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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12657 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 7, 2026

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In death, Charlie Kirk reaped what he sowed.

It's the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. On his death, there were many in the Right who believed he could serve as the martyr that would finally force the Right to "get serious". This meant very different things to different people from retaliating for cancel culture, to aggressively implementing Trump's immigration agenda, to turning the US into an outright dictatorship and instituting the Day of the Rope. In the end, none of this happened since his death got bogged down in endless conspiracies.

It's no secret that the Republican party under MAGA really likes conspiracies. They let you substitute wishcasting for evidence. Kirk pushed a lot of conspiracy theories from big ones like [The 2020 election was stolen] to [Aghanistan's collapse was engineered to import D voters] to [J6 was instigated by the FBI/Antifa/BLM]. He also pushed smaller ones that are closer to simple misinformation, like implying the Covid vaccine makes you blind and paralyzed. But for Kirk, all of these conspiracies were instrumental. They all pointed in the same direction: helping the Republican party, or more specifically Trump.

But conspiracy theories have a tendency to mutate. When you let in epistemological rot like this, some of it might end up being turned against you during the course of factional infighting. That's exactly what happened in the case of Kirk's death. Sure, the official report from the mainstream media (bah!) is that he was killed by some rando named Tyler Robinson. But... isn't that just a little too convenient?

Tucker Carlson eulogized Kirk by presenting the Biblical narrative as a story powerful people in Jerusalem “sitting around eating hummus,” adding that “there’s always one guy with the bright idea, and I can just hear him say, ‘I’ve got an idea. Let me just kill him.’”

Candace Owens opened her show the day after Kirk's memorial by mocking Erica Kirk and claiming Charlie had been "betrayed" by someone within the TPUSA, either Jewish donors or Erika Kirk herself because golly gee, didn't Charlie's wife seem a little too enthused about going on camera after his death?

This seems like such a superficial take.

In the end, none of this happened since his death got bogged down in endless conspiracies.

So if there had not been conspiracies, the 'true conservatives' could have shown themselves and done the right thing? Yeah, I'm pressing X to doubt.

If there's one thing more delusional than the Q anon phenotype that exists on the right, it's the self proclaimed elite human capital on the opposite end.

'Conspiracies' and anti-authoritarianism have always been a thing on the right. This has nothing to do with MAGA. If anything MAGA is just a symptom of how poorly America has been managed. This is what decades of American right wing political theory has lead us to. On that front I don't think there's anything less worthy of respect than a gaggle of self proclaimed kings who try to justify their right to rule through how much they despise the peasants.

I am in favour of tabooing the entire concept of conspiracy theory, which in 2026 seems to be used in practice as "accusation of malintent stated by anyone right-wing", with real conspiracy theories only coming from the right-wing region of France otherwise they are merely sparkling rhetoric.

There are plenty of mainstream conspiracy theories promoted by the current Progressive government in the UK. For example, claiming that the Tories are plotting to secretly privatize the NHS. This is the standard line from Labour, one of their most consistent campaigning ideas, and is so mainstream that it's often not recognized as a conspiracy theory. Yet... It is. Even more extreme would be when they claim austerity was a murderous conspiracy.

If political figures are not allowed to accuse political opponents of malintent then what politics can they even do?

On his death, there were many in the Right who believed he could serve as the martyr that would finally force the Right to "get serious". This meant very different things to different people from retaliating for cancel culture, to aggressively implementing Trump's immigration agenda, to turning the US into an outright dictatorship and instituting the Day of the Rope. In the end, none of this happened since his death got bogged down in endless conspiracies.

No, none of that happened because...why would it? Politicians who want conservative policy are generally already doing their best to implement it, though sometimes their best isn't very good. It alienated some left-wingers and moderates to see celebration of the assassination be relatively mainstream in left-wing spaces, but it's not something that was going to cause a huge shift in either public opinion or politician's opinions on any specific issue. Being a left-wing assassin is already illegal. There's been more of a crackdown on antifa groups - probably the Autistici/Inventati Collective wouldn't have gotten designated as a terrorist group (and officially dissolved 4 days ago) if it wasn't for Kirk's death - but most antifa activity is already either clearly illegal or clearly legal and also antifa doesn't actually matter that much.

Hanannia is just a troll now. His old schtick is troll the right wing regardless of whether he agrees with what he is saying. He’s completely posts-truth now and just playing for whatever he thinks generates the most musks bucks.

I don’t think he’s truly a left-wing Democrat now. Probably votes straight Republican but he thinks he gets the most money now trolling. I don’t think he’s worth reading anymore.

What about his article makes you believe he isn't being serious? Even if you disagree with him, the idea presented has a clear and coherent thesis. That is, that Kirk's legacy is one of conspiracism, of alleging a greater evil acting behind the scenes, and thus it's not surprising his own death is bogged down with conspiracies.

It seems to be you're defining trolling as "I don't like what he says" rather than by if the actual meat of his argument is serious or not.

He has had an honest conversation where he admits he just does things for clicks and money. I think it was Corfnas that talked about that. His earlier writings were much different. Then he changed.

It’s common with influencers. They are much different with the camera off than they are in person.

Hanania can be inflammatory in his writing, but that is different from his writing being a troll. But even if that's the case, being a troll doesn't mean it's not serious in the same way that saying "you fucking retard, diet coke is better than regular coke and this would be obvious if you had functional taste buds" is intended for inflammation and trolling and also a serious belief. I can't find anything that suggests an admittance he doesn't share serious beliefs.

So what about this article do you think is so far out there nonsensical that the only meaningful explanation is that it's unserious and the underlying idea should not be engaged with?

I 100% believe he doesn’t post serious beliefs. That’s why I call it trolling.

When you know the intelligent counter argument and likely believe the intelligent counter argument but post the inflammatory other opinion I consider it trolling.

Sure and what specifically about this article do you think shows his view is not serious?

When you know the intelligent counter argument

Ah ok, we're circling back to he must be a troll because he says the thing you believe is dumb and wrong and don't like, instead of the smart thing that you do like because you're smart and think all smart things.

Both sides' independent media pundits are captured by conspiracy theories because they pay the bills. This is just the new normal, not something that Kirk especially sowed in his career. The admin failed to use his death in a productive way, and we don't know why.

To me, Tyler's motives, to the extent that we've understood them, are more personally motivated rather than political. Of course they're political too, but he strikes me as someone who was protecting the honor of his partner more than he was sending a political message. Why not go for Trump instead?

It seems to be hard to react to these kinda things for modern conservative movements. Australia's Bondi Beach shooting has definitely moved the overton window electorally, but actual investigation/outcomes seem to be less than zero for conservative causes, since even ideas around increasing investigation into radical groups just led to immediately trying to use them on Australian Far Right groups rather than really censuring the Islamic community.

Both sides

Conspiracism isn't nearly as big of an issue on the Left today compared to the Right. At least not without sneakily changing the definition of a conspiracy theory to "partisan fact I disagree with", which is different.

What's your source for these claims?

Antisemitism, with all the conspiracy theories and blood libel that implies, is more openly practised on the left than it has been for decades. The sitting mayor of New York City openly claims that the NYPD have only committed police brutality because they were trained to by the IDF. The New York Times uncritically ran an opinion piece claiming, with no real evidence, that the IDF trains dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners. Leftists are disproportionately likely to claim that the October 7th attacks were false flags, or that most of the civilians were actually killed by the IDF as part of the Hannibal doctrine. Leftists seem just as likely as groypers to believe the specific conspiracy theory that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent, and that the only reason for continued support for Israel among American politicians is because Mossad is blackmailing them using footage secretly filmed on Epstein's island.

Outside of Jew-hatred, American leftists are disproportionately likely to believe that a literal genocide of trans people is either imminent or already ongoing. They believe that numerous people have been successfully acquitted of killings they admitted to committing using the "trans panic" defense. Some would not characterise the BLM narrative as a conspiracy theory, but I think it bears a strong enough familial resemblance to be considered an honorary member at the bare minimum.

Obviously, there's the whole Russiagate thing. Many leftists believe that the assassination attempt against Trump was staged.

Many popular conspiracy theories (the moon landings were faked, vaccines cause autism, JFK was killed by the government) are equally popular among Democrats as Republicans.

I think conspiracy theories are at least as much of a problem on the American left as on the American right. The average American believes that at least one of the last three Presidential elections was illegitimate.

The sitting mayor of New York City openly claims that the NYPD have only committed police brutality because they were trained to by the IDF.

I dislike Mamdani but I've never heard him claim that before so I double checked it

Not exactly. The statement is a misleading paraphrase of something Zohran Mamdani actually said.

In August 2023, before he was mayor, Mamdani said at a Democratic Socialists of America conference:

“When the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.”

I think it bad faith to assume it the way you do. There is an Israeli-NYPD partnership, this is verifiable fact. He did not say the boot of NYPD is only the IDF, as you claim, just that it was "laced" by them. Even in the literal reading of the analogy, laces are only a part of a shoe so the reading of "only" doesn't work there either.

Outside of Jew-hatred, American leftists are disproportionately likely to believe that a literal genocide of trans people is either imminent or already ongoing.

As another comment pointed out, this isn't a conspiracy so much as it is The Worst Argument In The World. Most leftists I've talked to and see online don't believe the death camps are starting up anytime soon, just that legal discrimination/banning of hormones/etc will happen. They're talking about things like federal government officials drawing up plans to ban trans people from the 2nd amendment.

I agree that it's wrong to call it a genocide, but it's not a conspiracy theory to misuse words! Same way I disagree with the unfair and human rights abusing treatment of Ughyurs being labeled genocide for there has not been a mass death of them, but someone considering their treatment as genocidal is not a conspiracy. I just think they're too loose with the term and should not call it that.

Obviously, there's the whole Russiagate thing.

That's somewhat a conspiracy theory, but Trump is also openly friendly with Putin and there's plenty of strong evidence that Russia tries to influence our elections. Any conspiracy theory there is just in how much Trump/Trump allies could have engaged in open collusion.

Many leftists believe that the assassination attempt against Trump was staged.

Good job, you found an unequivocal actual conspiracy theory.

Many popular conspiracy theories (the moon landings were faked, vaccines cause autism, JFK was killed by the government) are equally popular among Democrats as Republicans

I'll be more willing to believe that once a Democrat anti vaxxer runs the HHS.

Bro, Mamdani has certainly toned down his rhetoric since he became mayor, but how else do you interpret that line about the IDF lacing the NYPD's boots? He was, at the very least, gesturing towards Da Joos and implying Israeli training was responsible for police brutality, and he's too smart not to know what he was implying.

I personally know trans people who genuinely believe that federal agencies are gearing up to start going after trans people, either to put them in camps or forcibly detransition them or maybe just arrest them for having the wrong gender on their driver's licenses.

And we've discussed many times here how many unarmed black people the average leftist believes are gunned down by police every month.

You can quibble over what the precise definition of "conspiracy theory" is, which strikes me as being about as useful as arguing about the legal definition of "genocide" wrt Gaza. But irrationality is definitely not limited to the right.

Bro, Mamdani has certainly toned down his rhetoric since he became mayor, but how else do you interpret that line about the IDF lacing the NYPD's boots?

The same way I said, about the NYPD/Israeli partnership! I even checked the chatbots with the other guy who asked me to see if I'm out of line.

And what did I get?

What do you think Zohran meant by the IDF laced the boot on your neck?

I think the most charitable—and probably most accurate—reading is that Mamdani was using “laced by the IDF” as a metaphor for institutional influence

Unless the chatbots are also trolling or something, this seems to be a fair way to interpret the comment.

or forcibly detransition them or maybe just arrest them for having the wrong gender on their driver's licenses

The first one is obviously a conspiracy, these other ones are not.

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/denton-county-rep-wants-to-institutionalize-transgender-people-23307423/

https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billintroduced/House/htm/2022-HIB-6454.htm

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/28/nx-s1-5728969/kansas-revokes-drivers-licenses-of-hundreds-of-trans-people-prompted-by-new-law

And we've discussed many times here how many unarmed black people the average leftist believes are gunned down by police every month.

Being wrong about that number does not allege a shadowy cabal behind such shootings.

First of all, I am really not a fan of "Ask ChatGPT to settle a debate." There are lots of reasons for that, and it's not because I don't think AI is useful for a lot of purposes. But AI is definitely not useful for impartially adjudicating subjective interpretations of culture war events and statements.

ChatGPT sort of gives it away with "I think the most charitable—and probably most accurate—" ChatGPT likes to be charitable. ChatGPT does not like to imply negative things about contemporary figures. A judgment like "probably most accurate" is purely the LLM churning out tokens in a most-probably-plausible response, not any actual reasoning or analysis by which it can tell you that this interpretation is "probably most accurate."

It's specific claim? "A metaphor for institutional influence"? What ... institution would be that, exactly? How does the IDF become "a metaphor for institutional influence"?

Come. On. Apply some actual critical thinking. Don't offload it to ChatGPT and say "Neener neener an LLM says I'm right and you're wrong!"

The first one is obviously a conspiracy, these other ones are not.

Yes they are. I am well aware that some states are passing laws requiring birth sex on driver's licenses. I figured you would bring it up. But that does not mean that federal agencies are preparing to conduct mass arrests of trans people who have the wrong sex on their driver's licenses. Yes, their current licenses were invalidated in Kansas and they have to get new licenses, and that sucks, but it's a leap, a stretch, a ballistic missile launch from "federal troops rounding up trans people."

A ban against transitioning children is not forcibly detransitioning people.

Congressman Ronny Jackson sounds like a crackpot. Let me know when he gets any traction outside of Newsmax.

I mean, come the fuck on. You are willing to give maximum charity to Mamdan's crack about the IDF lacing the NYPD's boots, accepting any interpretation other than the obvious one, while you want us to give full weight and seriousness to a Republican popping off on a radio show as if he's speaking for the federal government.

Being wrong about that number does not allege a shadowy cabal behind such shootings.

Right, so we're going to debate the nuances of what constitutes a "conspiracy theory." Fine, I'll grant it's not a modal example, but it certainly does allege that, not a shadowy cabal, but massive institutional power, is behind such shootings. Which seems at least "conspiracy-adjacent" to me.

And here is your shtick — Zohran says something crazy conspiratorial and you try to argue around it.

What do you think Zohran meant by the IDF laced the boot on your neck? Don’t dance. Don’t pull a Darwin.

I opened up a new ChatGPT instance (without any history of my account) and literally asked it

"The sitting mayor of New York City openly claims that the NYPD have only committed police brutality because they were trained to by the IDF." Is this true?

And that's when I got back the response of no, it's not really accurate for the reasons I shared.

I also asked your question now.

What do you think Zohran meant by the IDF laced the boot on your neck?

I think the most charitable—and probably most accurate—reading is that Mamdani was using “laced by the IDF” as a metaphor for institutional influence, not literally saying Israeli soldiers were directing NYPD officers.

Those are the only two messages I sent, go ahead and check the responses yourself if you want. Use only those two lines and in a new instance.

Do you think ChatGPT was also "pulling a Darwin" for having the same perfectly logical conclusion I came up with? If not, then don't accuse me of bad faith.

I think that you are Darwin, and that you are pulling a Darwin by asking ChatGPT, because only Darwin ever asks ChatGPT and thinks the result is of any use.

Not to get in the way of a good public lynching, but I occasionally ask ChatGPT to vet my argument here, or help me refine it by looking up example citations (Which I do check for correctness!)

You're so right, literally no one else could possibly view AI to be useful as a reference. That's why all the AI companies are poor and failing, their employees are getting laid off, and fortune 500 CEOs are banning all AI usage from their workers.

The Darwin conspiracy goes deep, even Elon Musk is him! Terrence Tao too?, one of the smartest mathematicians in the world. Just how many IRL alts does this guy have?

Typical—first you never explained what you think it meant (and never did in your OP).

Clearly Zohran is suggesting there is strong influence by IDF to encourage police brutality. You can quibble on the margins but the core of the claim is bs conspiratorial thinking.

And now you’ve trolled your way to numerous other posts instead of just being direct to start with.

I did explain a possibility of what it meant, referencing the verifiably true Israeli/NYPD partnership. It doesn't mean he's claiming that the "NYPD have only committed police brutality because they were trained to by the IDF."

And now you’ve trolled your way to numerous other posts instead of just being direct to start with.

Do you think that the AIs are also just trolling when they interpret his comments the same way?

It’s called sanewashing. Both sides obviously do it.

I do think the IDF comment is a bad area to do it and is basically antisemitic. Why do I say this? I have a lot of respect for the NYPD and honestly think they do a really good job and if shouldn’t get criticism. NYC does actually have low crime rates. Though sometimes I think this may just be filtering and superior demographics of the populace similar to how Florida’s superiority with Hispanic education is likely superior demographics and heavy selection of rich white Latinos.

Outside of Jew-hatred, American leftists are disproportionately likely to believe that a literal genocide of trans people is either imminent or already ongoing. They believe that numerous people have been successfully acquitted of killings they admitted to committing using the "trans panic" defense. Some would not characterise the BLM narrative as a conspiracy theory, but I think it bears a strong enough familial resemblance to be considered an honorary member at the bare minimum.

Some of this is just The Worst Argument in the World, more than it is conspiracy thinking.

I think if you tried to drill down into what American leftists thought a "trans genocide" meant, they wouldn't bring up death camps or an imaginary Kristallnacht, but some states banning youth gender medicine or banning trans student athletes, or black trans prostitutes who meet bad ends, or the federal government switching to birth sex for ID's. They're catastrophizing more than they are imagining vast conspiracies.

I think BLM is based on a number of false assumptions, but I don't think it's a conspiracy theory exactly. More like a moral panic, similar to the AI datacenter panic, or fracking, or Dungeons and Dragons in the 80's. There's definitely a mistake being made, and a warped interpretations of the facts taking place, but it isn't about projecting a conspiracy out into the world. (In the case of BLM this is especially true, because advocates usually assume the issues are systemic, and not the result of a shadowy cabal, which is what a conspiracy would require.)

Are you sure about that? Leftist conspiracy theories are arguably much worse because they tend to be held by people in positions in power, compared to the powerless yokels who have right-wing conspiracy theories.

Example conspiracy theory: African-American test scores are the result of systematic racism. And the higher you go up in the Democratic Party structure, the more common this belief is.

Dingbats like Tucker and Candace, on the other hand, have low status audiences.

Example conspiracy theory: African-American test scores are the result of systematic racism. And the higher you go up in the Democratic Party structure, the more common this belief is.

That's not exactly a "conspiracy" though, is it? It might be wrong-headed or incorrect, but where is the shadowy cabal who planned everything out?

Like, if the 2020's election was stolen, it was stolen by a specific group of bad people, who could, in theory, be rooted out or put on trial. I think believing false things about how the world works is slightly different from a conspiracy theory. There's probably some better word for it, at the very least.

Fair enough, and that was a bad example on my part. A better example is the Russiagate hoax. That's a conspiracy theory. And probably 90% of Democrats still believe it or pretend to.

I don't think there's a substantive difference between the two parties in terms of their ability to believe false things, even outlandish conspiracies. It's just that the left is able to put the imprimatur of respectability on things, thereby allowing high status people to maintain false beliefs long after its obvious they are false.

2016 election was stolen: Aww, you're sweet.

2020 election was stolen: Hello, HR

ESR's coinage of "prospiracy" might fit this case. There's no shadowy cabal of racists conspiring to squelch African-American test scores, but if there's e.g. a lot of racists in the education system who each neglect African-Americans (and who might admit this to each other after building trust, but don't need to discuss it with each other and wouldn't dare discuss it with non-racists) then (in that version of the theory, anyway) that could explain the observed gap.

IMHO, all other things being equal, believing in a prospiracy requires a lower burden of proof (and thus is more forgivable when it's a mistake) than believing in a large conspiracy. "Racists control public education" has some obvious contrary-evidence issues but it's not as bad as "a cabal of racists regularly meets to plot their control of public education".

If one conspirator breaks and admits their secrets to the public, the conspiracy would be revealed! The secrets would be out in the open! And depending on the size of the conspiracy, the biggest secret would be: how do you get that many people to keep a secret without anybody cracking earlier?

If one prospirator breaks and admits their secrets to the public ... not much would change, right? Everybody knows some people are jerks who are motivated by self-interest rather than principle, but that doesn't mean 90% or even 0.9% of people in similar positions will be jerks too. Just one bad apple, am-I-right? The "secret" is vastly more robust.

If one conspirator breaks and admits their secrets to the public, the conspiracy would be revealed! The secrets would be out in the open!

No, based on the past track record of people confessing to e.g. having killed JFK, people will just assume you're a crank.

If one conspirator breaks and admits their secrets to the public, the conspiracy would be revealed! The secrets would be out in the open! And depending on the size of the conspiracy, the biggest secret would be: how do you get that many people to keep a secret without anybody cracking earlier?

This generalized argument against conspiracy theories is pretty poor because:

  • Historically states have pulled off very grand secret projects involving tens or hundreds of thousands of people. To name one, the Manhattan Project
  • One person discovering or revealing a conspiracy does not end it. To give one example, flibanserin.
  • Sometimes those who know about a conspiracy are motivated to help cover it up rather than reveal it even if not participants. Consider the British response to Germany learning of the Katyn Massacre
  • Almost everyone knowing about a conspiracy is also often not enough to end it. Consider that Nazi Germany was able to successfully invade Poland despite basically everyone knowing the Gleiwitz incident was a false flag.

I am in favour of tabooing the concept of "conspiracy theories" in general.

Leftist conspiracy theories are arguably much worse because they tend to be held by people in positions in power, compared to powerless yokels on the right.

Republicans hold power approximately 50% of the time in the US. Like... uh... you do know who's president now, right?

Mainstream people on the left hold the conspiracy belief that low African-American test scores are the result of systematic racism.

Not a conspiracy, as I explained to FCfromSSC

Dingbats like Tucker and Candace have low status audiences.

They're big audiences though. Tucker and Candace are regularly near the top of the biggest podcasts in the US. They're very influential within MAGA.

Not a conspiracy, as I explained to FCfromSSC

And as he replied to, in detail, explaining that most of the examples in question did in fact require multiple people in positions of power coordinating in secret for malign purposes.

You're not quite as bad as magicalkittycat at ignoring counters to the things you claim, but you're getting there.

"Trump is a Russian asset."
"The police routinely kill unarmed, innocent black men."
"The wage gap is a real measure of sexist discrimination."
"Billionaires control the government."
"Billionaires got their money by stealing it from ordinary people."
"Appropriating Billionaire wealth could pay for all/most/any significant number at all of good things people want."
"High health care costs are a conspiracy by greedy capitalists."
"Capitalism is at fault for [insert social problem here]."

Or is it time to convolute the borders of "conspiracy theory"?

These largely aren't conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are typically things that allege multiple actors secretly coordinating for malign purposes, while concealing the real plan from the public.

Some of these like "Trump is a Russian asset" are borderline I suppose, where weak versions are just normal partisan attacks while strong versions definitely do veer into conspiracism.

"Billionaires control the government."

Conspiracy theories are typically things that allege multiple actors secretly coordinating for malign purposes, while concealing the real plan from the public.

Pam_they're_the_same_picture.jpeg

Conspiracy theories are typically things that allege multiple actors secretly coordinating for malign purposes, while concealing the real plan from the public.

...Not convoluting the definition, but leaving it to obviously include most of the examples given while simply asserting that it does not fit them is also a strategy, I suppose.

"Trump is a Russian Asset" alleges that Trump and many members of his staff are working for the Russian government, their cooperation being secured through some combination of kompromat, bribes and ideological alignment. There is no way you can spin this claim where it does constitute a highly central example of "multiple actors secretly coordinating for malign purposes". This is your reminder that this particular conspiracy theory was a paid op by Hillary Clinton, that Obama appears to have been at minimum aware of it and declined to intervene, that Obama's senior officials were directly involved in its implementation, and that it was pushed to the hilt by every major media organization in the country for multiple years, with devastating political consequences and zero accountability.

"The police routinely kill unarmed, innocent black men" claims that police routinely cooperate to murder innocent black men and then to cover up these murders as legitimate police actions, aided and abetted by other elements of the criminal justice system such as judges, prosecutors, etc. There is no way you can spin this claim where it does constitute a highly central example of "multiple actors secretly coordinating for malign purposes". Engagement with this conspiracy theory is universal within Blue Tribe, and conformity is policed viciously.

"The wage gap is a real measure of sexist discrimination" claims that business owners secretly coordinate to violate black-letter federal anti-discrimination law, artificially depressing wages for women by 30% economy-wide and with sufficient cunning that they never, ever get caught doing it, because they hate women and want to exploit them. There is no way you can spin this claim where it does constitute a highly central example of "multiple actors secretly coordinating for malign purposes". Less prevalent that the racialized conspiracy theories at the moment, Feminism peaked early and largely exhausted itself, but we could tack on "Rape Culture/Believe All Women/Justice Kavanaugh is a rapist" as further examples as well.

"Billionaires control the government" claims that Billionaires have secretly subverted democracy through various legal, quasi-legal and illegal actions to put themselves beyond the reach of law and bend the government to their will. It universally involves claims that multiple actors are secretly coordinating for malign purposes, while concealing the real plan from the public. How could you possibly argue otherwise?

"Appropriating Billionaire wealth could pay for all/most/any significant number at all of good things people want." This one does not fit your definition of conspiracy.

"High health care costs are a conspiracy by greedy capitalists." "Conspiracy by greedy capitalists" is literally in the belief-statement, and is by no means a straw-man. Millions of people observably believe this, and are willing to endorse murder as a plausible solution.

"Capitalism is at fault for [insert social problem here]" likewise observably involves claims of malign coordination by rich villains in a large and highly central proportion of real-world instances.

I do think /u/TheAntipopulist is wrong, but I would only class the following as conspiracy theories:

  • "Trump is a Russian asset."
  • "Billionaires control the government."
  • "High health care costs are a conspiracy by greedy capitalists."

Those are the only ones that really require secret coordination by a small group. The others are just false beliefs about reality. Like, where is the secret coordination mechanism for police killings or the wage gap? Even advocates of those ideas think they come from unconscious biases picked up over a lifetime of living in a racist and sexist culture, not because of specific coordination on the parts of the actors doing it. Similarly, the idea that billionaires are stealing money is often based more in the Labor Theory of Value, which is wrong but not a conspiracy.

"Billionaires control the government."

This one isn't necessarily a conspiracy theory either depending on what we mean "control" by. If a person means that political spending has a meaningful sway on elections by convincing voters to turn out/switch who they're voting for, that doesn't require a shady cabal to happen. If they think that politicians are overly receptive to the demands of the wealthy over the average person because of campaign finances/donations, that also doesn't require anything shadowy and conspiratorial.

It only turns into a conspiracy if you think there are behind the scenes bribes and stuff like that, which sure some might think happens often but it's not the only interpretation of "controlling the government".

"High health care costs are a conspiracy by greedy capitalists."

This also depends on what is meant. Of course high prices for anything is from greed, since prices exist from greed. The capitalist argument isn't that greed doesn't exist, but that greed is good and is the engine for how and why things get done. People perform labor for others out of desire to gain for themselves after all.

And just like above with billionaires controlling government this doesn't require a shadowy cabal working in secret. If you just believe the upper class have outsized influence due to political spending/ads/etc, then that's enough. They are wrong about pricing, but if they're not alleging a secret behind the scenes group enacting stuff then it's not a conspiracy.

"Trump is a Russian asset" is a definitive example of a conspiracy theory, given that it's directly borrowed from one of the most famous conspiracy films of all time. People who believe this conspiracy theory are not shy about where they got their inspiration from.

Hanania:

For more than a decade, Kirk taught a young audience that institutions always lie, that the official story is a cover, and that anyone telling you to stop asking questions has something to hide — while making a special exception for Donald Trump.

The institutions didn't always lie. They just suddenly omitted facts while promoting others, and they did so at scale, and they did so at the intentional expense of a certain group they deemed as oppressors. Our entire societal "truth" apparatus suddenly decided to retell history and the present, and then tell us that the truths they deemed uncomfortable weren't truths at all, but some sort of "-ism". The untruths they wanted to be true were injected into the mainstream and anyone who thought otherwise was labeled accordingly.

It's true that there is a large amount of retardation occurring on the right: Tucker asking what algebra is, pretty much everything Candace Owens says, Trump constantly saying stupid things. All of these people have a massive following. That's what happens when your institutions attack the largest demographic in the country and turn them into political nomads. They earned this.

This is what happens when you do not punish people for public errors. Others lose confidence in you and your institutions become a refuge for scoundrels and the incompetent.

There are also abundant conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the Kennedy assassination. Stuff like this just brings the crazies out of the woodwork.

Somewhat ironically 9/11 trutherism seems to have legitimately fallen out of style. "Bush did 9/11" was a meme for a while, and you still occasionally see "JET FUEL CAN'T MELT STEEL BEAMS" but now few people even think or talk about Bush much, although the guy is still alive. Although it has dovetailed back in with antisemitic conspiracies.

I remember Zeitgeist being a big deal when it came out. Some stuff like the collapse of Tower 7 still bugs me a bit but honestly I do find the facially presented story is probably mostly true, with some probability reserved for how much or little certain governmental figures, particularly U.S. intelligence, were aware of and 'allowed' to happen.

??? It’s true that there’s not a lot of ‘nanothermite insider trading with ties to the bush family’ style trutherism these days but ‘Israël did it’ is more mainstream than ever, and that was always a big chunk of trutherism.

What's more interesting is the trading activity on 9/10. Evidently it was investigated and the findings were classified. All they released was "We have determined it wasn't Al-Queda."

The pentagon situation has also bugged me ever since, but it's rarely discussed.

What's your understanding of the "pentagon situation"?

Oh, this is not a hobby horse of mine and I can barely remember.

Something to the effect that the damage to the side of the building was not consistent with a plane collision and that the wreckage on the lawn wasn't either; that it was all covered up (as with literal fabric covers) and disposed of immediately with almost no extant photos.

Something to the effect that the, uh, side of the pentagon that was hit was shut down and devoid of personnel, just by happy circumstance -- but also that it was being used to store records about large amounts of missing money; the records themselves also going missing in the event naturally enough.

I remember the government releasing some incredibly bad security camera footage that showed nothing at all. An unidentifiable blur in one part of one frame. I also remember news media loudly declaring that the evidence was in and the matter could be put to bed, and no one pushed back at all.

Stuff like that.

I don't know much about it because there's not much to know. As I said, it's rarely ever discussed. Building 7 gets much more play.

Yeah, I know people who were on the 495 and saw the plane. I got no patience for these chucklefucks.

I remember my band teacher showing us a couple of photos she had taken of the Pentagon days after the attack. She claimed she was stopped by Pentagon security and made to stop taking pictures almost immediately, and I want to say they might have seized one roll of negatives (it was long enough ago that I don’t remember for sure). My family members were completely dismissive of 9/11 conspiracies, and at that age, I tended to defer to their judgment on such matters, but her story did strike me as lending some credence to the theories.

Hoping for a lively 9/11 thread tomorrow but I'm not currently in position to host one.

Hanania: Yes, America really did deserve 9/11

Then 2000 words about how the firefighters and cops who died are low status because they weren’t as smart as your average liberal Democrat

I wonder what other motivations Hanania might have.

Does this strike you as charitable?

It's not uncharitable, Kirk is just a sore subject around here. In a place that loves to butcher sacred cows, no cow is above reproach.

Our tragic martyrs, taken before their time vs your villainous scoundrels, who had it coming

Apparently we are to call this "Hottentot Morality"

In what way is it uncharitable?

Trivially, there's another side of the political aisle that's spent decades chasing conspiracy theories. Jet fuel can't melt steel beams, Diebold stole the 2004 election and Stacy Abrams is a competent governor who totally won, HIV was a Reaganite plot, Dan Rather was totally innocent and credible. This did not result in Gabby Giffords getting forgotten and unloved among the Left: indeed, it meant that even years after it was proven that the murderer was a complete nutjob, the central example of the mainstream media would still claim a Republican politician was really responsible, and never actually pay for it.

Just as trivially, we have a surfeit of other plausible and more likely explanations that the ground facts about Kirk's assassination don't seem to have drawn out a lot of their obvious consequences, as evidenced by the part where countless progressives and leftists who would not be caught dead (to be fair, a good choice!) listening to Carlson or Owens, who either have not commented about a major political assassination (hey, Trace!), commented only to say they don't care, or actively cheerlead the killing. It there any chance that the widespread support for violence on the progressive bench, and the broad supply of FUDD about Kirk's behavior and against ? For some strange and unforeseeable reason, you haven't considered a single one.

Hell, it's even just misleading on its own terms. Kirk had actual behavior that was bad enough, but in particular the description of Kirk's treatment of J6 is conflating observing a real thing (presence and prolonged concealment of informants, presence of a left-wing person cheering the violence) as something far broader than he actually did say.

Grave dancing on the anniversary of a young man’s tragic death (by assassination no less) is extremely poor taste.

We shouldn’t give people who write stories like this clicks. It’s despicable and he knows exactly what he’s doing. Remind me again why we are supposed to care about what this person thinks. As far as I can tell, his influence is zero, except for a growing cadre of haters.

That's not what "charity" means in the context of political discussions.

And I remember in the wake of his death that a lot of people on this site it was "too soon" to say anything negative about him. It's been a full year and that's still not long enough? He was a political operative, who helped accelerate the Republican party's epistemological decay. That's worth discussing at some point.

Fully fine to talk about him including negative things. I think the article is trash, but that's another issue.

The bigger issue is using an anniversary or something similar to get clicks. It's like, okay you think MLK was a bad guy who did lots of bad things? Okay, legit viewpoint, but maybe not something you want to write an article about on the 1 year anniversary of his death hoping to draw attention to yourself. It's just ghoulish behavior.

I would never suggest, by the way, that the mods should delete this or that people shouldn't be allowed to talk about it. Certainly not here.

But we're also free to have a meta conversation of why we don't like it.

The anniversary produces an upsurge of talk about the topic, and then some of that talk is negative. It's not unheard of, or even particularly uncommon to hear things like "MLK cheated on his wife" on Apr 4 (the anniversary of his assassination) or on MLK day.

I haven't looked into it but aren't there are allegations that are waaay worse than simply cheating on his wife?

MLK is still a sacred cow 58 years after a death and it's considered extremely taboo to mention bad things about him. And that's despite the fact that he was perceived very unfavorably by the public in the years before his death. The left's ability to canonize him is impressive and that power should not be taken lightly. Near total narrative dominance.

Nevertheless, I certainly wouldn't use the anniversary of his death or MLK day to write about all the bad things he did. We 363 other days to do that.

Grave dancing on the anniversary of a young man’s tragic death (by assassination no less) is extremely poor taste.

"My sacred idols are holy and above reproach, your sacred idols are base heathenism and should be torn down and trampled in the dirt."

Do you extend a similar level of taste towards tearing down your enemies sacred ideas?

Yeah, if I was going to write something like this I wouldn't use the first anniversary of their death to get clicks. Hanania is famous for this sort of trollish behavior.

But respect for the dead shouldn't be a partisan issue. If some lunatic were to shoot Hanania himself, I'd find something positive to say about him or at least bite my tongue.

Right but "respect for the dead" is your sacred idol. It's good that you can translate it across the tribe to distant members, potentially even rivals. But the very sanctity of that principle is itself not uniform. The sacred idols of your outgroup is instead Anti-racism or the like. Can you refrain from criticizing their idols? To respect the sacred and harangue the profane one needs to believe in a universality of the sacred lest one be condemned to silence for every permutation is sacred to someone.

It seems charitable enough to me.

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