One of the single most bizarre products of the modern-day left is its insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories. They flatly refuse to debate policy anymore, choosing instead to baselessly accuse their political opponents legitimate policy concerns and conscription as being the fruit of the poison tree planted in some nefarious conspiracy theory. Indeed, there is […]
One of the single most bizarre products of the modern-day left is its insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories. They flatly refuse to debate policy anymore, choosing instead to baselessly accuse their political opponents legitimate policy concerns and conscription as being the fruit of the poison tree planted in some nefarious conspiracy theory. Indeed, there is an entire cottage industry in the left-wing media built around “finding” and “exposing” conspiracy theories on the right. I almost feel badly for some of these intrepid left-wing journalists who spend their days scouring through the Facebook posts of grandmas and deep-diving into Telegram channels of anonymous frogs. Imagine dropping a $100K at J-school only to be relegated to the Q Anon beat.
According to the left, every single person in the country who holds and/or promotes conservative policy positions or even just votes for a Republican is actually part of an underground network of conspiracy theorists.
It’s a truly strange way to look at the world – imagining that everyone who disagrees with you is not only a terrible person hell-bent on the destruction of the world but that all of those people are actually part of a clandestine network of conspiracy theorists.
None of it makes sense, until you actually take a second to think about it. The reason why the left is absolutely obsessed with the idea of right-wing conspiracy theories, the reason they think they see a conspiracy theorist lurking in everywhere, is actually pretty simple: it’s nothing more than a reflection of how they see politics today.
The left is hellbent on rooting out every imaginary right-wing conspiracy theory imaginable because the left is literally swimming in a toxic pool of conspiracy theories. Almost every single thing that the left believes about Trump, about the conservative movement and about America today is rooting in pile after pile of hoaxes, misinformation, lies and conspiracy theories.
The left still believes that Russia stole the election from Hillary in 2016 – despite absolutely no evidence of this. The left still believes that Trump was – and maybe still is – an asset of the Russian government – despite a complete and total lack of anything to support this. The left still believes that Trump planned and executed an attempted overthrow of the government on January 6th – once again without a single shred of evidence to support this contention.
It's not just conspiracy theories about Trump, the left is neck-deep in conspiracy theories regarding basically every single thing in modern politics. “The Supreme Court was stolen!” – it wasn’t. “The Supreme Court is illegitimate!” – just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it any less legitimate.
Fox News is propaganda for white supremacists, Tucker Carlson caused the shooting in Buffalo, Stacey Abrams actually won the race for Governor of Georgia, the lists go on and on and on.
The left’s belief that everyone on the right is secretly Q Anon is nothing more than projection. A disturbing reflection of how pervasive conspiracy theories and flat out lies have become among the modern American left.
The left’s obsession with conspiracy theories is not only morally corrosive it sets up a scenario where half of the country can’t be reasoned with.
It’s one thing to believe that women should have access to legal abortion in this country, it’s an entirely different thing to believe that the Supreme Court was actually stolen and that Justices should be arrested and charged with perjury. You can debate abortion policy, you can maybe even find some middle ground, you cannot reason with lunatics.
Not only is it simply impossible to reason with lunatics, the other side will never try to find common ground with conservatives as long as they believe that conservatives are all part of some network of nefarious conspiracy theories.
We are all entitled to our own opinions, we aren’t entitled to our own facts. Until the left breaks with this conspiracy theory obsession our political system – and indeed our very system of government – will continue to fail the American people.
