The truth about conspiracy theories...
Only the government is allowed to have them
A year after the violent riot at the United States Capitol in January 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice announced they had some conspiracy theories - first they accused members of the Oathkeepers, then members of the Proud Boys, of conspiring to commit sedition at the Capitol. Of the nearly 1,000 people charged with crimes related to the riot, the government named about 50 of them as conspirators.
According to the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, the subjects of the government's January 6 conspiracy theories had their own conspiracy theories about the government stealing the November 3, 2020 election from Donald Trump. The January 6 rally had been named the "Stop the Steal" rally.
Accusations about the 2020 presidential election being rigged or stolen were dubbed the "Big Lie" by Democrats and their mainstream media allies. In general, the media denigrates anyone who dares suggest conspiracies might happen as "conspiracy theorists," a term that has been given derogatory connotations.
But the reality is the government charges ordinary people with conspiracy all the time. On any given day in a courtroom somewhere in the United States, there is a good chance a prosecutor is announcing a conspiracy theory against a defendant.
The reality is conspiracy is part of human nature. Ever since there have been enough human beings to form conspiracies, there have been conspiracies. One of the greatest works of Shakespeare is about one of the most famous conspiracies in history. Politicians perpetrate conspiracies against rivals. Military coups are impossible without military conspiracies. The number one best-selling book of all times is about Jesus Christ, who was the target of a religious conspiracy. Even the founding of the United States of America was the result of a conspiracy - this time a good conspiracy of men who pledged themselves to a cause greater than themselves.
The existence of conspiracies should be as readily acknowledged as the earth being round. So then why all the pressure to make people afraid to speak of them? Who else would be so vested in making people afraid of the consequences of discussing conspiracies than people who are themselves conspirators who wish to avoid the disinfecting light of free inquiry?
And if it's ok for the government to engage in conspiracy theories against ordinary people, why isn't it ok for ordinary people to engage in conspiracy theories against the government? Must conspiracy theorists only be vilified and ostracized when the subjects of suspicion are the rich, the powerful, the elite, or even the government?
The reality is conspiracy is something human beings do, from low level criminals to high level elites. So the mere acknowledgement of the existence of conspiracies or questioning of whether certain events are the result of conspiracies, should not be grounds for excommunication from society.
But aren't some so-called conspiracy theorists absolutely bonkers? The question that should be asked when considering conspiracy theories about the government and other elite groups is the same question that should be asked when the government accuses ordinary people with conspiracy.
Is the theory plausible? Is there a rational reason to believe it? Is there evidence, whether that be circumstantial evidence, testimony or other forms of evidence?
When keeping an open mind about the reality of conspiracy in human affairs and the possibility some conspiracy theories might be true, the need to differentiate between the distinct things that get lumped together under the single category "conspiracy theory" becomes clear.
Conspiracy Reality
First, there is conspiracy reality. As I heard Mark Levin say once on his radio show, "I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I'm a conspiracy realist." When criminal defendants are convicted of conspiracy, as both Capitol rioters and Antifa rioters have been, it is safe to conclude the conspiracies they were accused of participating in are reality. A criminal conviction is not fool proof. It is possible to rig juries. It is possible to rig jury verdicts. Just as it is possible rig elections. But in the normal course of events, a jury verdict is generally a good indication of the truth of a matter, just as an official election result is a good indication of who won the election.
Conspiracy Theory
Before a defendant is convicted, it is safer to think of conspiracy charges against them as conspiracy theories. Though the standards of proof in law are different than in science, there is a similarity between how a scientist takes a theory into a laboratory hoping to prove it, and a prosecutor takes a criminal conspiracy theory into a courtroom hoping to prove it; or even how a journalist takes a conspiracy theory about corruption into their research and reporting, hoping to prove it in the court of public opinion. Theories are more than wild speculation. They are unproven narratives about reality with specific items of support from reality.
Conspiracy Speculation
The third category is what I think is most often incorrectly described as conspiracy theory. This is conspiracy speculation. Conspiracy speculation is an unproven narrative that is plausible, that is generally possible in the real world, but lacking specific evidence or reasons to belief it is true in a particular case.
In my opinion, most beliefs about the 2020 election being rigged and stolen are conspiracy speculation. It seems to me many of them remain unproven and some lack solid reasons to believe they are true. That doesn't mean they aren't true. There are many things done in secret that will never be brought into the light and proven. But without evidence, or enough reason to believe, it remains speculation.
It is plausible that electronic voting machines can be tampered with. But that doesn't mean they were. How can we believe they were without evidence? In the same way, you don't have to believe they are reliable without evidence they are. The government telling you 2020 was the most secure election in history is not the government proving it to you. What other proof can people possibly have than paper ballots that never leave the sight of public scrutiny and can be hand counted?
It is plausible voter fraud can occur when millions of unsolicited mail ballots are shipped out without knowing who will get them, and millions of ballots are dropped into unsupervised drop box locations. It would be irrational to believe there wasn't some fraud. But I don't see how we can ever prove there was enough fraud to change the outcome of the election. Just as I don't see how we can ever prove there wasn't.
Something that is reality and most likely changed the outcome of the election is that Democrat governors and Democrat courts in swing states disregarded election laws in their states and implemented lawless election processes that gave Democrats an advantage. Republicans failed to use the legal process to force Democrats to follow state law, so it seems a matter of opinion whether those actions amount to a conspiracy to steal the election, mere political maneuvering to gain an advantage, or benevolent government servants helping people vote during a pandemic.
Conspiracy Fantasy
Lastly, worse than conspiracy speculation is conspiracy fantasy. Conspiracy deniers love to point to examples of conspiracy fantasies and use them as ammunition to label all conspiracy theorists as crazy as conspiracy fantasists are. Conspiracy fantasy is not realistic. It is not plausible. In many cases, the conspiracy fantasies some people believe are impossible.
A homeless guy sitting next to me in the computer lab at a public library once offered me his conspiracy fantasy. He said the videos of planes crashing into the Twin Towers on 9/11 were actually videos of birds flying into the towers. He said the videos were edited to make it look like they were planes. Obviously, that is something only a person disconnected from reality could believe. And that is not an idea we should entertain for a second.
Just because someone propagates a conspiracy fantasy and appears to be a little crazy, does not mean all of the their conspiracy ideas are meritless. Alex Jones is probably the most famous person thought of as a "conspiracy theorist." In his case, his conspiracy ideas have fallen across the entire spectrum, from fantasy to speculation to theory to reality.
The most well-known contemporary so-called conspiracy theory is Q-Anon. The central conspiracy idea unique to Q-Anon, that a faction of military leaders loyal to Donald Trump were going to keep him in office and arrest all his political rivals, was obviously pure fantasy. It was pure fantasy fabricated by a malevolent actor and believed by many very gullible people. But in the Q-Anon community there are also many legitimate conspiracy theories that circulate and that have been around long before Q-Anon came along.
Of course, the media loves to try to "discredit" and "debunk" the legitimate conspiracy theories by pointing to the fantasies that are spread along with them. The top conspiracy theory spread in Q-Anon communities, that there are rich and powerful pedophiles in the world, is reality - as the Epstein case proves. (some of the other stuff about child sacrifice seems more speculative.) The Pizzagate theory is another example. It was actually a collection of theories surrounding a pizza parlor in D.C. based on the compelling evidence the people running the place and the politicians they associated with were a group of sick pedophiles who used code language to communicate their plans to each other. But one theory about a basement got debunked so the media used that to say the entire thing was debunked.
The challenge to people about being honest with reality is to not react the same way to conspiracy theory as one should react to conspiracy fantasy. People often make the mistake of reacting the same way and people in general have been psychologically conditioned by the media to react in such a way to any mention of conspiracy.
But the truth is, it is the conspiracy denier who is just as ignorant of reality as the conspiracy fantasist is disconnected from it. Those two live together in a fantasy world, one in which conspiracies do not exist and the other in which everything that happens is the result of a conspiracy. Reality is somewhere in between, where the conspiracy realist, the conspiracy theorist, and even the conspiracy speculator live, as long as they realize and acknowledge the lines between speculation, theory and reality.