2020 has provided an abundance of examples.
🚨HALF of Fox News viewers believe Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19 to implant microchips in people & track their movements.
only 26% say that's false.https://t.co/M5lNtNrn4o pic.twitter.com/03KuImfknU— Jesse Lehrich (@JesseLehrich) May 22, 2020
Completely unfounded conspiracy. Just stop. Stop spreading it, stop creating paranoia. It will destroy us. https://t.co/XgDl6LmANb— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) May 24, 2020
Cheney Scolds Trump For Peddling False Conspiracy Theory About Scarborough https://t.co/OlAWRfnyyt pic.twitter.com/NZgZR5QgKO— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) May 27, 2020
A Presidential Smear: in falsely accusing @JoeNBC of murder, @realDonaldTrump is debasing his office, and he’s hurting the country in doing so - WSJ Editorial Board https://t.co/KBAkJ5sAn4— erwyzz (@erwyzz) May 27, 2020
National Review editorial calling for the GOP to denounce the QAnon believer who just won the Republican primary for Senate in Oregon.https://t.co/IB2rgZGDFF— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) May 23, 2020
These last two represent a new development, Republicans objecting to right-wing conspiracy theories, but before anyone chimes in with a chorus of "good people on both sides," a little history would be useful.
I was living in Arkansas in the 90s and witnessed up close the birth of the modern style of weaponized batshit crazy conservative conspiracy theories. It was the beginning of what Charles Pierce calls happy hour at the Mena Airport cocktail lounge. Bill was a murderous drug dealer who raped his lesbian wife who, in turn, was also having an affair with Vince Foster before she had him killed.
(If you think I am exaggerating in anyway, read up on the subject. If anything, I’m understating the case)
In order to be truly effective, this approach required the disinformation to be carefully channeled and for the mainstream media to largely turn a blind eye. The lies you could tell on Rush Limbaugh‘s show got a dog whistle on Fox. The lies you could tell on Fox got a dog whistle on Meet the Press. The lies you could tell on Meet the Press is a topic for another post.
Not all journalists were AWOL. There was a great deal of outstanding reporting on the subject by people like Josh Marshall, Jonathan cheat, Jane Mayer, Ornstein & Mann and, of course, Charles Pierce but these stories though well reported,never really gained traction and the sources of the disinformation paid no real penalty.
The pattern would continue for a couple of decades, from the invented quotes of Al gore to the swiftboating of John Kerry to the birtherism and other absurd “scandals” of the Obama era all the way through the coverage of Hillary in 2016. Throughout all of this, you would have to look long and hard to find a Republican in good standing who objected with more than lip-service and crocodile tears.
But sometime in the Obama administration, the system started to show cracks. Theories and memes that had been relegated to dark corners and right wing radio call-in shows were suddenly showing up in quotes from Republican congressman and Senators. To those who had not been following the story closely, it appeared that there had been a huge uptick in craziness among conservatives. For those who had been keeping up, it was not at all clear that the craziness increased at all. Instead we were seeing a breakdown in the ability to control the flow of this craziness.
What had been a vital element in the party’s success for the past quarter century has now become a serious threat. By purest coincidence, Republican officials and conservative outlets decided to take a principled stand shortly after these conspiracy theories started to bite the party in the ass.
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