Pretty interesting discussion about the prevalence of conspiracy theories (from both parties) the last 17 years or so.
Derek is joined by Joseph Uscinski to discuss some surprising answers to questions concerning the psychology of conspiratorial thinking in politics, as well as the general history of conspiracy theories in America
www.theringer.com
Some interesting points made:
- The prevalence of conspiracies is not on the rise. The conversation about conspiracies is on the rise. When the host pushed back on this, the researcher explained liberal media wants you to believe it's on the rise among the right. It's easy to accept that bevause Trump is all about conspiracies, and he is the current face of the right but that part of him doesn't have extra appeal to traditional conservatives. It has impactful appeal to outsiders.
- One example of that ^ was this idea that QAnon was this growing juggernaut of a conspiracy theory, when only like 5% of Republicans ever accepted it.
- Both sides are pretty indistinguishable in their acceptance of conspiracies, it's just the kinds of conspiracies that are different.
- some studies seem to refute his results, like that Republicans are more likely to engage with misinformation and he said that those studies are not randomly sampled because it's internet users, and also the study was done 2016-ish when all the major news outlets, including Fox early in the nomination process, were demonizing Trump. So if you wanted anything pro-Trump, you didn't really have any choice but to engage with less established sources (some of which are trustworthy, but a ton of them are less trustworthy than CNN (as much as we don't trust CNN)).
- He made a funny point with like 5 different hosts from The View as examples. They took turns delving into different conspiracies (Rosie with 9/11, McCarthy with vaccines, etc.)
- We don't have a ton of comparable data from the distant past, but one interesting thing he showed was that just after the JFK assassination, about 50% didn't believe lone gunmen and within a decade it was at something like 83%. It's now down in the 50's, and he said in the 20 years he's been polling, he has never found a conspiracy with more than 55% acceptance. This gives a lot of context to the data that only 5% of right-wingers accepted QAnon.
- There are almost never any novel conspiracy theories. Usually it's the same old theories with minor tweaks.