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conspiracy theories

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    4/5/2022

    How QAnon Catchphrases Took Over the KBJ Hearings

    by Donald Moynihan

    "QAnon, a sprawling set of baseless conspiracy claims, is built on nods and winks, which has allowed it to move from the fringes to the center of American politics without toppling the mainstream conservative politicians who are courting its adherents."

  • SOURCE: London Review of Books
    2/1/2022

    Whack-a-Mole

    by Rivka Galchen

    Reviewer Rivka Galchen looks at two recent books that highlight the importance of cultural beliefs in the acceptance or rejection of vaccines. 

  • SOURCE: The Bulwark
    10/6/2021

    The Apocalypse Never Dies, It Just Gets Weirder

    by Thomas Lecaque

    "Not only has the apocalypticism of the last few years not died out, but things aren’t getting better." A historian considers the intensification of apocalyptic rhetoric in American evangelicalism, and its fusion with the Trumpist political movement.

  • SOURCE: The Bulwark
    9/9/2021

    The Conspiracy Theorists Are Coming for Your Schools

    by Thomas Lecaque

    "Over the past year, as the conspiracy theorists have come together under one big apocalyptic tent we have seen organized campaigns of harassment, threats of violence, attempts to harm members of school administrations, and physical altercations at school board meetings when masks are mandated."

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    9/10/2021

    Another 9/11 Legacy? The Spread of Conspiracy Theories Online

    by Jeff Melnick

    9/11 happened as traditional American media outlets were being consolidated into a small number of corporate networks, encouraging people seeking information to turn to decentralized sources and, eventually, social media, opening space for misinformation and conspiracy theories. 

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    8/23/2021

    Bad Information: QAnon is a Social Problem, Not a Cognitive One

    by Nicolas Guilhot

    "The champions of debunking and the new information vigilantes are not interested in entertaining the possibility that the root cause of conspiracy theories may be located outside the mind and may require a reexamination of our economic and social arrangements."

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    3/8/2021

    The John Birch Society Never Left

    by Rick Perlstein and Edward H. Miller

    Journalists are calling for the Republicans to follow the lead of William F. Buckley and stand up to far-right extremists in their ranks. The problem is that neither Buckley nor the GOP of the 1960s did any such thing, instead perfecting the technique of speaking to two audiences. 

  • SOURCE: The Bulwark
    2/25/2021

    QAnon and the Satanic Panics of Yesteryear

    by Daniel N. Gullotta

    "The perception of a Christian nation in religious freefall fits almost seamlessly with QAnon’s conviction that the United States is under spiritual assault."

  • 2/14/2021

    History, Evidence and the Ethics of Belief

    by Guy Lancaster

    Untrammelled freedom of belief has been enshrined as an American civic virtue. The nation, democracy, and possibly the planet are imperiled without a collective commitment to respect belief only to the extent available evidence supports it. 

  • 2/4/2021

    How Do You Solve a Problem Like Marjorie?

    The House of Representatives has voted, mostly on party lines, to remove Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments in response to her statements endorsing the Capitol riots and conspiracy theories that school shootings were hoaxes and California wildfires were started by the Rothschild banking family using space lasers.

  • SOURCE: Buzzfeed
    1/29/2021

    Trump Taught Teachers Conspiracy Theories. Now They’re Teaching Them To Students

    “More than anything else, teachers have to distinguish between what’s a real controversy and what’s a pseudo controversy,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a University of Pennsylvania professor and education historian. “And a real controversy happens when the best-informed people disagree — a pseudo controversy is when they don’t.”