Ken's Second Act

Conspiracy theories can have serious, even deadly, consequences

Final conspiracy

Conspiracy theories are nothing new and now spread like viruses thanks to social media. Charles Astor Bristed, an American scholar and author, is the first American to use the term, in a letter to the editor published in the New York Times in 1863, according to Wikipedia.

By browsing the web, you can find many theories that fit the key ingredients of a conspiracy theory, the National Library of Medicine stated. They usually involve powerful groups such as societal leaders, governmental institutions, influential branches of industry, the pharmaceutical industry or stigmatized minority groups.

On a personal level, I’m disheartened that some people I know embrace conspiracy theories as reality. One person told me to look up adrenochrome. “They put human meat in fast food,” she said in an email, adding she hasn’t eaten fast food since 2006.

She has a legitimate concern about human trafficking, but it’s unfortunate that she has embraced a conspiracy theory that has no basis in reality. “Things are hidden that the elites are trying to hide,” she wrote.

The conspiracy theory baselessly claims that Hollywood and Democratic elites kidnap and torture children to harvest adrenochrome from them, indy100.com stated. It’s a large part of the conspiracy group QAnon, which also believes that political and entertainment industry elites organized satanic child sex trafficking rings.

The adrenochrome and Great Replacement theories have antisemitic origins. Forbes Magazine reported, “The adrenochrome theory has roots in centuries-old antisemitic tropes, namely blood libel, the myth that Jews use the blood of Christian and non-Jewish children in rituals, which has historically been used as justification to imprison and torture Jews and was an element of Nazi propaganda.”

The Great Replacement theory dates to the late 19th century and “argues that Jews and some Western elites are conspiring to replace white Americans and Europeans with people of non-European descent, particularly Asians and Africans,” The Conversation reported.

Beliefs in these and other conspiracies have serious and even deadly consequences. In 2016, a North Carolina man fired an AR-15 rifle inside a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., because he was “self investigating” a baseless conspiracy that the eatery was a front for a child sex ring run by Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager. Fortunately, nobody was killed.

In 2017, torch-carrying white nationalists shouted “Jews will not replace us” in the Unite the Right rally in the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia. A participant rammed his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing a woman and injuring 19 others.

A year later, Robert Bowers killed 11 worshippers in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. It was the deadliest attack on Jews in American history. Before the massacre, the gunman posted attacks on immigrants and Jewish people on Gab, a small social media platform then used by right-wing extremists, according to CNN.

What decades ago was called “the lunatic fringe” has become mainstream. Elected and public officials on the Right, ranging from local offices to the White House, have embraced conspiracy theories, hoping to score political points. FactCheck.org reported in October 2020 about Donald Trump’s long history with conspiracy theories. That was a month before Democrat Joe Biden defeated him, an election victory Trump falsely claimed was stolen from him. Egged on by his Big Lie, thugs trashed the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, assaulted police officers and tried to overturn the election. After assuming his second term, Trump pardoned them. Trump shamelessly met this past week with far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who advised him to fire advisers whom she deemed were insufficiently loyal to him.

I’m not suggesting that the Right holds the monopoly on embracing conspiracy theories. I treated a single mom to a dinner and a movie about 13 years ago. In a conversation over dinner, she said 9/11 was “an inside job.” I asked, “Do you have any proof?” She didn’t. Around the same time, an acquaintance who gained home ownership through the sweat equity program of Habitat for Humanity invited me over to her new house. I cut short the conversation when she blamed the terrorist attacks on “the Zionists,” a conspiracy theory widely shared in the Arab world even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. I didn’t visit her house.

If someone tells you something that sounds outlandish, double-check what they said or wrote to you. Snopes.com is a good place to start. Sinister forces and evil exist for real in the world, so don’t get distracted and stressed out by believing and sharing conspiracy theories, hoaxes and other disinformation.