Weaponising Fear: The Danger of Conspiracy Theories in U.S. Politics
“In the political discussions with friends and opponents, one can hurl no greater insult than to describe another’s position as the product of a ‘conspiracy theory.’”
Mark Fenster in Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture
In the age of Covid-19 and Donald Trump, misinformation and conspiracies have flourished to a point where it is difficult to tell what is truth and what is fiction. The practice of challenging mainstream ‘truths’ was historically used by individuals and marginalised groups to counter systemic injustices. It was a tool to counteract clandestine actions taken by the government, often to highlight inappropriate involvement. One example of this is the accusation that the CIA was testing hallucinogenic drugs on U.S. citizens. This claim was proven correct after the MK/ULTRA project came to light. In this instance, ‘conspiracy’ was used as a tool to expose the malpractice of the government institution. However, the practice of exposure has been corrupted as a weapon for the elite and powerful; transforming the ‘truth’ into irrelevance as conspiracy theories become more common and intertwined, subsequently damaging political growth and non-partisanship in the United States.
Timothy Melley describes conspiracy theory as a way to ‘make sense of the inexplicable, accounting for complex events in a clear, if frightening, way’. Essentially, they help us understand difficult systems of power, and the way that some are affected by such displays (both positively and negatively). With the expansion of the internet, modern political discourse has been contaminated by political ‘Othering’: creating numerous and contradicting narratives of public opponents in an attempt to delegitimise them. It is no longer a tool to highlight the truth but a weapon to systemise paranoia and fear.
A blatant illustration of this weaponisation is the discourse used by President Trump to counter left-wing opposition. Steve Coll, a writer for The New Yorker, has pointed out Mr. Trump’s ‘[promotion of] conspiracy theories to insult personal nemeses… [like] when he tweeted baseless speculation about the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough’s connection to the “unsolved mystery” of an intern’s death’. President Trump chooses to label the media as ‘fake’ while continually posting anti-Black Lives Matter (BLM) propaganda of anti-fascist (ANTIFA) ‘provacateurs’ infiltrating the protests. For example, after a 75 year-old man in Buffalo was pushed to the ground by the police, the President made claims that the man was actually an ANTIFA worker attempting to ‘scan police communication’. Even though the accusation could not be verified, the real danger was in its delegitimisation of the BLM discourse. The President’s words perpetuate a level of paranoia and doubt into the well-founded protests against police brutality, instilling a level of fear in his followers, and factionalising partisanship in the U.S. further. This fear and distrust caused further violence of threats of gun violence and unjust killings of BLM protesters by far-right revolutionaries. The danger in conspiracies is not necessarily what the theory claims, but how the user manipulates the truth through them. Conspiracy theory originated as a tool for the less powerful and marginalised, giving them an opportunity to challenge their own suppression against often malicious elites. Yet, in modern U.S. politics, elites have utilised this same method to oversaturate the media with baseless claims and incessant ‘truths’, debilitating the voices of the marginalised.
On top of President Trump’s tweets and accusations, the far-right ‘big tent conspiracy theory’ QAnon has begun to radicalise and perpetuate unverifiable truths between partisanships. The anonymous group claims the existence of a global pedophile cabal actively working against Donald Trump while also operating an international sex trafficking ring. Their apocalyptic and millenarian beliefs claim there will soon be a “Storm” resulting in the mass arrests of left-wing cabalists. While many of the claims made by this anonymous group are overstretched and unproven, their danger is in the spread of misinformation and distrust. Using an online messenger platform called Telegram, they have been able to rapidly expand their support online, reaching over 200,000 followers at the moment. This spread has caused an oversaturation of relatively contradicting ‘truths’ into the media as a tool to polarise political discourse and create further paranoia around our political “reality” in the United States. QAnon does not hold power because they are necessarily factually correct, they hold power because they are challenging the current narrative in order to create doubt above anything else.
However, in 2020, President Trump is not the only generator of conspiracy in U.S. politics. The ensuing and ever-confusing mountain of conspiracy around COVID-19 has created so much paranoia and fear in the U.S. that people not only distrust one another but have deep (and just) scrutiny of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public leaders. Taking into account that COVID is a novel disease and that little is known about its evolution throughout the past year, the CDC has continuously changed guidelines so often that it has become significantly more difficult to trust their word. While previous guidelines have asked people to quarantine for 14 days after traveling across state or international borders, the push for extended quarantines has now fallen slack as the department has been unable to prove its efficacy of preventing the spread of the virus. Among this back and forth, online presences such as Pam Popper, Vernon Coleman, and Tucker Carlson have publicly challenged set guidelines in an attempt to inform the public of misguidance. In all fairness, it is difficult to pass judgement on the validity of these claims as to whether the CDC and officials are misleading the general populace or not. Yet, the exponential growth of information and conspiracy within this subject is worrying. In a time of crisis, trust in the government and its institutions is essential to keeping the peace and maintaining solidarity within a nation. The confusion of overwhelming ‘facts’ and attempts to simplify our understanding of the novel coronavirus has left us fearful of what we know and what we do not know. We have experienced the death toll of such a virus but not the long-term effects on our bodies, our mental health, and even our societal and economical functions. We do not know when ‘things will go back to normal’ or if there is a ‘normal’ to go back to. This is why fear is so dangerous when it takes the place of trust: it fosters panic and anxiety when the best thing we could do in this moment is stand in solidarity with one another. Conspiracies weaponise our fears for political gain, creating an imbalanced system perpetuating self-preservation and fear.
In U.S. politics, conspiracy theories have been used for decades, and have fought oppression and misinformation. However, in recent years, they have been weaponised to oversaturate the media and encumber political opponents. This has been done in a way that does not reveal the ‘truth’ of our reality, but rather creates an environment of fear and distrust. The Trump administration over the past 4 years has not helped to ease bipartisan tensions but has further stoked the flames of revolutionaries and radicalists. Furthermore, groups like QAnon have worked to delegitimise political opponents in order to take control of the public narrative.
Above all of this, though, the oversaturation of coronavirus information and the constant fluctuation of guidelines and regulations has left the U.S. in a hostile and paranoid purgatory. Conspiracy theories have become less of a tool and more of a weapon, damaging political non-partisanship and trust in U.S. politics.
