By Jaylee Davis
Conspiracy theories related to the US government are far from a new development. Particularly noticeable in recent memory are the theories that arose in the aftermath of 9/11 -- that the attack was planned, that the news interviews were faked, or, as the popularized controversial phrase claims, that “Bush did 9/11.” The 2016 and 2020 election cycles brought about,respectively, two main conspiracies that gained enough traction from low-brow internet boards into mainstream media. One was Pizzagate; the other, QAnon. These two elaborate belief systems have had grave consequences for political discourse in America. What catalyzed the creation and popularization of these objectively absurd and easily discredited theories? How have they affected official political narratives and, in turn, injected the “alternative” and extremist into the mainstream?
In the study of conspiracy theories, clear, explicit definitions are essential. In “Understanding Conspiracy Theories,” a primer on conspiracy theories published in the Journal of Political Psychology, the authors distinguish conspiracies from conspiracy theory as such: “While a conspiracy refers to a true causal chain of events, a conspiracy theory refers to an allegation of conspiracy that may or may not be true.” The study also provides ideas for why people may want to believe in conspiracy theories, despite them being proven false. People may be inclined to believe in conspiracy theories as a need to control their security and their environment (existential), as a want for understanding and certainty about the world (epistemic), or as a desire to have a positive image of themselves or a group, such as a political party (social). All of these can be employed as frames of inquiry for understanding the conspiracy theories that have dominated the news and internet for the past two election cycles.
“While a conspiracy refers to a true causal chain of events, a conspiracy theory refers to an allegation of conspiracy that may or may not be true.”
After an email leak of Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager, John Podesta, varied internet authors purported that therein were hidden messages with sinister intentions. Theorists claimed that there was a pedophile sex-ring disguised by codes in the emails’ discussion of cuisine, surrounding mainly the Comet Ping Pong Pizza restaurant. Adherents to this conspiracy rumored that Clinton headed the pedophilic operation and that the children were trapped in the Comet Ping Pong basement. Thus stated, including several variations and addenda to that story, has been known as the Pizzagate conspiracy. This theory has been debunked from many angles, yet it continued to propagate to its frightening climax: On December 4, 2016, 28 year old Edgar Welch entered the Comet Ping Pong Pizza with an AR-15 style rifle weapon firing wildly. Welch thought of himself as executing a noble cause, liberating the supposed children in the basement from slavery and sexual abuse. There were no children or a basement to be found in the pizzeria. Although no one was injured in the attacks, it was shocking to many observing how a seemingly outlandish internet conspiracy theory could manifest in real life.
The story of QAnon followed a similar arc, which journalists have noticed. In fact, many of the underlying messages originating in Pizzagate seep into QAnon. On the infamous website 4ch*n, a poster, calling himself Q, published several posts (“prophecies”) speculating on world events, politics, and national security. Q paints himself as a military or intelligence official with Q-level security clearance, a top secret equivalent. The anonymous poster identifies mainly Democratic Party leaders and associates, like Hillary Clinton, as perpetrators of worldwide abuse and child torture. QAnon adherents believe a string of ideas connecting modern events to a “cabal” of organizations and influential people inflicting this damage through classified means. To bring these abuses to justice, they believe that there will be a “great awakening” prompted by the diffusion of the Q and the leadership of President Donald Trump to arrest and expose members of the cabal. The overall media awareness of QAnon peaked on January 6th, 2021, in the riot on the US Capitol. Q devotees were highly represented in the riot, claiming that they were achieving their conspiracy theory’s goal of toppling the establishment cabal.
These two conspiracy theories with their uncanningly similar themes and trajectories have made a significant impact on the current political atmosphere. In analyzing how these conspiracy theories developed and influenced politics, the internet, and extremism, researchers have made stark conclusions for the future. Some focus on the implications of promoting these theories using the internet media, and how the internet factors into the spread of conspiracy theories. There is debate on what exact role the internet plays in conspiracy theory dissemination. “Understanding Conspiracy Theories” presents all the opposing ideas about the way the internet influences the spread of conspiracy theories. While the internet does increase the speed of dissemination, there is no proof to deduce that it spreads conspiracy thinking. “First, in Western countries, websites with the most traffic are not devoted to conspiracy theories, and conspiracy theory websites are not highly visited,” the study reports. Instead of migrating to more populated platforms on the web, conspiracy theorists tend to remain in circles with those who agree with them: “research points to the crucial role of the Internet in fostering distinct and polarized online communities.”
While the internet does increase the speed of dissemination, there is no proof to deduce that it spreads conspiracy thinking.
Others reel in on the outcomes, political and social, related to the normalization of conspiracy theories, even in niche circles. In particular, one concern is for how these theories may open up vulnerabilities for terrorism and national security issues. The anti-government trend of right-wing conspiracy theories implicates acts of terrorism, specifically white supremacist extremism. Raffaello Pantucci and Kyler Ong in their article, “Persistence of Right Wing Violence and Extremism and Terrorism in the West,” draw these connections to QAnon: “Part of the ideology is centred around a perceived Jewish ploy to replace the white race (adherents also believe that President Trump is a heroic figure fighting a cabal of pedophilic elites) which helps explain why the conspiracy theory fits with white supremacist narratives in particular.” Pantucci and Ong argue that QAnon (and guilty by similarity, Pizzagate) recycles the same anti-Semitic, white supremacist tropes associated with extremists.
Whatever the particularities of scholarly debate may be, there is no questioning the multifaceted threats that these conspiracy theories have posed to political ideology and our current understandings of reliable information. The future of safe, informed discourse in America is dependent on how we respond to a free-for-all internet in which these ideas are circulated with little to no oversight.
Jaylee Davis is a GW Scope staff writer for the George Washington Undergraduate Review. A freshman majoring in English and minoring in American studies, she has extensively covered social media and politics from her high school magazine.
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