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Is conspiratorial thinking confined to the right wing? A sizeable portion of the country believes in a conspiracy theory where a sitting US president is someho

Is conspiratorial thinking confined to the right wing? A sizeable portion of the country believes in a conspiracy theory where a sitting US president is somehow a Russian sleeper agent.

1propionyl 6y ago
No, it's not. But it's far more prevalent and organized on the right. There was a recent study (which was posted on HN a week or two ago) in direct reply to this essay demonstrating an asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12681 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12681 > Results reveal that conservatives in the United States were not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories, but they were also more likely to espouse conspiratorial worldviews in general (r = .27, 95% CI: .24, .30). Importantly, extreme conservatives were significantly more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals (Hedges' g = .77, SE = .07, p < .001). Also that's a bit of a straw man representation. Compromised, sure, but full on sleeper agent is a fringe belief at best.
- _cs2017_ 6y ago
  This study seems to be quite badly designed. The only two "conspiracy theories" being analyzed are the disbelief in climate change and the distrust of officialdom (which includes media and politicians). Scientists disagree with each other on many topics, so distrusting them doesn't cross the line of conspiracy theory. Media, on both sides of the political spectrum, is quite biased and low quality these days; so distrusting the media is also quite reasonable. Not to mention, both topics, and especially the climate change, has a huge political connotation. So the answers of people would often be merely a reflection of their political beliefs. Why not pick the real, obvious, non-political conspiracy theories? Like 9/11 didn't happen; people didn't land on the Moon; earth is flat; etc?
  - dTal 6y ago
    >climate change has a huge political connotation Isn't this begging the question? Climate change has a political connotation exactly because conservatives believe it's made-up, and the only way they can square this counterfactual with the huge number of independent confirmations is the assumption that they are all somehow in cahoots - i.e., a conspiracy. While I agree that a less politicized choice of topic would be more enlightening, I can imagine that going out of your way to avoid "political" topics may just be an exercise in mitigating the very effect you're trying to measure.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- refurb 6y ago
  How did they define "conspiratorial thinking"? Did it include things like "the NSA is listening to all our communications"? Because that was a conspiracy but turned out to be true.
bleepblorp 6y ago
This is somewhat disingenuous. I doubt very many Americans think Trump is a sleeper agent in the literal sense of that term. There is, however, considerable circumstantial evidence that he may be compromised by the Russians. The fact that Trump has been less than wholly forthcoming regarding his connections with Russia has only deepened this concern. Multiple people in the Trump orbit--including Trump himself--have had repeated communications with Putin, Russian oligarchs, or their proxies, and have gone to considerable lengths (such as by conducting meetings in private and confiscating the translator's notes) to hide the contents of these communications from official records and lawfully constituted legal investigations. Given that Trump is believed to be deeply in debt (see the recent NYT series on Trump's tax records), has had business dealings inside Russia (e.g. Trump Tower Moscow), and has benefited from Russian state-sponsored criminal hacking[0], hidden communications between the Trump orbit and Russia are cause for grave concern over whether Trump has inappropriate ties to the Russian government. Read the Mueller Report and pay particular attention to what could not be proven because the necessary evidence had been destroyed or was otherwise inaccessible.[1] Unlike the current flavor of Republican conspiracy theorizing, the Trump-Russia story is not a bunch of lunatics deluding themselves into thinking that the Democratic party is keeping children captive in the basement of a pizza restaurant. It's something backed by actual evidence and has lead to multiple prosecutions. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/15/what-happened-trump-counterintelligence-investigation-house-investigators-dont-know/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/15/what-happ... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_investigation)#Conclusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves...
- pjc50 6y ago
  Don't forget the actual Russian agent meeting the NRA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Russia has one of the strongest civilian firearms cultures in the world. The Russian defense industrial complex also cranks out a lot of small arms. They want to be able to sell stuff into the US market. The NRA wants the US market to be able to buy small arms from across the world. Considering how blurry the line between politics, special interest lobbying, the arms industry and the government itself is in Russia I think it comes as no surprise that people with pay stubs on government letterhead are trying to get buddy-buddy with the NRA. It's kind of irrelevant though since there's rules for that sort of stuff (registering as a foreign agent) and Russia shouldn't expect any slack in lights of their geopolitical ventures on their western border.
scottlocklin 6y ago
It's absolutely not. In fact, the modern "left" of identity politics is medieval demonology tier; magical emanations from white men prevent the success of everyone else (except Asians somehow). Recycling or ... the purchasing of "carbon credits" (aka papal indulgences) will prevent world-destroying "environmental thingees." And of course, the various permutations on the Russia conspiracy theory is so comically 1950s paranoia as to be beyond parody. As was its similarly Hillary Clinton originated predecessor "the vast right wing conspiracy." Of course there are actual conspiracies in plain sight which nobody is allowed to talk about without giving people the kook crown. Probably why there is a paranoid style in US politics; repression/converstion. We know we're being lied to. Two recent examples: Epstein allegedly killing himself and the Vegas shooting -two things which are completely bonkers, but which seem met with almost incredible incuriosity by the clowns in the media.
api 6y ago
I followed the Russia stuff and never believed Trump was an actual agent. I didn't hear many serious people saying that, though I did hear it from a few propagandist talking head types. I ignore those as a rule. Trump is too egotistical to serve anyone but himself, and he's too wild and unpredictable to be a reliable agent to anyone. The allegation was that Trump accepted help offered by Russian agents, which is likely as I'm sure he would have accepted help offered by anyone. I just thought Russia may have covertly backed him in an attempt to get an intensely repellent and divisive candidate into office and damage America's reputation. There's a good deal of evidence that Russia is still in the ring for Trump, such as Russian state TV running anti-Biden stuff all day right now. There is also evidence for Russian propaganda targeting the Democrats and the left too, like sock puppets infiltrating BLM chat rooms and pushing the most divisive messages possible. The ultimate goal is destabilization and damage to America's reputation, not the victory of any specific candidate. That being said, I think the ultimate goal of this Russian propaganda may be more inward-facing than outward-facing. Putin needs to portray American democracy as a failure in order to hold onto power in Russia. Meddling in American and other democratic processes can be a way to do that.

Is conspiratorial thinking confined to the right wing? A sizeable portion of the country believes in a conspiracy theory where a sitting US president is somehow a Russian sleeper agent.

1propionyl 6y ago

No, it's not. But it's far more prevalent and organized on the right. There was a recent study (which was posted on HN a week or two ago) in direct reply to this essay demonstrating an asymmetry in conspiratorial thinking: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12681 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12681 > Results reveal that conservatives in the United States were not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories, but they were also more likely to espouse conspiratorial worldviews in general (r = .27, 95% CI: .24, .30). Importantly, extreme conservatives were significantly more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals (Hedges' g = .77, SE = .07, p < .001). Also that's a bit of a straw man representation. Compromised, sure, but full on sleeper agent is a fringe belief at best.

_cs2017_ 6y ago
This study seems to be quite badly designed. The only two "conspiracy theories" being analyzed are the disbelief in climate change and the distrust of officialdom (which includes media and politicians). Scientists disagree with each other on many topics, so distrusting them doesn't cross the line of conspiracy theory. Media, on both sides of the political spectrum, is quite biased and low quality these days; so distrusting the media is also quite reasonable. Not to mention, both topics, and especially the climate change, has a huge political connotation. So the answers of people would often be merely a reflection of their political beliefs. Why not pick the real, obvious, non-political conspiracy theories? Like 9/11 didn't happen; people didn't land on the Moon; earth is flat; etc?
- dTal 6y ago
  >climate change has a huge political connotation Isn't this begging the question? Climate change has a political connotation exactly because conservatives believe it's made-up, and the only way they can square this counterfactual with the huge number of independent confirmations is the assumption that they are all somehow in cahoots - i.e., a conspiracy. While I agree that a less politicized choice of topic would be more enlightening, I can imagine that going out of your way to avoid "political" topics may just be an exercise in mitigating the very effect you're trying to measure.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
refurb 6y ago
How did they define "conspiratorial thinking"? Did it include things like "the NSA is listening to all our communications"? Because that was a conspiracy but turned out to be true.

bleepblorp 6y ago

This is somewhat disingenuous. I doubt very many Americans think Trump is a sleeper agent in the literal sense of that term. There is, however, considerable circumstantial evidence that he may be compromised by the Russians. The fact that Trump has been less than wholly forthcoming regarding his connections with Russia has only deepened this concern. Multiple people in the Trump orbit--including Trump himself--have had repeated communications with Putin, Russian oligarchs, or their proxies, and have gone to considerable lengths (such as by conducting meetings in private and confiscating the translator's notes) to hide the contents of these communications from official records and lawfully constituted legal investigations. Given that Trump is believed to be deeply in debt (see the recent NYT series on Trump's tax records), has had business dealings inside Russia (e.g. Trump Tower Moscow), and has benefited from Russian state-sponsored criminal hacking[0], hidden communications between the Trump orbit and Russia are cause for grave concern over whether Trump has inappropriate ties to the Russian government. Read the Mueller Report and pay particular attention to what could not be proven because the necessary evidence had been destroyed or was otherwise inaccessible.[1] Unlike the current flavor of Republican conspiracy theorizing, the Trump-Russia story is not a bunch of lunatics deluding themselves into thinking that the Democratic party is keeping children captive in the basement of a pizza restaurant. It's something backed by actual evidence and has lead to multiple prosecutions. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/15/what-happened-trump-counterintelligence-investigation-house-investigators-dont-know/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/15/what-happ... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_investigation)#Conclusions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_Hurricane_(FBI_inves...

pjc50 6y ago
Don't forget the actual Russian agent meeting the NRA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Russia has one of the strongest civilian firearms cultures in the world. The Russian defense industrial complex also cranks out a lot of small arms. They want to be able to sell stuff into the US market. The NRA wants the US market to be able to buy small arms from across the world. Considering how blurry the line between politics, special interest lobbying, the arms industry and the government itself is in Russia I think it comes as no surprise that people with pay stubs on government letterhead are trying to get buddy-buddy with the NRA. It's kind of irrelevant though since there's rules for that sort of stuff (registering as a foreign agent) and Russia shouldn't expect any slack in lights of their geopolitical ventures on their western border.

scottlocklin 6y ago

It's absolutely not. In fact, the modern "left" of identity politics is medieval demonology tier; magical emanations from white men prevent the success of everyone else (except Asians somehow). Recycling or ... the purchasing of "carbon credits" (aka papal indulgences) will prevent world-destroying "environmental thingees." And of course, the various permutations on the Russia conspiracy theory is so comically 1950s paranoia as to be beyond parody. As was its similarly Hillary Clinton originated predecessor "the vast right wing conspiracy." Of course there are actual conspiracies in plain sight which nobody is allowed to talk about without giving people the kook crown. Probably why there is a paranoid style in US politics; repression/converstion. We know we're being lied to. Two recent examples: Epstein allegedly killing himself and the Vegas shooting -two things which are completely bonkers, but which seem met with almost incredible incuriosity by the clowns in the media.

api 6y ago

I followed the Russia stuff and never believed Trump was an actual agent. I didn't hear many serious people saying that, though I did hear it from a few propagandist talking head types. I ignore those as a rule. Trump is too egotistical to serve anyone but himself, and he's too wild and unpredictable to be a reliable agent to anyone. The allegation was that Trump accepted help offered by Russian agents, which is likely as I'm sure he would have accepted help offered by anyone. I just thought Russia may have covertly backed him in an attempt to get an intensely repellent and divisive candidate into office and damage America's reputation. There's a good deal of evidence that Russia is still in the ring for Trump, such as Russian state TV running anti-Biden stuff all day right now. There is also evidence for Russian propaganda targeting the Democrats and the left too, like sock puppets infiltrating BLM chat rooms and pushing the most divisive messages possible. The ultimate goal is destabilization and damage to America's reputation, not the victory of any specific candidate. That being said, I think the ultimate goal of this Russian propaganda may be more inward-facing than outward-facing. Putin needs to portray American democracy as a failure in order to hold onto power in Russia. Meddling in American and other democratic processes can be a way to do that.