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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?
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.
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.
I dislike Mamdani but I've never heard him claim that before so I double checked it
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.
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.
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.
Good job, you found an unequivocal actual conspiracy theory.
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.
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?
Unless the chatbots are also trolling or something, this seems to be a fair way to interpret the comment.
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
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!"
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.
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.
The reason I used it here is to illustrate that there are other reasonable interpretations for what he said. I do not and can not claim that is what he meant, simply that the statement "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 not straightforward.
The metaphor is the lace of the shoe. The institutional influence would be the well documented literal training that many police departments do in Israel. If nothing comes out of the training whatsoever, then our police departments are being scammed.
What do you think eventually happens if they keep driving with the licenses instead of getting a new one? https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/kansas/article314848210.html
On a second offense it's a minimum five day jail! Repeated could be up to six months! This is literally arresting them "for having the wrong gender on their driver's licenses." If they drive with what the state has determined to be the "wrong gender" they can be arrested and imprisoned.
What's the point of the ban if it does nothing when a child transitions?
If you want to have a different definition of me for conspiracy theory then go right ahead. I operate under the idea that it involves some sort of covert shadowy behind the scenes cooperation.
This is terrible foreboding for the future. People saying look Claude says my interpretation is reasonable. What’s funny is it isn’t even a good argument. Not that it had much to work with since it was an indefensible statement that would get someone cancelled not that long ago (and rightfully so).
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