Bigotry and Conspiracy

How one follows the other

WJM
WJM
Jul 21, 2017 · 6 min read

The University of Chicago did a study in 2014, which concluded that approximately fifty percent of Americans surveyed believe in at least one mainstream so called “conspiracy theory.”

Not all conspiracy theories seem or are tainted with bigotry. But it is likely that most bigotry is tainted with paranoid theorizing.

Take, for instance, the conspiracy theory that President Obama was not born in the United States. As recently as 2016, barely over 25% of Republicans could definitively say that the 44th president was born in the United States. It is no leap to say that that conspiracy theory is rooted in bigotry, or fear and hatred. Perhaps it’s also connected to a fear held by many poor white Americans, not understanding the culture and political environment seemingly abandoning them. After all, the voice of this so called silent majority seems to believe all black people are connected with one another, as if they all talk and act in unison in a competition against white people.

In this context it is easy to understand why the fringe personality, Richard Spencer, has garnered much attention. As President of the white “nationalist” “National Policy Institute,” he’s become a representative of white people afraid of the changing tide, as immigration and birth rates make their worlds look more and more colorful.

The National Policy Institute opens its website saying

NPI is an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world…

Then under their supposed research they undertake bigoted notions about how the government is favoring blacks over whites because of “cultural Marxism,” or how immigrants are acting as an “invading" force. To many their arguments obviously reek of fascistic overtones, nevermind the fact that Richard Spencer is on record as refusing to denouncing Adolf Hitler, and thinking the Southern rebels should have won the American Civil War. But to others, these arguments take root because they provide the easy scapegoat of minorities, engaged in a widespread conspiracy against their way of life. It is tribalistic, it is bigoted, but it is also drenched in paranoia and conspiracy theories.

The National Policy Institute doesn’t so much fault the minorities for operating this supposed conspiracy. They’re most irritated by white people who fail to follow suite and do the same for “their people.” They explain their problems with the modern GOP, as if white and non whites are locked in a competition.

Pursuing his “Southern Strategy” in 1968 and ’72, Richard Nixon won some 35 and 20 percent of the Black vote; John McCain’s groveling garnered him a measly five.

In place of outreach to the unreachable, Republicans would be wise to broaden their existing White base. Complimentary to this would be a dedication to immigration policies that stem the influx of Democrat-voting Third World migrants.

So rather than dismiss these men as bigots, one needs to delve into their conspiratorial thinking that lies as a Crux for their arguments.


Of course bigoted conspiratorial ideas will not fail to reach Jews. Long before Israel, Jews have been a popular scapegoat. And organizations such as the NPI have no problem blaming them for the previously mentioned “cultural Marxism.” Cultural Marxism is a supposed enemy of western civilization, often described as an idealogy Jews are using to manipulate whites to their will. People who believe in this hardly deserve any entertaining, but we are forced to confront them as the idea becomes more mainstream, rather than continuing to ignore them where they gathered strength on the fringes of our democracy.

And while paranoia about Jews and blacks is hardly mainstream now, conspiracy theories about Latinos have been embraced by our current president.

In 2015, he tweeted

The Mexican legal system is corrupt, as is much of Mexico. Pay me the money that is owed me now - and stop sending criminals over our border

Before Donald Trump became the embarrassment of a president he is now, other GOP leaders allowed these racist, paranoid, conspiracies to fester. Rick Perry even suggested Obama was intentionally flooding the country with Mexican immigrants.

This resonates with the people who have lost work or felt lost in the rise of new globalization. It’s easier to blame Mexicans than to understand the complexities of one’s place in a society becoming more and more globalized. The idea that the Mexican government is sending people to steal American jobs, often connected to the idea of forming a “new world order,” sounds as conspiratorial as many forms of anti semitism.

It’s a mix of conspiracy and bigotry that makes up the so called alt right.


German immigration once even prompted a prominent political movement, commonly called the “Know Nothing Party." These people were afraid that German culture and Catholicism were ruining American values. They even recruited former President Millard Fillmore to run again on their ticket. President Lincoln even wrote a scathing letter about their bigotry in 1855:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

Anti German bigotry became prominent again during the first world war as, like Japanese Americans in World War II, people feared a racial conspiracy against the U.S. Anti Catholic bigotry was of course prominent until the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1960, after JFK made clear to conspiracy theorists that he would not be a puppet of the Vatican.


Anti black Conspiracy theories aren’t new either. The original Republican Party was labeled as a secret front for abolitionism, banking, industry, black equality, and a lot of other then controversial ideas.

In addition, groups opposed to conscription and emancipation—e.g., the Irish population in New York City, who feared that freed Southern blacks would come north and take jobs away—backed such Peace Democrat leaders as Horatio Seymour, Fernando Wood, and Clement L. Vallandigham. Copperheads also drew strength from the ranks of those who objected to Lincoln’s abrogation of civil liberties and those who simply wanted an end to the massive bloodshed.

In the post Civil War American South, ex-Confederates concocted conspiracies about blacks controlling and oppressing southern society, often blaming collusion with Congress. Abraham Lincoln’s Freedmen’s Bureau was seen as a way the government was favoring blacks, and as southern society went from wealth beyond imagination to embarrassment and poverty, this was too much to handle.

The narrative of black dominated Reconstruction was popular up until very recently, most famously immortalized in the 1915 film praised by President Woodrow Wilson, *Birth of a Nation.*


Conspiracy theories are often dangerous not only in their irrationality but in their tendency to promote bigotry. For example, it was the idea of a grand Jewish conspiracy to betray Germany that led to the rise of the Nazi party. Many conspiracy theories, if scratched beyond the surface, reveal themselves to be either a source or extension of bigotry, and in the world of alternative facts, we are all responsible for letting them become a piece of our mainstream talking points.


This article would not be possible without George Soros’s generous donation to me. Thanks to him.

)

WJM

Written by

WJM

Putting articles on Medium for no one else to read.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade