Which conspiracies are true?
A quick survey of X or the top YouTube-influencer-content on the Right reveals that conspiracy theories have never been so widely spread or fervently believed. You can hear Tucker Carlson claiming that the atomic bomb was literally (not figuratively) created by demons; Candace Owens attempting to claim that Erika Kirk is tied to the assassination of her husband, and that Owens herself was the subject of an apparently shockingly inept assassination attempt commissioned personally by the Macrons (Israel was involved somehow, of course); and plenty more.
The phrase “conspiracy theory” itself is, naturally, controversial. Originating in the 1860s and popularized in political theory circles by Karl Popper in 1945, it has been (wrongly) attributed to the CIA as an attempt to deflect questions surrounding the Warren Commission on the assassination of JFK after the already-common term was used in a 1967 memo discussing theories about the president’s murder. Nonetheless, the phrase has been used to dismiss anyone asking serious questions about powerful movements, ideologies, and politicians.
Provable vs. theory
There is, of course, such a thing as a conspiracy – legally speaking, “a secret agreement between two or more people to commit an unlawful act.”
A conspiracy theory is the suspicion or belief that multiple parties have conspired to some nefarious end. Some conspiracy theories turn out to be true as we acquire evidence. Some remain merely theories, which is to say, the evidence is weak, circumstantial, or non-existent. Distinguishing between provable conspiracies and conspiracy theories is, in our chaotic, addictive digital age, essential. Many find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the two; others, because of the loyalty they have for certain influencers, are merely unwilling.
Lack of trust is warranted
It must be noted that the rise of conspiracy theories was made inevitable by the collapse of trust in institutions. There were the widespread deceits from governments and medical institutions during Covid.
As I wrote for The European Conservative a couple of years ago, the collusion of the press, medical institutions, and governments to push transgender ideology has been another major catalyst for the collapse of trust in institutions. When law enforcement puts out a mugshot of a bearded rapist and tells the public they are hunting for a woman, the effect on public trust is predictably devastating.
In short, many conspiracies do turn out to be true.
The need to discern, not rebound
And how do we know? Because we acquire actual evidence. Our institutions and mainstream press have an evidentiary standard that has been corrupted by pernicious, wicked ideologies that they have adopted, and when we acquire information from those sources, we must factor in that bias and re-interpret (most notably, but not exclusively, with Orwellian reporting on abortion and transgender issues) through that lens.
But our solution to this information landscape is not to abandon any evidentiary standard altogether, but to rigorously apply the evidentiary standard abandoned by the institutions and the press.
Indeed, the phrase “trust the experts” has become something of a sick joke, after all the provable lies and ideologically motivated mistakes perpetrated by said experts. But many on the Right have not actually abandoned a “trust the experts” approach; they have merely replaced them with new experts, without wondering whether these replacements actually have any expertise at all or whether their own credibility is rooted in a fidelity to truth and an evidentiary standard. Influencers such as Owens and Carlson deliberately play into this, constantly dismissing their critics not by addressing their arguments but by implying that they are members of the discredited expert class.
But what is their evidentiary standard? Candace Owens, of course, has quite famously claimed that she has received investigative tips in dreams; that she can just “feel” when things are “off”; that she “doesn’t know, but she know knows.” Anyone genuinely seeking truth should take a moment to actually review her record of blatant historical error and deliberate deceit; if that record does not bother you, then you should recognize that it is not truth or a genuine evidentiary standard that matters to you.
If someone can be proven so consistently wrong and maintain your loyalty, you are doing precisely what the Left does with their own idealogues: Choosing to believe someone for reasons other than their actual track record. Many conservative influencers have proven just as hackish and agenda-driven as their progressive opponents. That should matter to those who care about the truth. Otherwise, we do not have principles—we have preferences.
What does it look like when a conservative influencer applies the evidentiary standard to a conspiracy theory? Consider some of Matt Walsh’s recent episodes. As he has pointed out, those seeking the “truth” about Charlie Kirk’s assassination have spent almost no time looking into the LGBT activist actually arrested and charged with his murder – and he laid out precisely why he believes Owens, who is his friend, is dead wrong:
Compare Walsh’s method of investigation to what Owens is doing on her show. One has an evidentiary standard; the other does not. (Dreams, feelings, and angry, compelling language do not count and certainly do not add up to truth.) Even more devastating was Walsh’s rebuttal of Owens’ ongoing character assassination of Erika Kirk, which he ended with a powerful and moving plea for moral decency, publicly begging Owens – who, again, is his friend – to stop what she is doing:
Unanswered questions doesn’t mean any answer will do
Let’s take another major story – the Jeffrey Epstein files. The mysterious sexual predator, connected to countless elite figures, has become a lightning rod for conspiracy theories because there are so many obviously unanswered and open questions. Did he really conveniently die of suicide? Who did he work for, if anyone? How did he get his money? How did he get away with his crimes for so long? Was he running a sexual blackmail operation on behalf of an intelligence service?
These are genuine questions. They deserve real answers.
But many major influencers are not looking to actually find answers – they are insisting that the files released thus far prove whatever they were saying before the files were released. Where the files do not prove their claims, they move the evidentiary bar, claiming that the most incriminating material has clearly been destroyed, or has yet to be released, or will never be released. In short, the actual evidence is only incidental to the claims they are making. If it appears to support their theories, they wave it about as evidence; if it does not, that, too, is somehow also evidence. In short: Evidence is evidence, but no evidence is also evidence.
In a massive analysis published in February, for example, conservative journalists Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger noted that although they had first believed that Jeffrey Epstein was connected to intelligence services (“particularly Mossad and the CIA”), their review led them to a different conclusion. After summarizing the case for intelligence connections and citing the most compelling evidence in favor of that conclusion, they write:
But after having spent several weeks reading through the files and related investigations, it’s clear to us that the totality of available evidence does not support the picture of a government-backed sex blackmail operation. Rather, it suggests that Epstein primarily served his own interests. If Epstein was a slave to anything, it was to his passions and perversions. Ward’s claim that Epstein “belonged to intelligence” is not reliable. She said she heard it third-hand from an anonymous source. Her former Vanity Fair editor and colleagues told the New Yorker that her reporting was not trusted, and said that she had provided inaccurate quotations in the past.
Long-held feelings shouldn’t be misunderstood as facts
If that conclusion makes you instinctively irritated or defensive before you even read their analysis, ask yourself if you have become ideologically invested in a specific conclusion. If the connection or lack thereof of a dead sexual predator to an intelligence agency is something you deeply care about to the point that you will not consider any evidence to the contrary, your view is not based on “truth-seeking,” but something else – loyalty to a podcaster who has captured your attention, loathing for the countries you have been led to believe were involved, belief that no evidence can ever be trusted.
The nature of many conspiracy theories also means that the very theory itself becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For example: Of course Epstein was an Israeli asset – that is precisely the sort of thing Israel does. And why do you feel that way? Well, in part because you have been told, for several years, by several prominent podcasters, that Epstein was an Israeli asset. A feeling that has become entrenched based on the theory now becomes a plausibility structure for the theory itself. Those consuming news and content in our chaotic information age must ask themselves a question: Why do I believe what I believe?
Rebounding off a liar isn’t a way to the truth
Every influencer these days – especially those on the Right – claim to be “truth-seekers,” while insisting that everyone who disagrees with them is lying or “one of them.” We know that progressives have biases, and we know that they lie: About gender ideology, about abortion, about the birth control pill, and countless other issues.
But the solution to a corrupted evidentiary standard is not to replace it with a network of podcasters who abandon any evidentiary standard at all and merely replace progressive biases that are impervious to evidence with new biases that are equally impervious to evidence.
If truth matters, we should pursue it. If evidence matters, then we should consider it – and the lack of it. If we are being led to conclusions through skillful narrative creation rather than proof, we should stop and consider where we are being led and why – because many influencers who identify as Christian have done more to confuse and corrupt their audiences than progressives ever could....
