafia dons, but also as a corrupt fixer, expert at bribing judges and placing or squashing newspaper stories. After they met in 1973, Trump became both Cohn’s client and a devoted disciple, who abided his mentor's tactics religiously: attack first or counterattack twice as hard, file endless law suits or counter suits, delay or deny outright paying debts, donate generously to politicians, and manipulate reporters like a pack of dogs, by withholding, bargaining with or gorging them on juicy gossip.
Given Cohn expertise with conspiracy theories, it is highly likely he told Trump, that if he goes into politics, start by attacking election integrity, the perfect electoral insurance policy. In 2012, Trump tweeted Barack Obama "lost the popular vote by a lot" and, four years later, denounced Ted Cruz for ballot stuffing in Iowa, while often insisting the Democrats would rob him of the election, if he won. When he actually did just that, if only through the Electoral College, instead of turning the page and becoming presidential, as so many of both parties hoped, he demonstrated his dedication to the Nazis' repetition and big lie rules by accusing the Democrats of rigging the popular vote. For emphasis as well as to prove his minions' servility, he insisted they exaggerate the size of his inauguration crowd.
In addition to his proclivity for the outright lie, Trump spouts conspiracy theories constantly, simply to see what sticks and to get an early start on the required brainwashing. An experienced showman, he is adept at roleplaying the tough politician or religious Republican, the carnival barker or friendly guy, which enabled his seduction of politicians and power brokers but also the downtrodden, in desperate need of a like-minded defender. He’s manipulated the media for over fifty years, fashioning and planting provocative stories, often breaking the bounds of believability or propriety but protected by his endless disclaimers, qualifications and innuendos as well as the First Amendment.
Indeed, his election fraud opera was a tour de force in CT propagation, starting with how he seeded the ground for years. Then he announced “Frankly, we did win this election,” on Election Day night, and achieved an apogee on December 2nd, with a speech so lie-laden even Fox News declined to air it. Viewed by millions on social media, however, it was a master class in repetitive, declarative sentences, building from minor imagination stretches to full-blown conspiracism, agitation and brainwashing, tricks he pushed even further in his 70-minute speech near the White House on January 6th. When he concluded with, “[I]f you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he triggered his minions to march off like golems and attempt America’s first coup.
Trump achieved this despite the absence of virtually any voter fraud, whatsoever—conspiracy theories usually rely on a shred or two of evidence—despite most of his associates rejecting his allegations, and despite his recent criminal indictments. As his cases go to trial, he will obviously do daily brainwashing sessions from the courthouse steps.
Indeed, Trump is heir to the Cohn and McCarthy lineage of conspiracy theory masters, and he is friends with many others: Republican trickster Roger Stone, who also studied with Cohn, Alex Jones, America’s conspiracy king, who claimed 9/11 was an inside job on the day of, and Putin, who learned active measures in the K.G.B. and applies them constantly. In fact, Trump borrows freely from their conspiracy stories and laws, although he has also developed many of his own.
“Bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity… Controversy, in short, sells,” according to his “The Art of the Deal” (1987), which actually explains why his legal jeopardy is bolstering his popularity. Having established the CT ground rules—the news is fake, we’re under attack, and only he has the inside dope and guts for truthtelling—Trump can divert the massive media coverage of his crimes to flip the script. This is a standard conspiracist technique, also called mirroring, which is a hybrid of fake news, the big lie and active measures. Indeed, Trump’s election fraud scam was the dictionary definition of conspiracy mirroring: trying to steal the election by accusing the Democrats of stealing it.
When Trump calls Biden “crooked Joe,” or claims, “He’s the most corrupt president in our history… And this country will die if we have to go through another four years of this guy” (as he did in a September 29th fund raising video), he’s mirroring what some Democrats are saying about him. Mirroring enlists to ones side ideas already in the zeitgeist by inverting them through the principle of fake news. This allows Trump to insist all the accusations are “a partisan witch hunt” by the “Crazed Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Marxists, and Fascists,” (August 27th tweet).
As Trump and the media fan the dumpster fire of an under-indictment presidential campaign, he’s betting he can create enough chaos to drive to his ranks the Republicans who sat out 2020, Democrat-estranged minorities, leftists turned QAnon, and any of the almost one third Americans who still believe his false narrative about election fraud, according to a recent Monmouth University poll.
Trump’s media spectacle sucks the air out of the primary race, leaving opponents little airtime, a strategy he will carry to the general, although Biden’s detailed denunciation on September 28th, his first to mention Trump by name, shows he will challenge that with his own strong statements, although Trump has the advantage.
He is already attacking major American institutions, from the Constitution itself to the intelligence services, disavowing their reports, armed forces, threating General Mark Miley, or the Department of Justice, vituperatively defaming prosecutors and judges. While this may seem counterproductive, self-incriminating or catastrophic to the mainstream press, regular conservatives or even Trump’s own lawyers, it works wonders burnishing his anti-establishment credentials with disenchanted Americans.
It's the sixties all over again, in fact, but instead of civil rights activists and anti-war protestors revolting against the government, those in the street of late are Trumpers, conspiracists and white supremacists. Indeed, it is the biggest challenge to American democracy since the Civil War, as many pundits have noted, although often while neglecting to cite Trump’s advanced conspiracism, which leaves his methods and our current situation mysterious. Most people simply can’t wrap their heads around the notion that Trump is attempting to overthrow the American ethical as well as political system simply to stay out of jail and solvent.
No magic bullet or dramatic turn of events will convince Trump’s MAGA cult that he isn’t “the greatest of all presidents,” given conspiracism’s amazing ability to reverse losses through magical thinking and script flipping. Extracting his fangs from their neck will only come through time and hard-fought contests at the polls, the courts and in the streets, by security services and counter protesters. Trump’s power will eventually peter out, although he will retain one world title: history’s greatest conspiracy theorist, far exceeding his forbearer McCarthy or ally Putin, who had to launch Europe’s largest war since World War Two to establish his false narrative.
For our part, we can more strictly police truth, both in the media and CT parlor games, and understand that conspiratorial conjecture assuages trauma, inferiority complexes and father hatred, where one transfers that anger to a more palatable figure. It will require discussion and empathy not lectures and shunning, to reintegrate conspiracists into rational, rule-of-law society, unless they have committed actual crimes. We will also have to pass laws against intentionally false public pronouncements and enforce United States Code 2383, which forbids people who mount insurrections from holding office.
Posted on Nov 03, 2023 - 05:01 PM
by Doniphan Blair
Senator Joseph McCarthy (rt) and his main assistance, lawyer Roy Cohn, circa 1954 Senate hearingsWE LIVE IN A GOLDEN AGE OF
conspiracy theories, from Donald Trump's siren song about stolen election to radio host Alex Jones’s three decades of hoarse yelling about “deep state attacks” on the Twin Towers and Sandy Hook, or basketball player Kyrie Irving’s towering confusion about the shape of the earth. But are there any rules governing their propagation and can we learn to slow or stop them?
Conspiratorial conjecture can be a fun parlor game, of course, since anything not vetted by science or journalism can be labelled—or mislabeled—a conspiracy theory, and speculating about your neighbors’ or government’s secrets is innately human. Indeed, it is cousin to police work, novel writing and even science.
If storytellers keep to hypotheticals or areas where they have experience or expertise, like their communities or professions, conjecture and even allegation are normal. But when narrative leaders insinuate that far-flung claims are facts, or they try to establish the conspiracy mongers’ standard ground rules—by stating some form of “Things are not what they seem,” “Secret enemies are plotting,” and “Only I can save you,” usually in that chronology—they are expertly weaponizing people’s imaginations, a central strategy of fascism and violation of human relations.
Enshrining a lie is a coup d’etat of the mind, in fact, the very opposite of the civilized values of truth and justice but also almost all tribal or warrior codes, which often start with a version of “A human’s word is their bond.” Violating that fundamental social agreement leads not only to mistrust and societal breakdown but irrationalism, scapegoating and mob rule as well as, if left to fester, mass psychosis and, inevitably, mass murder.
Conspiracy theories have been with us since Socrates warned against politicians acting like sweet shop proprietors who provide what people want to hear. In addition to their ancient provenance, such subterfuges are inherently modern, and always accelerate after leaps in communications technology, when early adopters can take full advantage. After the invention of the printing press, Protestant fanatics initiated centuries of witch hunting. After the 18th century success of the newspaper and novel, pseudo-historians exploited their tropes to report that a handful of liberal Germans, who called themselves the Illuminati, organized and managed the French Revolution, a conspiracy theory which 15% of American voters still believe, according to a 2019 Business Insider poll.
Also still with us are “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which was concocted in 1903 by the Russian secret police but elevated to a core belief by Nazis exploiting the new technology of radio. Hitler listed his conspiracist rules in “Mein Kampf” (1925), notably the “big lie,” while Goebbels emphasized repetition. Also abiding the primary conspiracist dictums, Hitler insisted bourgeoise reality is false, Jews and communists are plotting, and he’s Germany’s savior, but his magnum opus was: lie so large average folk simply can’t fathom you’re prevaricating.
“Agitations” was an old term for conspiracy theories revived by German scholars of the Frankfurt School, who fled the Nazis to Chicago, to describe the accusations of American populists, like the isolationist and antisemitic Nazi-sympathizer Father Charles Coughlin. In the 1950s, the CIA adopted “active measures,” a pro-active conspiracism popular among intelligence agencies, especially Soviet, which involved sneaking theories or alternative worldviews into regular media or culture.
The Soviet’s great active measures achievement was feeding false reports about AIDS being a CIA bio-weapon to kill people of color to Indian and Italian newspapers, from where they eventually spread. The CIA’s: publishing a subtly anti-Soviet Russian novel, “Doctor Zhivago”, and placing copies where they would be found by Soviet diplomats and artists visiting Europe, which turned it into a bestseller both at home and in the West, not to mention a Nobel Prize for its author, Boris Pasternak.
Modern American conspiracism arrived with Coughlin, whose weekly radio show had 16 million devoted listeners, but he was dwarfed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, who eventually used the new medium of television, although the camera didn't love him. McCarthy fomented four years of fearmongering with his claim that “Communists are out to destroy us and are hiding everywhere,” including throughout the U.S. Army. He even went so far as to accuse the revered General George Marshall, a consummate application of the big lie theory, which he mastered studying “Mein Kampf.”
McCarthy’s fellow Republicans had the backbone to terminated his reign of terror in 1954, and he duly drank himself to death. But his methods were continued by his assistant, Roy Cohn, although they disagreed on some CT law. The under-educated, small-town McCarthy, also an avid gambler and morphine addict, felt that to fully establish a theory one had to first convince oneself. The highly educated and cynical Cohn rejected that, maintaining that the master conspiracist should only roleplay belief, in order to adjust the theory as needed but also avoid losing touch with reality.
There have been many conspiracist movements since the McCarthy Era, from the moon landing hoax and Satanic Panic in 1980s to the 9/11 “Truthers” and today’s QAnon, which remains popular, even though its anonymous leader largely stopped communicating after acknowledging Trump lost the 2020 election. The most successful conspiracy theory in American history, however, is the election rigging claim and anti-deep state movement started and led by Trump.
Trump’s expertise derives directly from Cohn, who came to serve as counsel for high society New York figures and Mafia dons, but also as a corrupt fixer, expert at bribing judges and placing or squashing newspaper stories. After they met in 1973, Trump became both Cohn’s client and a devoted disciple, who abided his mentor's tactics religiously: attack first or counterattack twice as hard, file endless law suits or counter suits, delay or deny outright paying debts, donate generously to politicians, and manipulate reporters like a pack of dogs, by withholding, bargaining with or gorging them on juicy gossip.
Given Cohn expertise with conspiracy theories, it is highly likely he told Trump, that if he goes into politics, start by attacking election integrity, the perfect electoral insurance policy. In 2012, Trump tweeted Barack Obama "lost the popular vote by a lot" and, four years later, denounced Ted Cruz for ballot stuffing in Iowa, while often insisting the Democrats would rob him of the election, if he won. When he actually did just that, if only through the Electoral College, instead of turning the page and becoming presidential, as so many of both parties hoped, he demonstrated his dedication to the Nazis' repetition and big lie rules by accusing the Democrats of rigging the popular vote. For emphasis as well as to prove his minions' servility, he insisted they exaggerate the size of his inauguration crowd.
In addition to his proclivity for the outright lie, Trump spouts conspiracy theories constantly, simply to see what sticks and to get an early start on the required brainwashing. An experienced showman, he is adept at roleplaying the tough politician or religious Republican, the carnival barker or friendly guy, which enabled his seduction of politicians and power brokers but also the downtrodden, in desperate need of a like-minded defender. He’s manipulated the media for over fifty years, fashioning and planting provocative stories, often breaking the bounds of believability or propriety but protected by his endless disclaimers, qualifications and innuendos as well as the First Amendment.
Indeed, his election fraud opera was a tour de force in CT propagation, starting with how he seeded the ground for years. Then he announced “Frankly, we did win this election,” on Election Day night, and achieved an apogee on December 2nd, with a speech so lie-laden even Fox News declined to air it. Viewed by millions on social media, however, it was a master class in repetitive, declarative sentences, building from minor imagination stretches to full-blown conspiracism, agitation and brainwashing, tricks he pushed even further in his 70-minute speech near the White House on January 6th. When he concluded with, “[I]f you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” he triggered his minions to march off like golems and attempt America’s first coup.
Trump achieved this despite the absence of virtually any voter fraud, whatsoever—conspiracy theories usually rely on a shred or two of evidence—despite most of his associates rejecting his allegations, and despite his recent criminal indictments. As his cases go to trial, he will obviously do daily brainwashing sessions from the courthouse steps.
Indeed, Trump is heir to the Cohn and McCarthy lineage of conspiracy theory masters, and he is friends with many others: Republican trickster Roger Stone, who also studied with Cohn, Alex Jones, America’s conspiracy king, who claimed 9/11 was an inside job on the day of, and Putin, who learned active measures in the K.G.B. and applies them constantly. In fact, Trump borrows freely from their conspiracy stories and laws, although he has also developed many of his own.
“Bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity… Controversy, in short, sells,” according to his “The Art of the Deal” (1987), which actually explains why his legal jeopardy is bolstering his popularity. Having established the CT ground rules—the news is fake, we’re under attack, and only he has the inside dope and guts for truthtelling—Trump can divert the massive media coverage of his crimes to flip the script. This is a standard conspiracist technique, also called mirroring, which is a hybrid of fake news, the big lie and active measures. Indeed, Trump’s election fraud scam was the dictionary definition of conspiracy mirroring: trying to steal the election by accusing the Democrats of stealing it.
When Trump calls Biden “crooked Joe,” or claims, “He’s the most corrupt president in our history… And this country will die if we have to go through another four years of this guy” (as he did in a September 29th fund raising video), he’s mirroring what some Democrats are saying about him. Mirroring enlists to ones side ideas already in the zeitgeist by inverting them through the principle of fake news. This allows Trump to insist all the accusations are “a partisan witch hunt” by the “Crazed Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, Marxists, and Fascists,” (August 27th tweet).
As Trump and the media fan the dumpster fire of an under-indictment presidential campaign, he’s betting he can create enough chaos to drive to his ranks the Republicans who sat out 2020, Democrat-estranged minorities, leftists turned QAnon, and any of the almost one third Americans who still believe his false narrative about election fraud, according to a recent Monmouth University poll.
Trump’s media spectacle sucks the air out of the primary race, leaving opponents little airtime, a strategy he will carry to the general, although Biden’s detailed denunciation on September 28th, his first to mention Trump by name, shows he will challenge that with his own strong statements, although Trump has the advantage.
He is already attacking major American institutions, from the Constitution itself to the intelligence services, disavowing their reports, armed forces, threating General Mark Miley, or the Department of Justice, vituperatively defaming prosecutors and judges. While this may seem counterproductive, self-incriminating or catastrophic to the mainstream press, regular conservatives or even Trump’s own lawyers, it works wonders burnishing his anti-establishment credentials with disenchanted Americans.
It's the sixties all over again, in fact, but instead of civil rights activists and anti-war protestors revolting against the government, those in the street of late are Trumpers, conspiracists and white supremacists. Indeed, it is the biggest challenge to American democracy since the Civil War, as many pundits have noted, although often while neglecting to cite Trump’s advanced conspiracism, which leaves his methods and our current situation mysterious. Most people simply can’t wrap their heads around the notion that Trump is attempting to overthrow the American ethical as well as political system simply to stay out of jail and solvent.
No magic bullet or dramatic turn of events will convince Trump’s MAGA cult that he isn’t “the greatest of all presidents,” given conspiracism’s amazing ability to reverse losses through magical thinking and script flipping. Extracting his fangs from their neck will only come through time and hard-fought contests at the polls, the courts and in the streets, by security services and counter protesters. Trump’s power will eventually peter out, although he will retain one world title: history’s greatest conspiracy theorist, far exceeding his forbearer McCarthy or ally Putin, who had to launch Europe’s largest war since World War Two to establish his false narrative.
For our part, we can more strictly police truth, both in the media and CT parlor games, and understand that conspiratorial conjecture assuages trauma, inferiority complexes and father hatred, where one transfers that anger to a more palatable figure. It will require discussion and empathy not lectures and shunning, to reintegrate conspiracists into rational, rule-of-law society, unless they have committed actual crimes. We will also have to pass laws against intentionally false public pronouncements and enforce United States Code 2383, which forbids people who mount insurrections from holding office.
Posted on Nov 03, 2023 - 05:01 PM
