Have the conspiracy theorists won? | The Press
Donald Trump, always so gifted at negotiation, negotiated something extraordinary: a deal between him and the US government to compensate those who were “unfairly” targeted in “political” prosecutions under the Biden administration.
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I say it’s extraordinary because as president, he is the boss of just about every head of agency and department in the U.S. government. So he negotiated… with himself. Which is easier than negotiating with the Chinese president, let’s say…
In exchange for dropping a lawsuit against the US tax authorities for violating the confidentiality of his tax documents, Trump obtained a fund of 1.8 billion which will be set up to compensate Americans who believe they have been unfairly prosecuted, under the Biden administration1.
This includes the 1,500 Americans who, on January 6, 2021, stormed the Capitol to try to prevent the peaceful transition of power, after the defeat of Donald Trump, two months before!
These 1,500 Americans were filmed (and filmed themselves!) committing violent acts and police investigations exposed their text messages and calls preparing the attack: it was at best a mass criminal act and at worst an attempted coup.
Driven from power, Trump presented them as proud patriots who had nothing to reproach themselves for. And when he became president again, he granted them a presidential pardon.
The link with the title of this column, on conspiracy theorists?
The forces that pushed thousands of Americans to storm the Capitol that day are conspiratorial forces that Trump has toyed with for years, from QAnon which posited that the Democratic Party is a front for a pedophile cabal to that of a “plandemic” cleverly organized by the WHO, China, the Dr Fauci or Klaus Schwab…
That they were prosecuted was obvious, as was their conviction, which came at the end of a classic exercise of the rule of law in a democracy: criminal investigation, prosecution by state prosecutors, right of the accused to full defense, decision of a neutral court…
Result: 1500 convictions, by virtue of guilty pleas or guilty verdicts.
Trump’s world is a topsy-turvy world where true is false; where lies are truth; where facts are a buffet from which one can choose according to one’s mood. In this world, the conspiracy theorists of January 6, 2021 could be presented as political prisoners unjustly persecuted because of their political opinions…
Not only were they freed by Trump’s pardon, but they are also now eligible for compensation, like victims of tobacco, opioids or defective airbags.
Add to that the return with Trump 2.0 to science denialism where vaccines are worse than viruses, where climate change is a conspiracy of the left enverdeuse and nowadays the United States is a beacon of obscurantism (I know, it’s a contradiction in terms, it’s intentional).
Bottom line: just as they export fantastic technological products, attractive popular culture, Fords and GMs, the United States also exports delusional conspiracy ideas which are taken up here and elsewhere…
A few days ago, researchers from the University of Sherbrooke presented a study on the adherence of Canadians and Quebecers to conspiracy theories2. My colleague Rima Elkouri wrote about this recently3.
The good news: Quebecers are more resistant than the rest of Canada to the advances of discredited theories on immigration, the pandemic and vaccines.
The bad news: one in five Quebecers has conspiratorial tendencies, across a broad spectrum of faith. That’s a lot of people weighing in on public debates, from the governing board of the local school to the decision not to vaccinate their child, including people who get involved in politics…
It’s a lot… And, at the same time, I try to console myself by telling myself that it’s manageable, socially and politically.
In the United States, it is no longer. Conspiracy is a real political force. Comparing this, before the 2020 election in the United States, the QAnon theory according to which Democrats kidnapped, trafficked, assaulted and even secretly ate children attracted some form of support from (brace yourself) 56% of Republican voters4…
According to this theory, the headquarters of this left-wing pedophile conspiracy was the basement of a Washington pizzeria…
The pizzeria exists, but it doesn’t have a basement!
This absence of a basement was publicized5 as proof of the stupidity of believing in QAnon, but it has never repelled the millions of Americans who firmly believe in QAnon and Donald Trump’s mission to destroy these pedophile networks.
Hence my question: have the conspiracy theorists won?
They are in the minority here, of course.
But when conspiracism takes control of the American state, we can think that the conspiracists have won, no matter where they are.
1. Read the article “Trump government creates fund likely to compensate loyalists prosecuted under Biden”
2. Read the article “Study presented to Acfas: conspiracy is gaining ground”
3. Read the column “Report on conspiracy theorizing in Canada and Quebec: restoring trust”
4. Lisez « Majority of Republicans believe the QAnon conspiracy theory is partly or mostly true, survey finds » (en anglais ; abonnement requis)
5. Read the column “QAnon, kessé ça?” »
