CONSPIRACY THEORIES ARE KILLING US, AMERICA ( Originally published in an email from the Western States Center by Eric K. Ward on Feb. 25, 2021)

As over one-third of Oregon went dark in the state’s largest-ever power outage, my thoughts traveled back to the 1990s, to a brightly lit auditorium in Ellensburg, Washington filled with Holocaust deniers. 

I had travelled over many rural miles in a Greyhound bus, ever-present anxiety my only companion, to enter that auditorium. The only visible person of color present, I already understood deep in my bones how morally repugnant and politically dangerous Holocaust denial was. But I did not yet know that this seemingly fringe conspiracy theory would become the template for conspiracy theories that would dominate American political discourse within the next two decades.

It’s time to face facts. The mainstreaming of conspiracy theories in America is no longer merely a war of words or a question of ideological differences. It is a deadly phenomenon that is costing lives.

It’s easy to discount the surreal and outlandish conspiracy claims of QAnon, except when they merge with coronavirus myths, are promoted in the U.S. Congress, and help to galvanize a deadly assault on elected officials.

As we somberly cross the half-million mark of U.S. deaths to Covid-19, it’s clear that it’s not just the virus that’s deadly. Conspiracy theories are killing Americans. The false theories that the virus is a hoax, that the Chinese should be punished, that masks and physical distancing and vaccines are ineffective – these theories have cost far too many lives.

Read my full essay on Medium for my analysis of the deadly effects of conspiracy theories as seen in the U.S. Capitol and in the catastrophic system failures in Texas.

The most dangerous conspiracy theories are the ones that have deep roots in the American psyche: the ones that blame socialism and Jews for our suffering. 

For 100 years now, anti-Semitic movements have promoted the idea that socialism is a Jewish plot. The continued potency of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories brings us back to the most heinous conspiracy theory of them all: Holocaust denial, the idea that Nazi Germany did not exterminate 6 million European Jews. Holocaust revisionism created the template for the minimization and false debate that continues today as climate change denial, opposition to sensible, data-driven public health measures against the coronavirus, and the equation of the common good with the bogeyman of “socialism”. (I go into greater detail about this and corporate accountability on Medium.)

The fact that civil society allowed antisemitism and anti-Semitic conspiracy to take root set the stage for climate denial to take root, which set the stage for the collapse of consensus about the largest public health crisis in a century, and unchecked irresponsibility in corporate stewardship of our economy and infrastructure. 

The deadly cost of infrastructure failures, pandemic mismanagement, and ideological bias in law enforcement makes it plain: Conspiracy theories enable bad public policy. The allowance we make for entertaining conspiracy theories in public policy debates detracts from the real issues impacting us all, such as deregulation and greed.

When corporate choices have contributed to the burning down of the West coast and 14 million Texans without safe drinking water a week after a winter storm, we need to name that these corporate choices are no longer acceptable.

Why are we not more outraged? How have our expectations come to be so low? I believe that the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories has gotten us here.

These belief systems and movements can only thrive as long as the rest of us – the people and institutions that make up civil society – buy into the myth of scarcity: that one group’s gains requires another’s losses. Our inclusive democracy must be based on the reality that each person’s well-being is connected to the well-being of all. Our inclusive democracy must foster unity around the values that most Americans share instead of splintering into narrow ideological camps. 

How much more are we going to allow conspiracy theories to drive our decisions, America? If we recommit to the common good, conspiracy theories cannot divide us.

Thank you for supporting us in our work to lift up the common good as the goal of a truly inclusive democracy,