Everyone enjoys the occasional, harmless urban legend, like not stepping on the Talley Student Union seal. Similarly, many of us like to joke about the information some government or large institution may be keeping from us. However, the past year has shown an exponential increase in dangerous political conspiracies that, unfortunately, exemplify a new age of false information due to prominent figures backing a certain stance. It is easy to point out how addressing fiction as facts is dangerous, and we cannot support politicians who lie in order to earn another term in office. I want to discuss some reasons why, as citizens, we validate these outlandish claims.
While many use the term “uneducated” as an insult, this is, unfortunately, a reality for many great people in our nation. Higher education opportunities in lower-income communities are minimal. So when lower-income individuals are unable to attain a higher education, many become more susceptible to the tools of unsensible, fictional political conspiracy theories.
This is exactly what the Republican Party has done. They know that manipulating a group of people into believing in something false was one of the only ways their party could win. And they did. Many right-wing politicians made thousands believe “American life” was under attack, whether from baseless claims of voter fraud, the deep state and/or our government being run by the wealthy elite.
Likewise, many conservative endeavors seek to deflect blame from their efforts to thwart popular policies, such as increasing the minimum wage or increasing personal expression for marginalized communities. Oftentimes, conservatives will push certain populations into poverty, by keeping the minimum wage low and suppressing personal expression via boiled down religious interpretations, and then they seek votes and support from the same people. The only way for conservatives to keep those supporters is to create fear, create narratives and demonize the left while they simultaneously walk all over their supporters.
In order to fully understand this mindset, one must understand why representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Madison Cawthorn support wild conspiracies such as QAnon. Blaming your political adversaries as part of, for example, a child sex trafficking ring hellbent on world domination engages their audience and promises them votes, even when they make outlandish claims such as calling the Parkland and Las Vegas mass shootings staged and calling for the execution of leading Democrat officials.
For college students, there are endless opportunities for learning and growth within our educational institution. Yet it is still a shock to many of us when our classmates who share similar majors and socioeconomic backgrounds spout confounding and irrational beliefs that have little to no factual evidence. I’m sure many of you can think of at least one instance in the past year where you have found a friend, family member or classmate who said some radically unfounded statement and wondered what went wrong.
It’s even more concerning to hear these harmful conspiracy theories spouted at the federal level, and for many like me, it’s shocking to see people our age, in our school, who actively support baseless propagandists and their nonsense. It’s even harder to justify this, considering we’re in college and it goes against any sort of natural process of elimination or problem-solving skills we use on a day-to-day basis. So what really draws our classmates down these rabbit holes, and why does it seem many end up aligning with and supporting groundless politicians like Donald Trump?
I believe that it leads directly back to the need for information and stability. While these conspiracy theories seem absolutely prosperous for many of us, they are also a sigh of relief for many who have been struggling to find a reason for why our country is changing. Plus, with the pandemic rapidly changing life over the past year, many of us are looking for any sign of assurance or comfort against the hardships that are often normalized in our society.
Likewise, the basis of conservative politics is the conservation of traditional values in society. Thus, those who share the ideology of conservatism within society are not as willing to accept social changes, no matter how necessary or logical they might be. An information divide then forms. And while, yes, this is an oversimplification of conservatism in America, it’s also important to understand why conspiracy theories are so popular on one side of the aisle.
The underlying tone of political conspiracies is distrust: distrust in the system and those who perpetuate it. That is common ground for many people, and not everyone who believes in a conspiracy theory is irredeemably uneducated or unknowledgeable. As members of the NC State community, it is our obligation to thoroughly investigate our claims with credible sources and actual statistical information. And if you’re one of those people that says “all statistics are propaganda,” then you’ve been most likely duped by your local representative.
