Conspiracy Corner: #PizzaGate: Fake Pedophile Conspiracy Theory Won't Die in Post-truth Trump America

It's not difficult to get sucked into a conspiracy theory. I've written a few times about my brief dalliance with 9/11 Truthers. It was between the infancy of the movement, and when they started to get fairly nutty.  Which is a pretty short space of time. At first, you feel like you've discovered something. Next, you start to see a few "aha!" type puzzle pieces that fit into a fascinating narrative, then those moments pile up with surprising speed. "How deep does this go?" you wonder to yourself, and then--if you are lucky--you start to notice the holes in the theory. And the "fact"-spackle that doesn't quite fit. Eventually, if you don't get sucked in completely, you abandon the whole thing, because they've basically spoiled the soup with crazy.

Image from source, New Yorker

For me, it was "there were no planes."  Which barely scratches the surface of the crazy to be found if you continue to follow with a more skeptical eye. Most conspiracy theories work on exactly the same sort of structure. And you could probably argue that you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. But that's assuming there is a baby.

And if I used that particular old cliche to describe the #PizzaGate conspiracy theory, they'd all probably say that I'm in on it. Because oddly enough, the latest conspiracy theory to take political junkies by storm has managed to tie Wikileaks, Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, David Brock, MediaMatters and more to a child prostitution/kiddie porn/pedophile sex ring. Seriously. And, according to every fact-checking source out there, it's utterly baseless. As in: nothing to it.

But the #PizzaGate Truthers will not be swayed, and they're deluging the fact checkers with even more adamant "proof" that they're right. They will not be persuaded that it's untrue. What's worse, it's already lead to a crazy guy attacking the place, not to mention death threats and other harassment. Over an invented, "fake news" generated conspiracy theory. Which totally makes sense in post-truth Donald Trump's America.

On a side note, I can't help but notice that the exact same personality profile of your typical PizzaGate Truther matches that of the many of thousands of Josh Duggar supporters of several months ago. So, apparently outrage about fake child molestation by liberals is far more outrageous than real child molestation by conservatives. Or something.

[Excerpt]

THE AGE OF DONALD TRUMP AND PIZZAGATE

When trying to understand what has befallen Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., over the past few weeks, should one start with the gun or with the lies? Both are durable; both are dangerous. The gun is an AR-15-style assault rifle that a man, reportedly a twenty-eight-year-old named Edgar Maddison Welch, carried into the restaurant on Sunday. According to press accounts, Welch waved the gun, pointed it at an employee, and then fired, thankfully not hitting anyone. . .

Read more at: The New Yorker

More on The Republican Noise Machine

I'm still reading The Republican Noise Machine by David Brock, so this may only be part two in a series. I took a break from reading to go to Amazon.com, and see what other people thought of it. It's gotten stellar reviews, but like any political book, it gets its share of "one star" ratings. Usually, these are posted by rabidly partisan people who have only skimmed or not read the book at all. I was intrigued, however, by one reviewer who obviously had read the book, but apparently missed the point.

NOTE: When I use (and I think when Crabby Apple uses) "Conservative," "Republican" or "right-wing" I mean activists, and not necessarily the lay-public.

Crabby Apple Mick Lee (INDIANAPOLIS, IN USA) had this to say [excerpt]

So we come to David Brock and this book. How can you explain the huge presence of conservatives or right-wingers in the United States? Well, in reading Mr. Brock's book we are told the following:

· There are actual very few "conservatives" in America. Instead a sizable part of the population has been duped into voting and thinking against its own interests.
· The phenomenon of liberal media bias is in fact a myth. The mainstream media is actually influenced by wealthy benefactors who use it as a front group for the Republican Party.
· The right-wing has corrupted the democratic process. With the use of its money and media influence, the right has won elections and legislation that would never have survived had the political process been allowed to remain free and honest.
· Right-wingers are a duplicitous and nasty bunch.
· Behind all this is one central "fact": there is a right-wing plot to brainwash and dominate America.

In other words, we are offered "fanaticism" as truth in this book. At no time is it entertained that in America we have a lot of different people who not only disagree about what the solutions are-but we also disagree about what the problems are. Nor is there any attempt to understand "conservatives" as they understand themselves. Instead, "conservative beliefs" in as much as they are explained at all are described in terms of liberal assessments of reality.

This list, prior to the last paragraph, is pretty much what the book leads you to believe. And yes, there are value judgements along the way, as Mr. Brock doesn't have a high opinion of this type of political activity--having once been a part of it. But the last paragraph is not what the book is about.

In the book, Mr. Brock lays out a timeline showing the existence of a concerted effort by conservatives to inject their politics into mainstream news, over a period of more than 40 years. He says who was in on it, and how they did it. Exhaustively. Unless he concocted a huge list of erroneous "facts" (something I have not seen alleged), his value judgements are irrelevant to the FACT that such a thing happened. If you don't like his political viewpoint, or his tendency to add pejorative adjectives to people and corporations, that is a valid criticism.

It would be very hard to conclude, however, that there are two sides to the facts of this story:
• Conservatives view media that is not right-leaning automatically left-leaning
• Conservatives, when given the platform in mainstream media, lean much, much further in their direction than liberals ever have
• Conservatives mounted a complicated, almost incestuous invasion of the media, through right-wing "think tanks," niche publications, former and current politicians, and monied corporate interests
• Prominent conservatives in mainstream media are much more likely to be dishonest, misleading, disparaging of the other side, and to "create their own reality"
• Conservatives have a network in place to feed their propaganda to the media that liberals don't even come close to matching
• Liberals have no real counterpart to this network. For every Michael Moore, there are TEN Ann Coulters (ok, maybe not Anns--how about Mike Gallaghers?)
• People in the media (whatever their political stripe) are aware of all this, and yet it is so vehemently denied by conservatives, it is almost unaddressed

There's much more, and as I've said, I'm only partway through the book. And I know this probably sounds like tinfoil-hat wing-nuttery moon-battery to some people. But please, if you don't believe me, read the book and do your own research. You'll be surprised (as I was) by how many of the talking heads on TV and in print are deeply within this conservative network. You'll find that many things you see as conventional wisdom are actually carefully constructed propaganda pieces. Don't take my word for it. Do your homework!