One of my friends was posting Facebook about their relatives who lives on a farm with lots of guns in Oregon worried that the Joe Biden administration was out to get him. Ask the anti-war protestors, immigrants or people of the Islamic faith, and they are likely share their fate in a recent era of the previous administrations โ targets of political oppression.
Power can be devious thing. Very few politicians go around, rounding up their enemies, putting them in jail in mass. Instead, they use existing powers to punish those of the other party or ideology through what they claim is a campaign to make society safer, more moral or just. Politicians seek to enact new laws and aggressively use police powers against people who they donโt like. Who gets investigated and punished? Those out of power!
The central truth of political power, is that people seek political power to bully and harm others โ namely minorities of all types that are out of power. While wrapped in the flag, patriotism, and doing the moral and just cause, most legislation is about praying on others for political gain. We must defeat the enemy, cheers the politician! While others have a more a positive view of politics, often wrapped in ideology, politics is mostly zero-sum game, where any political gain on one side is a loss for the other side. And usually, the looser arenโt the political class.
What is the solution? Competitive elections and a denouncing of politicians who engage in bullying by defending civil rights. The former President Trump was clearly labeled as a bully and evil, but many on the left engage and embrace many of his tactics. While President Biden hasnโt been as much as a bully so far, we should be watching him, and the Republicans should hold him accountable, denying them votes when he hurts the conservative communities they represent. Likewise, when Republicans take back the White House in future years, Democrats must be a guardians of our freedom. Grid lock is often best for protecting the minority rights, especially it means not taking steps backwards.
What happened on January 6 at the US Capitol? Depending on whoโs telling the tale, it was a โprotest," โinsurrection,"โriot," or, as commemorative shirts worn by some of the participants put it, โMAGA Civil War."Historian Gaines M. Foster writes that Americans once used a similar range of terms to describe what we now think of as the actual Civil War.
So, what is happening to shift in our favor? In March and April we saw record background checks implying there were massive amounts of firearms being purchased. As the questionable stay-at-home orders started to trickle out at local levels, it became clear people were worried. There is very few things that can create this type of surge in firearm purchases, but having to deal with a global pandemic is high on the list. As people hunkered down for the long haul it started to become clearer they were on their own.
Add to the problem services and commodities being limited or in some cases exhausted, and panic started to ripple across the country. The idea that you may have to protect your family or in some cases your supplies struck a deep chord. While there was certainly reason to be concerned in some locations, other locations were more stable. The net result was seeing a record number of first-time gun buyers and owners across the country.
The United States of America was founded on a conspiracy theory. In the lead-up to the War of Independence, revolutionaries argued that a tax on tea or stamps is not just a tax, but the opening gambit in a sinister plot of oppression. The signers of the eclaration of Independence were convinced โ based on โa long train of abuses and usurpationsศ โ that the king of Great Britain was conspiring to establish โan absolute Tyrannyศ over the colonies.
โThe document itself is a written conspiracy theory," says Nancy Rosenblum, a political theorist emerita at Harvard University. It suggests that thereโs more going on than meets the eye, that someone with bad intentions is working behind the scenes.
If conspiracy theories are as old as politics, theyโre also โ in the era of onald Trump and QAnon โ as current as the latest headlines. Earlier this month, the American democracy born of an eighteenth century conspiracy theory faced its most severe threat yet โ from another conspiracy theory, that (all evidence to the contrary) the 2020 presidential election was rigged. Are conspiracy theories truly more prevalent and influential today, or does it just seem that way?
The research isnโt clear. Rosenblum and others see evidence that belief in conspiracy theories is increasing and taking dangerous new forms. Others disagree. But scholars generally do agree that conspiracy theories have always existed and always will. They tap into basic aspects of human cognition and psychology, which may help explain why they take hold so easily โ and why theyโre seemingly impossible to kill.
