The Rise of the Conspiracy Theorists

As someone who is a bit of a politics junky, the status of the modern GOP is quite troubling. How did the GOP come to be so divorced from reality? How did Donald Trump, a man who loves to peddle conspiracy theories (see Central Park 6, the Obama birth certificate conspiracy, the recent Trump Tower wire-tapping claim) come to be the President of the United States and head of the GOP? One of the problems as I see it is the rise of the conspiracy theorists as central players in the GOP. Jon Stewart used to refer to it as the rise of Bullshit Mountain. The blatant claiming that the sky is green or that Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. However factually wrong the claims are, conspiracy theorists can not be reasoned with and facts that disprove the theory tend to cause conspiracy theorists to cling tighter to the conspiracy theory.

Within the GOP it started very humbly, back in 1996 with the rise of FOX News. FOX News itself, as well as some conservative radio channels, started on a very simple and innocent sounding conspiracy theory "The mainstream media is biased towards liberals. Conservatives are silenced and ignored." This claim ignored the fact that several major newspapers have conservative editorial boards, like the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, the Economist, and others. Likewise, many TV news channels had editorial boards that leaned conservative. FOX News was started on the premise that all of the news channels at the time ignored certain stories because they favored conservatives.

From there, things have gotten steadily worse. Conspiracy theories sell well. People like feeling like they have superior knowledge over their neighbors and are part of an elite clique. Conspiracy theories give those who feel powerless an outside enemy to blame for everything that has gone wrong or any setback. In the GOP, it is an easy way place to blame election losses and policy failures, as well as a way to attack political enemies (see Benghazi, Obama birth certificate, White Water, Monica Lewinsky, Planned Parenthood videos). The problem now is the core leadership of the GOP is a bunch of conspiracy theorists with only a passing relationship with the truth or facts. Policies are based not on what works and how the world is, but how the world should be. That is a recipe for failed policies.

Democracy itself is based on a well-informed electorate. When a significant portion of the population is constantly fed disinformation, how will America stay strong? The biggest problem for the GOP will be the moment that the foundation of lies becomes too much to bear. Conservatives need to start embracing facts again before it is too late and the whole party crumbles, but conspiracy theories are an easy sell with simple buy-in. You just have to believe.