Birthers and Truthers and Morons, oh my!
So, are you a Republican who feels smug that you and your ideological compatriots don’t believe crazy conspiracy theories — like that 9/11 was an “inside job”? Or are you a Democrat who feels outraged that Republicans could believe something as stupid and unfounded as the idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya — and that a political and media conspiracy has kept the circumstances of the president’s birth secret from the American public for years?
Well, just take a look at the chart above — put together by Brendan Nyhan — and recognize the sad truth of modern American politics: Just about any stupid idea can find a lot of adherents, on both sides of the political aisle.
Writes Nyhan: “Even under this more stringent standard, 19% of Democrats and 28% of Republicans indicated direct support for the misperception of interest.” That’s right, 19% and 28% are just the numbers who think it’s “very likely” the conspiracy theory in question is true in each party. If you loosen the standard to include people who think the theory in question is “very likely” OR just “somewhat likely,” you get 49% of Democrats saying 9/11 was an inside job and 58% of Republicans saying Obama was born in Kenya.
(And let’s put aside the fact that even if Obama were born in Kenya he’d still most likely be eligible to be president — conspiracy theorists always have a next mental leap to keep their crazy alive.)
Where does this all come from?
Conspiracy theories, contrary to popular belief, didn’t start with the Internet. In the 1950s, the conservative movement was of course beset by the so-called “Birchers,” members of the John Birch Society who believed that the American government — up to and including Dwight Eisenhower — was just one big collection of Communist agents bent on selling out God and country to the Ruskies.
And, of course, American political history is rife with conspiracy theories. Just take a look at this neat Google timeline. Revolutionary America was virtually (and, I suppose, in a sense literally) ablaze with conspiracy theories regarding Britain’s plans to “enslave” the American colonies. In the early partisan warfare of the new republic, each side was variously convinced that the other wanted either to reinstate the British crown (John Adams supposedly wanted to do this) or to foment a French-style revolution against God and social order (that would be what Jefferson’s opponents said).
So, where do conspiracy theories come from? They come from various tics of the human mind, ranging from our need to create stories to explain scary and unpredictable events to our willingness to believe the worst of anyone not in our “group” (whether that’s partisan, religious, ethnic).
The real question, I think, is whether these things are getting better or worse in the modern age. Since we don’t have any public opinion polls from 1775, I’m not sure exactly how one would tackle the question. In a world of far less literacy, a partisan political press with little “fact checking” ability, and most information traveling by word-of-mouth, you’d have to think the conspiracy theories were more prevalent and harder to combat hundreds of years ago. At the same time, when any crazy theory (say, birtherism) can get massive coverage on all the major cable networks, spreading the “infection” to millions of people in a matter of minutes, maybe things are worse today. (And even if the reports are framed as “debunking” the conspiracy theory, we’ve seen that repeating bad information — even to correct it — can still spread the bad information.)
One other thing the polling above doesn’t get at — that I’d love to know — is how many people believe both of these conspiracy theories? While there’s certainly going to be a partisan effect, I also suspect there’s significant overlap. The conspiracy theory mindset, in many people, is its own ideology. Republican or Democrat, there’s a large portion of the population that simply believes the world is one big conspiracy — aliens, AIDS, 9/11, Obama, and American Idol. They may be right about the American Idol part.
HT: The Monkey Cage
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
Interesting graph and analysis. One of your fellow contributors to T/S has recently written a book called “The Great Derangement”, which suggests that the conspiracy theorist movements in our nation are in large part a function of The People’s collective distrust of, detachment from and abandonment by the mainstream media as well as the legislative and executive arms of Gov’t.
Bascially, people don’t know what the hell is going on and they don’t trust the media or govt, so they make up their own theories based on a plethora of clues gleaned from searching every tom, dick and harry.net, and then spend their collective energies sitting around in group meetings discussing what it means to have taken “the red pill”.
While these enlightened souls are ‘fighting the good fight’, corporate interests (i.e. the top 1% income distribution of the country) are greasing up our duly elected lawmakers to plunder the federal budget, tinker with Fed Regs and find new ways to make “naked corruption” a concept that doesn’t even elicit suprise from a Mormon school teacher.
But there is hope. In this internet age, when independant journalists who are NOT shills for corporate conglomerates can report Truth that can go around the world 7 times in one second, maybe it will start to catch on?
[...] Line of the Day Posted on 2009/08/10 by mmwm “So, where do conspiracy theories come from? They come from various tics of the human mind, ranging from our need to create stories to explain scary and unpredictable events to our willingness to believe the worst of anyone not in our ‘group’ (whether that’s partisan, religious, ethnic).” – Ryan Sager at Neuroworld: “Birthers and Truthers and Morons, oh my!” [...]
Given that I’m British I’m probably only saying this because I want to make America a colony again, tax you without representation, and force you all to drink tea, but -
Conspiracy theories do seem to be more common in America than in European countries. I suspect this is because America is just so big. One of the great things about America is its diversity, but this diversity means that there are lots of groups of people who don’t really know each other very well. Roughly speaking, these groups correspond to different waves of immigration. When you share your country with people who you don’t know all that well, and whose interests may seem to differ from yours, it must be easy to start thinking weird things about some of them.
The classic article about this, Richard Hofstadter’s The Paranoid Style in American Politics, concluded -
“The paranoid style is not confined to our own country and time; it is an international phenomenon…. But certain religious traditions, certain social structures and national inheritances, certain historical catastrophes or frustrations may be conducive to the release of such psychic energies, and to situations in which they can more readily be built into mass movements or political parties. In American experience ethnic and religious conflict have plainly been a major focus for militant and suspicious minds of this sort, but class conflicts also can mobilize such energies. Perhaps the central situation conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise.”
That graph is misleading for the reasons given in the linked article.
The link says, “16% of Americans said it was very likely and 20% said it was somewhat likely that people in the Bush administration “assisted in the 9/11 attacks OR TOOK NO ACTION TO STOP THE ATTACKS because they wanted to United States to go to war in the Middle East.” ”
(Caps mine.)
Further, the question didn’t allow an option for the motive “because they wanted to United States to go to war in the Middle East”. Consequently, I think it’s safe to say people said Yes since it WAS partially true. Can we get some clarity up in here, or does every poll have to be skewed?
[...] The rest is here: Ryan Sager – Neuroworld – Birthers and Truthers and Morons, oh my … [...]
I’m not sure the 9/11 crowd and the birthers make for a fair comparison. The birthers are racists and have appropriated the birth certificate issue from the normal run of the mill conspiracy crowd and are using the issue to rationalize their racism. It seems to me you’re ignoring the geographic issue here which I think further backs up my point.
Why is it racist to question eligibility to the white house? Not that I’m a birther or really care one way or the other, but to throw around the race card isn’t necessary here. Any other democrat with even the appearance of a questionable birth record would get the same treatment from the right, it has nothing to do with race.
In response to another comment. See in context »Cause I think birthers are racists, I think the geographic concentration of the birthers further back me up in this. The evidence is overwhelming where the president was born. There in no evidence to dispute President Obama is qualified to hold the office he now holds. In my opinion to continue to push the issue requires the type of zeal that only hatred and racism generates.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] the original: Ryan Sager – Neuroworld – Birthers and Truthers and Morons, oh my … Tags: a-next-mental, aside-the-fact, Headline, times-ryan [...]
Mr. Sager,
There is a little bit of the paranoid in all of us of course so naturally there is a long history of conspiracy theories about just about anything. However the wide growth an acceptance of conspiracy theories is a post Vietnam / Watergate effect. There were real conspiracies to get us into wars, other throw foreign governments, cover-up of crimes, assassinate heads of state, wiretapping of opposition groups, &c that came to light. If we know that there in fact real conspiracies hatched by the government in the past, why not new ones now? There was clearly a conspiracy to get the US into a war in Iraq when no threat existed. It is the existence of real conspiracies that ultimately is the fertile ground for this imaginary conspiracies to sprout.
There is no question that there could very well be secret cabals planning devious conspiracies with the aim to do God-knows-whatever. However, my dear friend, the most egregious, sinister, hideous crimes committed against the American People happen everyday, right in the open (or behind the closed doors of a congressional committee).
While X% of the population is expending it’s considerable collective resources chasing what might be happening, another regulation protecting forests is abolished, another earmark giving billions to insurance companies is being quietly slipped into an “earmark free” bill, another law is passed that exacerbates the credit card companies predatory lending practices. we could go on and on all day.
If all the current convention-going-website-constructing conspiracy theorists in this country united as one voice and marched Washington and said “We’re not playing anymore, throw the bums out!”, then i would wake up and wish it weren’t just a dream.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] On: Birthers and Truthers and Morons, oh my! [...]
[...] True/Slant | “Where do conspiracy theories come from? They come from various tics of the human mind, ranging from our need to create stories to explain scary and unpredictable events to our willingness to believe the worst of anyone not in our “group” (whether that’s partisan, religious, ethnic). The real question, I think, is whether these things are getting better or worse in the modern age.” [...]
[...] all birthers believe President Obama was born in Kenya? Well, maybe a few believe this: According to Public [...]
[...] So, maybe you’re wondering who would win the all-important “Birther Primary” in the Republican Party — remember, 58% of Republicans believe it’s at least “somewhat likely” President Obama is a Co…. [...]