This is Noonan's take on the conspiracy theorists. It makes a lot of sense to me.
What Drives Conspiracism
The dominant culture has gone mad. Of course lonely people on the internet believe crazy things.
By
Peggy Noonan
Here is an attempt to get at some of what's behind conspiracism, the rising belief in and promotion of political conspiracy theories. In recent years those theories have been heavily associated with QAnon: that a cabal of child sexual abusers running a world-wide trafficking ring has been a major force in opposing Donald Trump ; that "the storm," the day the cabal is exposed and jailed, is coming. In the past year, it includes the charge the presidential election was stolen through state-by-state fraud. In the past week there is increasing talk of the coming "reinstatement," in which proof of election fraud is revealed through state audits, previously reported results are overturned, and Donald Trump is inaugurated again.
1x
Belief in these things is growing. An online poll this week from Ipsos reported 15% of Americans agree that the government, media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Not 15% of Republicans or conservatives, but of Americans. That's a lot. Twenty percent believe in "the storm." Axios last weekend quoted Russell Moore, the evangelical theologian, saying he talks every day to pastors of virtually every denomination "who are exhausted by these theories blowing through their churches."
What is behind the growth of conspiracism? Many things. In no special order:
It is pleasurable to know and hold a higher knowledgeyou get it, others don't. In confusing times it's good to have a Theory of Everything that explains it all to you. America has always had more than its share of cranks and crackpotsit's the darker side of what gives us our gifts and original thinking. We're open to the outlandish. America is a lonely place. When you hold to a conspiracy theory, you join a community. You're suddenly part of something. You have new friends you can talk to on the internet to whom you're joined at the brain. They see the world the way you do; it is a very intimate connection.
Church affiliation and practice have been falling for decades, but people always have a spiritual hole inside, and if God can't fill it, Q will do. The unrealized and unhappy are always in search of a cause to distract themselves from the problems of their lives.
Conspiracy believers don't believe what the mainstream media tell them. Why would they? Newsrooms are undergoing their own revolution, with woke progressives vs. journalistic traditionalists, advocacy versus old-school news values. It is ideological. "We are here to shape and encourage a new reality." "No, we are here to find and report the news." It is generational: The young have the upper hand and the Slack channel. The woke are winning. If a year ago you thought the obviousmaybe the coronavirus that came from Wuhan leaked out of the Wuhan lab where they were studying coronavirusesyou were shut down as racist, bigoted, divisive. The progressives' great talent is policing, and they are always on patrol. Everyone, even the most unsophisticated news consumer, can kind of tell.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-drives-conspiracism-11622759795?mod=opinion_lead_pos8
What Drives Conspiracism
The dominant culture has gone mad. Of course lonely people on the internet believe crazy things.
By
Peggy Noonan
Here is an attempt to get at some of what's behind conspiracism, the rising belief in and promotion of political conspiracy theories. In recent years those theories have been heavily associated with QAnon: that a cabal of child sexual abusers running a world-wide trafficking ring has been a major force in opposing Donald Trump ; that "the storm," the day the cabal is exposed and jailed, is coming. In the past year, it includes the charge the presidential election was stolen through state-by-state fraud. In the past week there is increasing talk of the coming "reinstatement," in which proof of election fraud is revealed through state audits, previously reported results are overturned, and Donald Trump is inaugurated again.
1x
Belief in these things is growing. An online poll this week from Ipsos reported 15% of Americans agree that the government, media and financial worlds are controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles. Not 15% of Republicans or conservatives, but of Americans. That's a lot. Twenty percent believe in "the storm." Axios last weekend quoted Russell Moore, the evangelical theologian, saying he talks every day to pastors of virtually every denomination "who are exhausted by these theories blowing through their churches."
What is behind the growth of conspiracism? Many things. In no special order:
It is pleasurable to know and hold a higher knowledgeyou get it, others don't. In confusing times it's good to have a Theory of Everything that explains it all to you. America has always had more than its share of cranks and crackpotsit's the darker side of what gives us our gifts and original thinking. We're open to the outlandish. America is a lonely place. When you hold to a conspiracy theory, you join a community. You're suddenly part of something. You have new friends you can talk to on the internet to whom you're joined at the brain. They see the world the way you do; it is a very intimate connection.
Church affiliation and practice have been falling for decades, but people always have a spiritual hole inside, and if God can't fill it, Q will do. The unrealized and unhappy are always in search of a cause to distract themselves from the problems of their lives.
Conspiracy believers don't believe what the mainstream media tell them. Why would they? Newsrooms are undergoing their own revolution, with woke progressives vs. journalistic traditionalists, advocacy versus old-school news values. It is ideological. "We are here to shape and encourage a new reality." "No, we are here to find and report the news." It is generational: The young have the upper hand and the Slack channel. The woke are winning. If a year ago you thought the obviousmaybe the coronavirus that came from Wuhan leaked out of the Wuhan lab where they were studying coronavirusesyou were shut down as racist, bigoted, divisive. The progressives' great talent is policing, and they are always on patrol. Everyone, even the most unsophisticated news consumer, can kind of tell.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-drives-conspiracism-11622759795?mod=opinion_lead_pos8