Why Do People Believe in Conspiracy Theories?
If there is one thread which continues to flow through discussions about how and why Donald Trump was first elected and then unelected as President of the United States, it’ the degree to which he used (and continues to use) conspiracy theories to both justify what he did and to explain what was done to him.
Trump claims he won the 2016 election by unleashing a national movement — MAGA — which was based on the idea that the country needed to be ‘taken back’ from a sinister and secret cabal of internationalist agents ensconced deep within the nooks and crannies of something called the Deep State.
These same forces, who viewed Trump as a threat to their long-held monopoly over government authority then launched a four-year campaign to deny his election, beginning with the Russian ‘hoax’ and ending with an impeachment based on nothing more than a ‘correct’ telephone call made to another head of state.
When those efforts failed, Trump’s underground enemies put together a national operation that stole the 2020 election by consciously mis-counting ballots in several key battleground states. And the Deep State cabal was so powerful and so entrenched that it was even able to make the Supreme Court do its bidding even with three new justices who owed their appointments to Trump.
The media tells us that as many as 75% of Republicans still believe that the election was stolen from Trump, even though there has yet to be the slightest indication that the ‘steal’ narrative has any truth behind it at all. I suspect that many of the respondents to those surveys are simply venting their anger or frustration over the fact that their guy lost, and the other guy won. I also do not believe that the ‘stop the steal’ chorus represents quite the threat to our electoral procedures as the liberal pundits would like us to believe.
Nevertheless, the fact that Trump was able to inject this ‘stolen election’ narrative into the political debate and maintain it for now what is more than eight months since the election took place, at least raises the question as to why some conspiracy theories gain and maintain such strength.
When William Shirer returned to Berlin in 1934, the first thing he did was to attend several Nazi rallies where Hitler spoke to enthusiastic crowds. Shirer describes these rallies in his remarkable book, The Nightmare Years, 1930–1940. What struck him immediately about these rallies was the degree to which virtually everything that Hitler said always came back to him — his intelligence, his strength, his achievements. Along with an unending recitation of his belief in himself, Hitler’s speeches were also concocted out of endless lies, in particular the Big Lie about how all of German’s problems were because of the Communists and the Jews.
But what Shirer found most interesting and disconcerting about these rallies was how the audience seemingly believed every word that Hitler said. How did an entire country support a conspiracy theory that was woven completely out of whole cloth? How could a military defeat followed by economic collapse be blamed on Germany’s Jews who were largely shopkeepers, teachers, and other professional types?
But over time, as Shirer made connections with the many Germans who were not members of the SA, who didn’t attend the Nazi rallies, who seemed for the most part largely unaware of how Hitler had dismantled the institutions of Weimar government after 1933, he discovered a profound truth. Which was that for the average German, politics was something that existed on the periphery of their daily lives. What mattered to most people was staying healthy, getting to work, earning enough money to pay the rest and other necessities, mundane things like that.
If anything, the one issue which drew the attention of the average German resident to Hitler was his bellicosity about foreign affairs. If Hitler wasn’t going to start another war, it was obvious that he was looking for a good fight beyond the borders of the Reich. And aside from some of the military people, Shirer could find hardly anyone who wanted Germany to get back onto a war footing.
Now let’s compare Hitler’s conspiracy theory to the conspiracies that have been Trump’s stock in trade. Both Hitler and Trump sold the idea that the country needed to be saved from a secret cabal that was intent on destroying the values and traditions of the national state. Both Hitler and Trump divided the country into ‘good’ people and ‘bad’ people, in the case of Hitler the division was based on religion, in the case of Trump it was based on race.
But there was one fundamental difference between how Hitler’s used conspiracy theories as opposed to how conspiracy theories were used by Trump. In the case of Hitler, conspiracy theories allowed him to promote a government policy that saw Germany expanding its hegemony over the rest of Europe both to the East and the West. Trump, on the other hand, was exceedingly timid when it came to America’s presence in international affairs.
Trump had absolutely no plan to increase America’s strength or power beyond our shores. His entire use of conspiracy theories was to promote a plan to remake the GOP into a national MAGA party which would allow him to maintain his presence, influence, and brand even after his second term ended in 2024.
I don’t believe it ever occurred to Trump that the crazies who ran up the steps of the Capitol on January 6th would actually try to break into the building, threaten sitting legislators and otherwise commit mayhem on such a scale. But what could it hurt for the international TV audience to see hundreds of MAGA flags flying around?
Remember — Trump owns the MAGA brand. Could you imagine how much money he would make if the MAGA acronym replaced GOP?
If the January 6th Commission does anything at all, I hope they will recommend a law which prohibits public officials from earning a dime from any kind of political activity at all. Want to run for office? Fine. Go out and ask people to donate to your campaign. But get them to buy a baseball with your name on it and pocket the change? Nope.
Am I taking Trump too lightly in terms of whether or not he represents a threat? Maybe the idiots who ran up the Capital steps on January 6th thought they were taking over the government, but I agree with Joe who said that if you want to go to battle gains the USA, bring your F-15.
