Harmless Cranks

The popularity of conspiracy theories don’t threaten the prevailing order

It was a big week for conspiracy theorists.

First, the Justice Department announced its lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center for funding right-wing informants. This inspired claims that the group created the Alt Right to hurt the rest of the Right.

Second, a crazed leftist tried to kill President Trump, which prompted liberals and right-wingers to assert it was a “false flag.” This notion instantly gained traction online and seemed to get more notice than the official narrative.

Both events illustrate how popular conspiratorial thinking is in America. Some may think this is a good thing. If more people question everything, that creates more grounds to challenge the status quo and push for radical change—or so it’s claimed. But the spread of conspiracy theories isn’t really doing that. It functions as entertainment rather than instigation. People may think everything is a false flag, but it doesn’t change anything about how they live their lives or what they do politically. It just makes the news more fun.

Conspiracies do have a real effect on those folks who are already hyper-partisan, particularly right-wingers. Instead of creating a narrative to rally people to their cause, these theories serve to encourage paranoia, division, helplessness, and even support for their enemies. These notions undermine the Right and its ability to create political change.

It’s easy to see this play out when much of the Right finds ways to get mad at the DOJ for suing the SPLC while claiming the president stages false-flag assassination attempts. These aren’t signs of a movement turning conspiracy theories into political action—they reveal an entertainment structure dedicated to clicks and unrestrained resentment. It’s no wonder that cheering on the Democrats is now a favorite political option for certain corners of the Right. The effects of popular conspiratorialism aid the liberal establishment and retard the Right.

It’s the true harmless persuasion.

The DOJ’s lawsuit is a major win for the Right. Conservatives are finally using state power to go after one of the worst leftist groups in the world. The SPLC deserves to have the skeletons in its closet uncovered. Even if the group wins the case, the cost and embarrassment of it will permanently damage its reputation and put others on notice.

Most of the Right was thrilled at the news, but maybe not for the best reasons. The DOJ alleges the SPLC paid big money to prominent white nationalists, including nearly $300,000 to a Charlottesville rally organizer. This allowed conspiracy theories to run wild and encouraged right-wingers to accuse rivals of working for the enemy. Many conservatives now believe the whole Alt Right was an SPLC op to discredit the rest of the Right. Others disagreed and offered their own competing op narratives. Some claim the SPLC planned Cville to tarnish the Alt Right. Others argue the lawsuit is a MAGA op to sully the good name of white nationalism. (A curious argument, to say the least.)

The truth is that there is no op here. The Alt Right was not the creation of the SPLC. This informant was not one of its chief leaders. Its leaders decided on the Unite the Right rally on their own. The informant didn’t plant the idea, nor was he responsible for what happened. Genuine stupidity, rather than intentional subversion, explains the thought process behind the rally.

But the op theory was too good for conservatives to pass up. It’s long been a popular meme for conservatives to think any white nationalist march is an FBI meetup. This story was catnip for influencers who believe in this idea. There’s of course plenty of evidence that feds and antifa infiltrate these groups, but that’s different from thinking the FBI or the SPLC created them simply to hurt conservatives or whatever. As someone who has a book on the Alt Right coming out, this notion is really stupid and doesn’t address how this movement emerged in the wake of conservatism’s failures. It’s a convenient explanation to entertain your audience and pretend anyone who disagrees with you is an op.

A similar self-serving dynamic operated with the other theories. Claiming the informant vindicates the Alt Right allows its leaders to think the rally was a great idea and it only went bad thanks to this one guy. That’s delusional. Even more delusional are those WNs who think the lawsuit is bad because it’s a MAGA op designed to besmirch their movement as an SPLC op. This allows them to indulge in their all-consuming anti-Trumpism and think everything the president does is a betrayal. It demonstrates how resentment toward others on the Right motivates some more than hostility toward the Left.

A proper response would be to praise the DOJ for going after a powerful leftist group and to encourage the administration to do more like this. But conspiratorialism proved too strong and animated much of the Right’s response. As a result, people began to believe utter nonsense and even convinced themselves to be angry over the feds cracking down on their enemies.

The false-flag assassin accusations are even more egregious. It’s pure slop to get engagement on X and TikTok. There’s zero evidence it was a set-up. It also imagines there are no crazy leftists who would be willing to kill Trump—a strange thing to believe considering the amount of support Tyler Robinson and Trump’s previous wannabe assassins received. But with Trump’s declining support online, it’s apparently necessary to believe that no one would ever try to assassinate him. It’s all an op to bamboozle people into backing Trump.

Belief in the false flag creates solidarity with resistance libtards and reinforces the impression that a good chunk of the Online Right is just Alt MSNBC. There’s nothing gained for the Right by pretending the Left is incapable of carrying out assassinations and other violence against its enemies. It exonerates our foes and makes us stand in solidarity with them—all because we can’t resist idiotic conspiracy theories.

At least for liberals, the false flag theory has utility. It gives them a reason not to sympathize with the president and claim he made it all up to gain support. It’s brainrot, but you can see how it works in their favor. Rarely do conspiracy theories on the Right have this effect.

There’s no chance of these notions causing some kind of mass revolt. They sow division on the Right and encourage some right-wingers to want Democrats to take power again. This hardly threatens the status quo. In fact, it reinforces it.

Sam Francis famously called neoconservatism the “harmless persuasion.” The term applies even more to conspiratorialism. People are encouraged to speculate about false flags, UFOs, fed ops, elaborate plots, and other fantastical ideas because it leads to little practical change. It’s just entertainment for many people and doesn’t lead them to organize or do anything in the real world. If anything, it makes them think all politics is fake and they’re better off doing nothing. For the Right, it has even more pernicious effects. It divides “regime opposition” and makes right-wingers retarded. But the influencer economy is dependent on conspiracy theories. They’re pumped out incessantly because it’s what the audience wants.

They make for good entertainment, but little else. Cranks who believe everything is a false flag and their own side is completely compromised pose no threat. They’re far too disagreeable and paranoid to organize. They’re too busy chasing the “truth” about historic events and news items to affect change.

Kookery may imagine the worst things about those in charge, but those same notions negate any ability to challenge the powers that be.

It can be a great thing if people are skeptical of official narratives—if it leads them to truth and a serious desire to change things in the right direction. But that’s not how conspiratorialism functions on the Right at the moment. It simply persuades people to embrace every far-fetched idea to maximize their entertainment or to satisfy their petty grievances. From Charlie Kirk theories to the latest false flag accusations, it functions to undermine our own side and makes us equivalent to homeless schizophrenics.

It’s the real harmless persuasion.

You can now preorder Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.