Conspiracy theories in United States politics
[dubious – discuss] Such theories draw from actual conspiracies, in which individuals work together covertly in order to unravel a larger system.
[1][2][3] Often, the struggle between a real conspiracy theory and a misconception of one leads to conflict, polarization in elections, distrust in government, and racial and political divisions.
[1][5] Belief in American political conspiracy theories applies to all parties, ideologies, races, ethnicities, socioeconomic levels, and genders.
[1] Some even believed in the "myth of the super-chief," in which every Indigenous attack was orchestrated by a tribal chief, who controlled thousands of Native American fighters and strived to wipe out the whites.
[1][9][7][2] In 2020, many conspiracy theories circulated during the coronavirus pandemic partly because of the increased anxiety, larger number of people staying at home, and greater focus on the Internet and social media outlets.
[2][1] Frank Donner, a 1980s civil liberties lawyer, claimed:Especially in times of stress, exaggerated febrile explanations of unwelcome reality come to the surface of American life and attract support.
[The new conspiratorial movements] illuminate a striking contrast between our claims to superiority, indeed our mission as a redeemer nation to bring a new world order, and the extraordinary fragility of our confidence in our institutions.
[8][1] This may also originate from a history of fear about the government's lack of transparency or truth in terms of medication since American doctors once approved mercury, radioactive material, and cigarettes and falsely deemed them to be healthy.
[3] As for the "levee breach," "truther," and Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, both political parties had a similar number of people believing in them.
[22] However, it has also been studied that conspiratorial thinkers may be more focused on an anti-governmental mindset because of their lack of trust for higher authority rather than a specific theory or party.
[6][3] In fact, the University of Miami political scientist Joseph Uscinski stated that "both sides are equally conspiratorial in their thinking... No one has a monopoly.
YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media sites use algorithms to bring up posts, videos, and news that correlate with past searches and interests.
A far-right host who discusses and analyzes political issues, Jones has frequently brought up information that was deemed extreme and sometimes even false, several times with little evidence to back up his claims.
[5][24][29][9][3] For example, conspiracy theories have been perpetuated in the African-American community that the U.S. government instigated AIDS or cocaine into the population, which follows the fear of one group oppressing another (in this case, white Americans).
[10] Robert Alan Goldberg, a University of Utah professor of history, also states that both stigmatized and more privileged groups struggle with conspiracy theories about the other: "Recall a uniquely American word – Un-American.
[38] The QAnon conspiracy theory originated in the U.S. and alleges that Trump is fighting against a deep state cabal of "child sex-abusing" and "Satan-worshipping" Democrats.
[12][45] To avoid the creation of echo chambers and further political polarization, Facebook prevents QAnon groups from forming but allows individuals to post their support occasionally.
[66] NewsGuard, a service that tracks and assesses online misinformation, identified unevidenced allegations claiming that Trump had won by fraud within hours of the election being called.
[67] One theory alleges that Elon Musk's satellite internet company Starlink was used to rig the election in favor of Trump,[68] a claim refuted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
With slavery operational in all the colonies, owners often showed anxiety about slave conspiracies that drew on older English fears about Catholic political plots in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
However actual slave revolts were not politically motivated and typically bore little resemblance to the highly structured plots that those involved in these trades believed they would be.
[107] Thomas Hutchinson, the royal governor of Massachusetts, was a leader of the forces loyal to the King and focused his attention on uncovering Patriot conspiracies by the likes of James Otis Jr. and Samuel Adams.
[108] The Patriot cause through speeches, pamphlets and newspapers presented a well-developed hyperbolic rhetoric focused on the conspiracy of Parliament to deny Americans the rights of Englishmen.
If Head discounts the conspiracy of legend, he makes clear that the disputes over officers' pay and pensions threatened the legitimacy of the Confederation Congress and the balance of state and federal power, and that Washington sought to protect both.The Freemasons are a secret fraternal society.
In 1826, William Morgan disappeared from Batavia, New York, after threatening to expose Freemasonry's secrets, causing some to claim that he had been murdered by Masons.
[113] A main theme of the antislavery and abolitionists movements was that the Southern slave owners had combined to exercise a dominant control over national policy.
The new Republican Party formed in 1854 in reaction to the repeal of the anti-slavery provisions of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, thereby allowing slavery into Kansas and Nebraska territories.
The argument was that this small group of wealthy enslavers had seized political control of their states and were trying to take over the federal government illegitimately to expand and protect slavery.
At the time antislavery speakers said the Slave Power caused the War with Mexico, but historians emphasize that President Polk and the expansionist Democrats were not concerned with slavery but with California.
Through a combination of passionate argument and hard statistical data, they showed that the South had long held a disproportionate level of power in the United States.
