Try to understand what drives conspiracy theorists
Liberals are now claiming to be ohso-tired of the feeding frenzy they helped stoke. This would be their pushback, some of it admittedly quite witty, to far-right conspiracy theories about the lovey-dovey relationship between singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and NFL player Travis Kelce.
There’d been an avalanche of opinions lately. Late night TV hosts weighed in, as did pundits.
But now, they’ve grown tired of it all, many people are now saying in Facebook posts. Tired of trying to understand how MAGA adherents could possibly believe the latest conspiracy theory about the global pop star and her Kansas City Chiefs boyfriend.
The theory is whack-a-doodle.
But that’s what conspiracy theories are, after all. And if they’re honest, liberals often hold tightly to their own.
Ask someone with far-left leanings to discuss global economies or conflicts around the world where U.S. interests are involved. Some mindsets will quickly cite what sounds like a belief in a diabolical roundtable of military generals and CEOs who plot calamities for profit.
Which is why we’d all be better off taking time to understand why latching onto conspiratorial ideas is a very human trait. Contrary to common thought, it’s one that people of varying political leanings and education levels fall prey to.
Science learns more about the human brain daily. It teaches that our minds are wired to dismiss information that conflicts with what we already believe. That’s part of how the brain tracks information, applying new information to previous memories.
This isn’t to argue that the far-right theories initially blasted out by Fox News host Jesse Watters and other influential MAGA voices hold water. They do not.
Here’s a summary of one conspiracy: Swift is the pinnacle in a government plot. She’s not merely dating Kelce or just going to the Super Bowl to watch her boyfriend compete (Go Chiefs!). She’s really trying to take down America.
This would be the America of their dreams where former President Donald Trump is elected president again and everyone suddenly prospers.
The Pentagon has even clapped back at these notions lately. A Pentagon spokesperson told Politico, “We know all too well the dangers of conspiracy theories, so to set the record straight, Taylor Swift is not part of a DOD psychological operation. Period.”
Yes, there’s a tone of exasperation in that statement.
“Psy-op” is the term that people who believe in the Swift conspiracies like to use, probably because it makes it sound like they have the inside track on top secret data.
Here’s another common plot line of one conspiracy theory: Swift (a government planted agent) will take to the field during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl (with apologies to Usher, who is contracted for the entertainment) and while standing midfield, she’ll endorse President Joe Biden.
The Chiefs winning the Super Bowl is also part of this plot. Sorry, but we’ve got Patrick Mahomes as quarterback, the team’s secret sauce.
Here’s the part that is logical: Swift has backed Biden previously. And it is not loony to think that she might do so again, or that she might also encourage voter registration, as she has done in the past.
Given her megawatt star power, she could be influential to younger voters especially. That is what far-right minds fear: a Biden win and, moreover, what they believe Biden for another term will mean for their lives.
Conspiracy theories rise to the level of the threat felt by believers. This is how such an all-American love story – literally America’s sweetheart dates a football star – could take on such a twisted and sinister storyline.
Consider the magnitude of the conspiracies surrounding COVID-19 and vaccines. It was a global pandemic. Not something happening on just one block in North America. COVID disrupted the world. Economies were deeply impacted as supply chains were hit, which in turn, caused panic and hardship at a scale not seen in many people’s memory.
So the explanations to place blame, to understand how it occurred, were equally gargantuan in scale.
Experts now point out that some of that reaction should have been expected. There was already a strong antivaccine sentiment in the U.S., partially due to debunked theories about the causes of autism, linking it to childhood vaccinations.
Public safety measures like masking and vaccines were then less accepted. And some people latched onto ideas about global plots to explain global supply chain disruptions. Peeled back, it’s somewhat understandable.
Addressing anxieties, yes, even some folks’ spinning monologues of imminent societal doom under a Democrat president, is one way to put the TaylorTravis uproar in a different light.
We would be better off as a nation if we could devote more time to trying to understand the fears of those who wind up believing conspiracy theories rather than spending so much time ridiculing them.
Mary Sanchez’s column is distributed by Tribune Content Agency.