The Rise of Conspiracy Theories in Politics

“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” – Voltaire

I try to steer clear of politics in my writing. A lot of people who promote skepticism and critical thinking do the same. There are good evidence-based reasons for this. In a recent article in the Skeptical Inquirer Timothy Redmond points out that party affiliation plays a significant role in whether we accept or reject scientific findings. He recommends that we resist the temptation to call out political party representatives as anti-science and instead focus on the science itself. It is a good idea. But it just got much harder to put into practice. We have just passed a cultural rubicon of sorts. One where the most fringe conspiracy theorists out there, the ones who normally wouldn’t have any influence outside of a flat-earth conference, are literally going to run the country. I don’t think we have a model for how to talk about this situation without talking about politics. There is no avoiding it.

The reality of the situation is that America just chose one of the most prolific conspiracy theorists in our history to run the country. In case you haven’t been tuned into the incoming president’s love of such things, here is a snapshot of just a few of the ideas he has promoted:

• That climate change is a hoax made up by China to hurt the US
• That people could treat COVID-19 with injected disinfectant or hydroxychloroquine
• That wind turbines cause cancer
• That vaccines cause autism
• That immigrants are eating people’s pets
• That people of color are being brought into the country to replace “real Americans”
• That Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of JFK
• That a TV morning show host that he disliked was secretly a murderer
• That President Biden was trying to kill him
• That Bin Laden is alive, and together with Obama, killed Seal Team 6
• That the Prime Minister of Canada is secretly the son of Fidel Castro
• That the dangers of asbestos are a mob-created hoax

And those are just a handful of literally dozens. Not only that, these are relatively benign when compared to the ideas promoted by the people he surrounds himself with.

Take RFK Junior, the incoming head of the Departments of Health. RFK Jr has claimed that vaccines cause autism, mass shootings are linked to prescription drugs, that COVID-19 is a bioweapon that targets certain races while leaving others immune, and that Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates are working together to force vaccines on the public for mysterious purposes.

Or take Elon Musk, one of the world’s top misinformation super-spreaders. He has promoted the idea that George Soros is a super-villan who “hates humanity,” that Dominion Voting Systems stole votes in the 2020 election, and early in the COVID-19 pandemic he predicted that cases would would go to zero by the end of April 2020. It went on to kill over a million people in the US. When it became clear just how bad the virus was, Musk turned to the idea that somehow Anthony Fauci was responsible for engineering it. And I won’t even go into all of the petty conspiracy theories he spread about people who dared to disagree with him online.

And these two characters are just scratching the surface. Surrounding our new president are myriad grifters, con-artists, and prosperity gospel televangelists, what I call a Coalition of Conspiracy Theorists, who now have a realistic shot at shaping American laws and culture for a generation to come. Many of these people will be put in positions of power throughout our government and put in charge of vast budgets with the potential to impact all of our lives. They believe things like 9/11 was an inside job, that mass shootings are staged, and that the Earth is flat. Clearly, these are not people who respect science and critical thinking. People who do value those things need to speak out forcefully and clearly against these ideas, otherwise we risk normalizing them. And the reality is that there is no way to do this without getting political.

The results of this election feel discouraging for those of us who work to promote critical thinking. It would appear that the voters took a look at these conspiracy theories, shrugged their shoulders, and decided that they don’t really matter. In essence, that the truth doesn’t matter. But it does matter. And in the years ahead, as misinformation becomes a greater problem, it will matter even more. This is not a time to to stay above politics, because the conspiracy theories and hoaxes will no longer be coming from the fringes of internet; they will be coming from the centers of power in politics.

That old phrase “speak truth to power” might sound cliché but it is about to be more apt than ever.