The Politics of Conspiracy Theories
| DOI | 10.1177/20419058211045145 |
| Author | Bill Jones |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
SEPTEMBER 2021 • POLITICAL INSIGHT 31
Ever since White House aide
Kellyanne Conway defended
Donald Trump’s false claim that
his inauguration attracted a
record crowd as ‘an alternative fact’, media
disinformation has become an almost
daily visitation. The Coronavirus pandemic
has ushered in what the World Health
Organization has called an ‘infodemic’ of
conspiracy theories, from the notion that Bill
Gates is using vaccinations to implant digital
microchips to track and control the world’s
population, to the idea that the virus was
manufactured deliberately as a biological
weapon by China. Arguably, the ultimate
pandemic ‘alternative fact’ is that COVID
doesn’t actually exist: David Icke and Alex
Jones of
Infowars
have both drawn plenty of
attention – and donations – by arguing that
the pandemic is merely an invention by the
global elite to steal our freedoms.
Do all these frothy eusions matter? Yes,
they really do. Democracy rests on a sure
foundation of fact: if we cannot trust the
veracity of what we are told through ocial
sources, eective government is impossible.
The Politics of
Conspiracy Theories
COVID has unleashed an ‘infodemic’ of conspiracy theories.
But, as Bill Jones finds, paranoid thinking in politics long
predates the global pandemic.
Conspiracy theories replace the trusted
information which democracy requires, with
wild imaginings worthy of sci- writers or
strident bar room philosophers. The result
can have real world consequences: countless
numbers have refused COVID vaccinations as
a result of anti-vax conspiracy theories.
Why are conspiracy theories so
popular?
How have such ideas progressed from the
mutterings of cranks to almost the mainstream
of political discourse? In his
Voodoo Histories
,
David Aaronovitch suggests that the
provenance of conspiracy theories can be
found in anti-Semitic tropes like
The Elders
of Zion
, an early 20th century publication
© Guy Bell / Alamy Stock Photo
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