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GOP -- The Party of Conspiracy Theorists

Xelor

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Part I of II





Why is it so much of the rhetoric coming from Republicans is one or another form of conspiracy theory?

Come the hell on. Every time a Republican doesn't get their way, or encounters opposition, there follows a tide of recriminations about it being due to a conspiracy of some sort.


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This is where "peanut gallery" readers can stop; the rest of the OP isn't written for your consumption.
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As Samuel Clemens used to say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme, and this is the case among conspiracy voters among the GOP. If one's ever studied American history, however, one knows the 19th century equivalent of InfoWars had its own political party, and the GOP’s anti-immigrant stance mirrors the 1850’s Know Nothings. Truly, however, we don’t have to revisit the 1800s, a time when presidential candidates acted like, well, Trump, only to have their nastiness kindly glossed over by textbooks, to find the influence of angry conspiracy theorists on a major political party. Even within Mitt Romney’s base in 2012 one sees the influence of conspiracy theory pundits like Alex Jones unmistakably imprinted on the 2012 GOP platform.

The Republican Party is no longer the voice of conservatives but of a cacophonous confederacy of conspiracy theorists conjoined by cabal cognition and tradition. Feeling entitled to perpetual economic and cultural supremacy, and furious that they’re no longer the only voices or people who matter, they’ve conjured myria and elaborate theories as to why, and scapegoats to blame. Evidence for this can be found in a study by The Economist based on an idea called “crank magnetism,” which is the idea that conspiracy theories are like potato chips; you can’t have just one. Having verged into Tinfoil Land, one's more likely to cotton to other conspiracy theories; thus it’s akin to measure of one's susceptibility to conspiratorial ideation.

Many modern Republican bugaboos are borrowed from the paranoid screeds of the John Birch Society, which saw communist spies and traitors around every corner and under every bed. For more than half a century, the right has whipped up its voters and ideological sympathizers into a fervor by siccing them on their friends, neighbors, and families. Conspiracies now saturate the very fabric of GOP-ism.

As a result, the GOP base has become home to intuitionists. Instead of going by evidence and hard logic, they tend, abetted by the aforementioned long history of conspiracy-mongering by their favorite media, to abductivey navigate important issues, blighting family holidays with bigoted, paranoid, authoritarian rants, attacking their friends and families as America-hating traitors. This is why they disdain basic norms, believing it ridiculous to be polite to the cultural equivalent of enemy combatants and that those norms are just another conspiracy to silence them.

We witnessed the disdain for facts writ large at the GOP Convention. Journalists and fact checkers went hoarse correcting speech after speech which described the exact opposite of every data point collected by government and industry to no avail. Even if the data clearly contradicted literally everything they said, it felt true and therefore, was, GOP talking heads and party bigwigs said to incredulous reporters when asked for comment during their multi-day coronation of Donald Trump as the GOP Messiah.

(continued due to character limit)
 
Part II of II

Far from being a charismatic aberration to the GOP, Trump is the party base distilled into one person. Older. White. Paranoid. Frightened by uncomprehended change and patronizingly dismissive of actual experts who get it. Nursing countless grudges. Like his ardent base, he lives in a world of a collapsing U.S. with borders overrun by cartels, gangs, and terrorists, foreigners stealing all the jobs, Europe made into Saudi Arabia by secret al Qaeda and ISIS cells posing as refugees and creating no-go zones, immigrants imported en masse to vote for an Illuminati takeover of America, and erasing the nation’s white population.

But commoners don't conjure that crap; it comes from commentators who, like Trump, capitalize on selling ideas to the people so incapable of explaining why their opinions find not universal approval that they turn to conspiracy theories rather than face being wrong. And that’s really what, IMO, it all comes down to. Conspiracy theories make people feel privy to secret knowledge “the sheeple” lack and precent the distress borne of having to alter one’s view by letting the believers say “I’m not wrong, it’s a lie perpetuated by a conspiracy against people like me!” Worse, a conspiracy theory gives its adherents an easy set of targets to blame for all their problems instead of having to navigate the slaty intricacies of ethics, law and economics.

Instead of being an impotent working stiff against the far too often greedy and reckless global elites who indirectly dictate one's fate and who have, over the past three decades, carefully created an all but uncrossable inequality chasm, conspiracy theory arms one with "the truth" to bring them all down in a burst of public rage and fury. Trump’s supporters thus find their bogeyman in minorities, SJWs, just as Know Nothings found it in Catholics and Irish immigrants, and -- abjuring Gowdin -- as Nazi Party faithful found it in Jews and Marxists.

This false simplicity coupled with the lack of having to reevaluate one’s views is a compelling message sold by countless "Alex Joneses" since the invention of mass media. We’re just more aware of it today because we’ve pretty much perfected mass media delivery. Conspiracy voters are not the new, catastrophic, democracy-eroding menace pundits present them to be; they’ve been with us since the advent of democratic nations, and while scandalous, bigotry-spewing politicians like Trump and Berlusconi are treated as some bizarre anomaly, they’re nothing new to history. They’re just parts of history that rhyme. That said, the conspiracy vote also encouraged witch hunts, war, and economic malaise as populist rage pursued its bogeymen instead of fixing real problems, so merely dismissing them as a historical recurrence and leaving it at that is every bit as much of a disservice as treating them like a fifth horseman of the apocalypse.

Unsurprisingly, neurology and political science research has found that extreme conservatism tends to lead to such views. Those who identify as more conservative tend to have a larger amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for processing fear and threat response. This tangentially corroborates what political scientist Oliver lays out in Enchanted America, that conservatism tends to be a more apprehensive belief system, drawing heavily on fears of threat. He also notes that intuitionists often tend to come from more conservative homes and have more authoritarian dispositions.


End of opening post.
 
That's all well and fine, but in the past couple of years, the Left has been fraught with conspiracy theories -- it seems as if they'll cling to any tale, no matter how far-fetched, as long as it shows Trump (or the GOP) in a bad light.

So -- #rightbackatcha.
 
That's all well and fine, but in the past couple of years, the Left has been fraught with conspiracy theories -- it seems as if they'll cling to any tale, no matter how far-fetched, as long as it shows Trump (or the GOP) in a bad light.

So -- #rightbackatcha.

The Left have their kooks, but is there really an Alex Jones equivalent on the Left? What president has called in to a CT kook's radio show the day after getting elected besides Trump?
 
That's all well and fine, but in the past couple of years, the Left has been fraught with conspiracy theories -- it seems as if they'll cling to any tale, no matter how far-fetched, as long as it shows Trump (or the GOP) in a bad light.

So -- #rightbackatcha.

If you want to write an OP to create a thread for discussing the Left's conspiracy theorizing, by all means do so. This thread is for discussing the GOP's predilection for conspiracy theory.
 
That's all well and fine, but in the past couple of years, the Left has been fraught with conspiracy theories -- it seems as if they'll cling to any tale, no matter how far-fetched, as long as it shows Trump (or the GOP) in a bad light.

So -- #rightbackatcha.

Exactly. We have been right in the middle of the biggest CT in history--Trump collusion with Russia. So for the left to criticize the right for conspiracy theories is just comical. Then you have a guy in charge of both the Clinton and Trump investigations so rife with bias and partisan hatred that he has to be removed from his position by Mueller and the left sees nothing.
 
Rep. Raskin used his five minutes wonderfully. He was great. I love the "idiot surrounded by clowns" quote to describe Trump and his suck-ups.
 
The Left have their kooks, but is there really an Alex Jones equivalent on the Left? What president has called in to a CT kook's radio show the day after getting elected besides Trump?

Splitting hairs.

While Jones has a devoted audience, the Left is full of kooks such as Michael Moore, Olberman, Colbert,and Krugman, and the things that come out of their mouths can be nearly as bad.

The difference, to my mind, is that while Jones is a known kook to the majority of Conservatives, the ones I listed are often thought of as "mainstream" by a large part of the Left. That's where the problem lies. The Left is quick to buy into their conspiracies, while the majority of conservatives roll their eyes at Jones.
 
If you want to write an OP to create a thread for discussing the Left's conspiracy theorizing, by all means do so. This thread is for discussing the GOP's predilection for conspiracy theory.

In order to put the Right's predilection for conspiracy in its correct perspective, one has to compare it to other similar groups' tendencies to fall into the CT trap. Once you understand that the Left is even more conspiracy-oriented than the Right, the OP takes on a more truthful feel.

Why start a thread at all if you're afraid of discussing its merit?
 
Exactly. We have been right in the middle of the biggest CT in history--Trump collusion with Russia. So for the left to criticize the right for conspiracy theories is just comical. Then you have a guy in charge of both the Clinton and Trump investigations so rife with bias and partisan hatred that he has to be removed from his position by Mueller and the left sees nothing.

Absolutely. It's been crazy.

From golden showers to innuendo of attraction for his daughter, to the idea that he is really working for Putin -- the Left is out-of-control with their conspiracies.

At first, I wondered why all the tin foil in the grocery was sold out, and then it dawned on me -- the Left bought it up for their hats.
 
I don't know who this Raskin fellow is but I'm glad he just bitch slapped Trump & his GOP Nazi enablers :lamo ...........

let's not forget about the 'birther' **** from Trumpolio ............
 
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Exactly. We have been right in the middle of the biggest CT in history--Trump collusion with Russia. So for the left to criticize the right for conspiracy theories is just comical. Then you have a guy in charge of both the Clinton and Trump investigations so rife with bias and partisan hatred that he has to be removed from his position by Mueller and the left sees nothing.

So, you obviously don't desire Mueller's investigation to be completed, nor for a report to be issued at the conclusion of said investigation?
 
Why do you call it CP? Why not just call it what it is? Hyper partisan, power hungry politicians. Oh, and they are on both sides.
 
Off Topic:
That's all well and fine, but in the past couple of years, the Left has been fraught with conspiracy theories -- it seems as if they'll cling to any tale, no matter how far-fetched, as long as it shows Trump (or the GOP) in a bad light.
So -- #rightbackatcha.

If you want to write an OP to create a thread for discussing the Left's conspiracy theorizing, by all means do so. This thread is for discussing the GOP's predilection for conspiracy theory.
In order to put the Right's predilection for conspiracy in its correct perspective, one has to compare it to other similar groups' tendencies to fall into the CT trap. Once you understand that the Left is even more conspiracy-oriented than the Right, the OP takes on a more truthful feel.

Why start a thread at all if you're afraid of discussing its merit?

Merit, like truth, is an existential quality a thing, a person, a place has on its own.

Does one only know that accurately answering 5 of 10 questions is a poor performance because someone else accurately answers more than five? No. Does a man only discern that "this" woman is beautiful because he's before or simultaneously seen another woman? No. Is a joke funny to oneself only because other jokes aren't, or because everyone else laughs at it? No.

One either thinks the notions I expressed in my OP have merit in other own right or one thinks they haven't any because they materially mischaracterize something or someone. What Democrats do have nothing to do with that, for obvious reasons:​

GOP conspiracy theorists and their notions either have qualities and etiologies I described in my OP, or they don't. If one thinks they don't -- wholly or partially -- then do share how so it is one thinks they do not. If one thinks they do, then amplify or expound on the notions I started. If one hasn't a clue either way, fine, keep mum. Whichever tack one takes calls for nothing more than having a bit of discursive and personal integrity.

One who insists upon viewing the world, people, ideas through the lens of comparison are doomed for they must view themselves through the same lens. That's frigging pathetic; it makes such a person's own value on a relative thing. Nobody gets ahead by concerning themselves with how they look in comparison. One gets ahead by striving for standards -- moral, ethical, behavioral, intellectual, etc. -- and meeting or surpassing them, not by being marginally better (or worse) that some other person or group that too meet or best the standard.​
 
Absolutely. It's been crazy.

From golden showers to innuendo of attraction for his daughter, to the idea that he is really working for Putin -- the Left is out-of-control with their conspiracies.

At first, I wondered why all the tin foil in the grocery was sold out, and then it dawned on me -- the Left bought it up for their hats.

When seagulls follow the trawler it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Hahahaha.
 
Splitting hairs.

While Jones has a devoted audience, the Left is full of kooks such as Michael Moore, Olberman, Colbert,and Krugman, and the things that come out of their mouths can be nearly as bad.

No, not even close.
 
I worry about the United States. It seems like politics in the US has gone off the deep end. Was there ever a time when political differences were embraced?
US politics has always seemd to be disfunctional. I remember reading about William Jennings Bryant and the politics of his day seemed to be ...well, the clinical term is 'nuts.' However, compared to the last 20 years, it seems mild. Democracy cannot endure for any length of time when people with opposing views, not only don't respect each other on a personal level, but actually start to hate each other.
There seems to be a movement in the US towards self-destruction. Diplomacy, international relations, domestic relations are all in danger. Is there any way of the nation stepping back and re-calibrating its individual and collective relationships?
 
In order to put the Right's predilection for conspiracy in its correct perspective, one has to compare it to other similar groups' tendencies to fall into the CT trap. Once you understand that the Left is even more conspiracy-oriented than the Right, the OP takes on a more truthful feel.

Why start a thread at all if you're afraid of discussing its merit?

Once you understand that the Left is even more conspiracy-oriented than the Right

I'm sure you are ready to prove that assertion. I haven't engaged in CT kook counting so I await your data. Something like Cernovich->Jones->nut takes AR15 and shoots up a pizza place?
Or : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knoxville_Unitarian_Universalist_church_shooting

Colbert is a comedian, so he doesn't count. I know the others you listed can say some whacky things, but nothing more that Coulter-esque from what I've seen. I probably missed it since I don't watch any of them these days.

I'll wait.
 
I worry about the United States. It seems like politics in the US has gone off the deep end. Was there ever a time when political differences were embraced?
Not really, no. Maybe for a brief period during WWII.

I just finished a book on the 1800 election. Even then, the nation was thoroughly divided, and people were up in arms over the meaning of the Constitution, and how to handle critical issues such as the French interfering with international commerce. There was even talk of taking up arms to break the deadlock between Jefferson, Adams and Burr.

Things really only became unworkable during the Civil War. Despite the hysterics of the media (on all sides), we're nowhere near that. And back then as today, most people are just sippin' tea and going about their business.


There seems to be a movement in the US towards self-destruction. Diplomacy, international relations, domestic relations are all in danger. Is there any way of the nation stepping back and re-calibrating its individual and collective relationships?
Meh, most of that is social and commercial media hype. Bad news sells.

The US has dealt with populists and civil strife and moral panics before. They can get ugly, but it's also possible to recover. From what I can tell, the US today is nothing like it was even in the late 1960s, when riots swept the nation and there were (literally) armed insurgencies trying to overthrow the government and capitalism alike.

Meanwhile, even though lots of people are under economic strain, it still is the case that unemployment is low; credit is easy; material goods are abundant and cheap; you can travel almost anywhere in the world in safety; the world is more connected and easier to travel than ever before; Americans are insanely wealthy by most standards. I'd also say that most Americans are not caught up in the hype, they are just living their lives and treating their neighbors the same as ever.

It's easy to lose perspective when all you're hearing is the negatives.
 
Not really, no. Maybe for a brief period during WWII.

The US has dealt with populists and civil strife and moral panics before. They can get ugly, but it's also possible to recover. From what I can tell, the US today is nothing like it was even in the late 1960s, when riots swept the nation and there were (literally) armed insurgencies trying to overthrow the government and capitalism alike.

Meanwhile, even though lots of people are under economic strain, it still is the case that unemployment is low; credit is easy; material goods are abundant and cheap; you can travel almost anywhere in the world in safety; the world is more connected and easier to travel than ever before; Americans are insanely wealthy by most standards. I'd also say that most Americans are not caught up in the hype, they are just living their lives and treating their neighbors the same as ever.

It's easy to lose perspective when all you're hearing is the negatives.

I have to say, that is reassuring. You are right. I remember the riots etc in the 1960's. In Canada, of course we are facing the ripples caused by trade uncertainty and that does tend to magnify things.
 
Splitting hairs.

While Jones has a devoted audience, the Left is full of kooks such as Michael Moore, Olberman, Colbert,and Krugman, and the things that come out of their mouths can be nearly as bad.

The difference, to my mind, is that while Jones is a known kook to the majority of Conservatives, the ones I listed are often thought of as "mainstream" by a large part of the Left. That's where the problem lies. The Left is quick to buy into their conspiracies, while the majority of conservatives roll their eyes at Jones.

How da **** are Colbert and Krigman on that list.

Edit: to clarify something, none that you listed are anythink like Alex Jones. Alex Jobes is entertainment for weirdos with tinfoil hats. Whats sad is those conspiracies are mainstream with Republicans
 
Part I of II





Why is it so much of the rhetoric coming from Republicans is one or another form of conspiracy theory?

Come the hell on. Every time a Republican doesn't get their way, or encounters opposition, there follows a tide of recriminations about it being due to a conspiracy of some sort.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is where "peanut gallery" readers can stop; the rest of the OP isn't written for your consumption.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------​


As Samuel Clemens used to say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme, and this is the case among conspiracy voters among the GOP. If one's ever studied American history, however, one knows the 19th century equivalent of InfoWars had its own political party, and the GOP’s anti-immigrant stance mirrors the 1850’s Know Nothings. Truly, however, we don’t have to revisit the 1800s, a time when presidential candidates acted like, well, Trump, only to have their nastiness kindly glossed over by textbooks, to find the influence of angry conspiracy theorists on a major political party. Even within Mitt Romney’s base in 2012 one sees the influence of conspiracy theory pundits like Alex Jones unmistakably imprinted on the 2012 GOP platform.

The Republican Party is no longer the voice of conservatives but of a cacophonous confederacy of conspiracy theorists conjoined by cabal cognition and tradition. Feeling entitled to perpetual economic and cultural supremacy, and furious that they’re no longer the only voices or people who matter, they’ve conjured myria and elaborate theories as to why, and scapegoats to blame. Evidence for this can be found in a study by The Economist based on an idea called “crank magnetism,” which is the idea that conspiracy theories are like potato chips; you can’t have just one. Having verged into Tinfoil Land, one's more likely to cotton to other conspiracy theories; thus it’s akin to measure of one's susceptibility to conspiratorial ideation.

Many modern Republican bugaboos are borrowed from the paranoid screeds of the John Birch Society, which saw communist spies and traitors around every corner and under every bed. For more than half a century, the right has whipped up its voters and ideological sympathizers into a fervor by siccing them on their friends, neighbors, and families. Conspiracies now saturate the very fabric of GOP-ism.

As a result, the GOP base has become home to intuitionists. Instead of going by evidence and hard logic, they tend, abetted by the aforementioned long history of conspiracy-mongering by their favorite media, to abductivey navigate important issues, blighting family holidays with bigoted, paranoid, authoritarian rants, attacking their friends and families as America-hating traitors. This is why they disdain basic norms, believing it ridiculous to be polite to the cultural equivalent of enemy combatants and that those norms are just another conspiracy to silence them.

We witnessed the disdain for facts writ large at the GOP Convention. Journalists and fact checkers went hoarse correcting speech after speech which described the exact opposite of every data point collected by government and industry to no avail. Even if the data clearly contradicted literally everything they said, it felt true and therefore, was, GOP talking heads and party bigwigs said to incredulous reporters when asked for comment during their multi-day coronation of Donald Trump as the GOP Messiah.

(continued due to character limit)


Keep in mind Trump used the Obama BC conspiracy as a springboard to his annoucement to run as President. Trump appeals to a certain uneducated portion of the electorate.
 
How da **** are Colbert and Krigman on that list.

Edit: to clarify something, none that you listed are anythink like Alex Jones. Alex Jobes is entertainment for weirdos with tinfoil hats. Whats sad is those conspiracies are mainstream with Republicans

If you do not understand the flip side of the coin, odds are -- you're one of the inundated ones.
 
The Left have their kooks, but is there really an Alex Jones equivalent on the Left? What president has called in to a CT kook's radio show the day after getting elected besides Trump?

Do they need an Alex Jones? Seems a strange measure of conspiracy theory. They are the anti-vax, anti-GMO, Truther party... is that not sufficient? In fact, I would say that Democrats are the more successful at realizing national policy base don their base's conspiracy theories.
 
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