The Uses of "That's a Conspiracy Theory!"

The accusation of conspiracism functions as a kind of signal, marking ideas that are socially disfavoured.

The Canadian Press and the Globe and Mail recently (4 December 2023) reported that conspiracy theories are popular among conservatives, not that the establishment media disdains conservatives. I pointed out earlier this week that of the 13 “conspiracy theories” named in the CP article, only five actually named a purported conspiracy.¹ The other eight ranged from the absurd (flat earth) to the obviously true (the mainstream media is manipulative) but did not mention any conspiracies.

The only way to understand this is to interpret the charge of conspiracism as social, rather than logical or analytical: disfavoured views are being flagged, and readers are warned off. If you believe that there is a global elite, or that there were problems with the 2020 US election, or that the media manipulates information, or that COVID came from a lab in China, then you are a crank and in the same category as those who believe the earth to be flat or the moon landing a hoax. More to the point, you will be identified as a weirdo and a fool, not be taken seriously. Stop thinking critically, and shut up.

The social signal points in two directions, first of all at the reader, who is being told not to say any of these things at Christmas parties, around the water cooler, at family dinners, on social media, or in conversation with your boss: it’s just gauche. The signal also points at politicians and political parties, designating the acceptable, or in this case the unacceptable.

Which comes back to The Globe and Mail, a paper forever engaged in delineating the bounds of the acceptable, and quite informative if read in that sense. Reporting on the Republican debate moderated by Megyn Kelly, Adrian Morrow wrote:²

Mr. Ramaswamy also tried to play to the fringiest elements of Mr. Trump’s base with one rambling statement that declared his belief in numerous outlandish conspiracies.

It is strictly speaking false to say that Mr. Ramaswamy’s points were “fringy”, given that they are widely believed, but it is of course the tinfoil hat connotation that Morrow values. Mr. Ramaswamy named five supposedly “outlandish conspiracies”:

1. “That January 6 does look like an inside job”: the burden of this sentence is borne by the words “does look like”, and is reinforced by video of largely peaceful protesters, on which Julie Kelly is authoritative.³

2. “That the US government lied for 20 years about Saudi Arabia’s involvement in 9/11”: there is some evidence of this;⁴

3. “That the great replacement theory is not some grand right wing conspiracy theory, but a basic statement of the Democratic Party’s platform”, of which evidence below;

4. “That the 2020 election was indeed stolen by big tech”: both the social media suppression of the New York Post Biden laptop story and Mark Zuckerberg’s $400 million in “Zuck-bucks” reinforce this;⁵

5. “That the 2016 election, the one that Trump won for sure, was also one that was stolen from him by the national security establishment that actually put up the Trump/Russia collusion hoax that they knew was false”: this is widely known, and The Columbia Journalism Review, not in any way a fringy journal, has analyzed in some detail why the media fell for it.⁶

And whatever else may be said about him, Mr. Ramaswamy does not ramble: he has a talent for concise statement, covering much in one minute:

To be entirely fair to The Globe and Mail, alleged conspiracies numbers 1 (January 6), possibly 2 (Saudi involvement in 9/11), 4 (2020 stolen by big tech), and 5 (Trump/Russia hoax) do actually allege conspiracies. The problem is that they are far from outlandish, and some are clearly true, though socially unacceptable.

That none of these conspiracies are considered scandalous inside the beltway or by establishment newspapers tells us something about the nature of power in our society. It illustrates that most conspiracies become public, usually pretty quickly. It also shows that it doesn’t much matter if they do become public, as real power is not a function of hidden machinations, but of the public operation of hegemonic institutions, which is to say of the media, big tech, the academy, the bureaucracy, think-tanks, the institutions that shape public and more importantly elite opinion. These are the institutions capable of designating opinions as acceptable (or otherwise), and capable of designating a scandal as scandalous (or not).

Hegemonic institutions have decided that it is not so bad that the unelected permanent national security state undermined the elected president, because after all he was a threat to democracy, or so they said. The power of those institutions prevents many people, and certainly all the necessary people, from seeing the problem.

And this brings me to conspiracy number 3 above, the great replacement theory, which as Mr. Ramaswamy so rightly says is not a theory, let alone a conspiracy theory, but rather a policy. Democratic strategists write books and articles about the benefits of third-world immigration, and they are not alone. Here is the most powerful of the conspiracy theorists:

The question is how Mr. Ramaswamy’s five contentions, all somewhere between arguable and obviously true, can be dismissed as “outlandish conspiracies.” The answer is in part the chilling effect of the highly pejorative language of the accusation of conspiracism, and in part the elite social origin of the charge. And it seems to work, for now at any rate.

But this language can only be abused for so long: in time, people realize they are being lied to, and someone like Mr. Ramaswamy will appeal to their anger.

1. I also wrote sometime ago, in a more analytical vein, on conspiracy theories, here.

2. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-three-takeaways-from-the-final-republican-candidates-debate/

3. https://www.declassified.live/; and on twitter

4. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/911-hijackers-video-saudi-intelligence-official-omar-al-bayoumi/

5. https://nypost.com/2022/11/30/twitters-ex-safety-chief-admits-censoring-posts-hunter-biden-scoop-was-a-mistake/, and #TwitterFiles; on Zuckbucks, https://nypost.com/2021/10/14/zuckerberg-election-spending-was-orchestrated-to-influence-2020-vote/

6. https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php