Belief in conspiracy theory is a psychological characteristic. It is a personality characteristic that is found in people and distributed across the population (Swami, 2012; Swami et al, 2011). But describing it this way is not a very useful concept in understanding why it has come to play such an important role in contemporary news. Conspiracy theory is now an organized activity. It is created and circulated by groups of people in organizations. Some of these organizations have religious and political affiliations.
The term ‘Evangelical Christian’ is used to describe a loosely organized group of Christian church leaders and their followers that share a particular view of Christianity. Currently, they compose part of what is referred to as ‘the base’ of the Republican Party and the core of support for current president Donald Trump. Evangelical Christianity is an occult belief system. Such belief systems are inherently conspiratorial in their structure. Since their emergence as a core of support for the Republican Party, Evangelical Christians have driven Republican discourse to increasingly include topics and rhetoric that reflect their belief in an occult universe. It is now impossible for even moderate, secular Republicans to engage with the larger party without reflecting on these beliefs.
The Republicans and Conspiracy Theory
Perhaps the most contentious aspect of my argument is that conspiracy theory is something different for the Republicans than it is for the Democrats. I’m not saying that there are no individual Democrats who accept conspiracy theories or other weird ideas. The difference that I am going to go on to discuss is that the claims of conspiracy theories are institutionalized into the Republican Party and have become part of the fabric of the party. There are many ways that you can see this function. Many Republican candidates use established conspiracy theories as part of their platform. Republican leadership, at the highest level, is informed by conspiracy theory that is organized on an industrial level. It is so deeply entrenched in the party that it is difficult for candidates to develop credibility within the party without making some sort of conspiracy theory claim. Later parts of this paper will elaborate on a more fundamental point about the Republican – that their party only continues to exist because of support from organized conspiracy theory in the form of Evangelical Christianity, but that will come later.
First, I need to address one of the most frequently encountered points with this argument. It is important to realize that conspiracy theory does exist in the Democratic Party. People are people, and some of them believe in all kinds of crazy things. The difference is that these beliefs have never become incorporated into the culture of the Democrats, much less into their policy. Self-proclaimed covens of witches have placed curses on prominent Republican figures (Guardian, 2018; Vox, 2017) throughout this current administration. Prominent Democrat Andrew Sullivan once suggested a conspiracy theory that Sarah Palin was involved in an attempt to cover-up the true parenthood of her son Trigg (Atlantic, 2010). Numerous conspiracy theories have circulated concerning the administration of Republican President George H. W. Bush ranging from President Bush declaring martial law and ceasing control of the country (Daily Kos, 2008) to allegations of massive voting irregularities resulting in the 2004 Democrat defeat (2004 United States election voting controversies). While these ideas were suggested and discussed in the pro-Democrat media, at no point were they platforms of the party. I am unaware of any public demonstrations or candidates advancing these positions as part of their campaign, and when Democratic President Obama was elected in 2008, at no point did he ever mention these conspiracy theories and no investigations of the earlier allegations were conducted. They were simply rumors promoted by individuals that then got circulated through the pro-Democrat media.
One of the clearest examples of conspiracy theory among the Republicans are the bizarre ideas that took shape around President Barack Obama. These conspiracy theories took several different forms. Some of these include him working as a teenage prostitute to supply his drug habit. But the most prominent of these was that President Obama was actually born in Africa, rather than Hawaii, as the official record states. An NBC News poll published in 2016 (NBC, 2016) reported that almost three-quarters of Republicans questioned whether Obama was really born in America and that the belief did not depend on how knowledgeable the Republican was about politics. Even highly knowledgeable Republicans were willing to endorse the idea. Statements about Obama’s birthplace were widespread among Republican candidates. Wikipedia gives a summary list of prominent Republicans expressing this opinion (Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories), but in fact, the list is much longer. I compiled a list (Sommers, undated) of dozens of Republican candidates who made such statements, and it would have been much longer but I got tired of the search. The list includes Mitt Romney, who ironically was not born in the United States (Romney makes a birther joke in Michigan, 2012). Clearly Mr. Romney would not have believed such a ridiculous story, but even a candidate at his level has to pay at least lip service to the important conspiracy theories that are powering the party’s electoral machine.
The idea that Barack Obama was born in Africa was widespread among Republicans during this period. It was repeated by such prominent Republicans as Mike Huckabee, Roy Moore, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County in Arizona. Sheriff Joe, as he came to be called, actually conducted his own investigation into the president’s birth certificate and flew to Hawaii to examine the original (USA Today, 2016). Perhaps the most significant proponent of this conspiracy theory was then presidential hopeful Donald Trump. Trump went on to publically state that he was convinced by the evidence that President Obama’s birth certificate was real, but following his 2016 election as POTUS, VOX reported that President Trump was continuing to doubt the authenticity of the document (VOX, 2017).
This has not been President Trump’s only brush with conspiracy theory. Trump is a voracious consumer of conspiracy theory. In 2015, just prior to his election as POTUS, Trump appeared on the broadcast of infamous conspiracy theory guru Alex Jones, where he lauded his work. Although Jones now has stated that he no longer consults with President Trump, Trump has at different points used vocabulary that indicates he was being advised by Alex Jones. For example, in referring to the October 27, 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, President Trump used the term “false flag” to speculate that the shooting was actually conducted by American Jews seeking public sympathy. The term, however, is widely used in conspiracy theory circles and frequently used by Jones in explaining how government-based operations use the media to blame faultless suspects (Atlantic, 2018). In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan (2017), Alex Jones claimed that he is able to talk to “heads of state”, implying that he has regular contact with President Trump. Business Insider (2018) states that Donald Trump has endorsed 19 different conspiracy theories, not including the current QAnon conspiracy theory that is circulating through the American right-wing (Time, 2 August, 2018).
It is often stated that belief in some sort of conspiracy theory is widespread in the USA (Psychology Today, 2015). But few people are willing to talk about their belief in public. However, when they do and they run for political office, a large number of them are Republicans. Most recently, in at least five state and national races across the country, the Republican Party is dealing with an uncomfortable problem. Their party’s candidates are either a card-carrying Nazi, a Holocaust denier, a proud white supremacist, or all of the above (VOX, 2018). In fact, Republicans voted for some of them of candidates in large numbers. In Chicago, Holocaust denier Arthur Jones got 25% of the vote (USA Today, 2018). Mother Jones (2018) provides a more comprehensive list of conspiracy theorists that ran on Republican tickets.
A complete list of Republican candidates and officials who have publicly endorsed conspiracy theory of some sort would be long and cumbersome to read. I’ll try to list as many as I can so that it’s clear how prevalent these beliefs are among leading Republicans. Here are some of them, in no particular order. GOP candidate for US Congress, Bill Fawell (US News, 2018). GOP candidate for Connecticut Attorney General Martha Dean (NBC Connecticut, 2013). Republican Mayor of Newton, New Jersey (True Jersey, 2018). The vice chairman of Orange County’s Republican Executive Committee, Louis Marin (Click Orlando, 2018). Niki Sardot, Republican candidate for State Senate in Montana (Montana Post, 2018). Republican candidate for US Congress from Idaho, Michael Snyder (Idaho Statesman, 2017). Republican Paul Nehlen, running for US Congress from Wisconsin (Splinter, 2018). Gerald I. Smith, Jr, Republican Maryland candidate for US Senate (Red Maryland, 2018). A group of 5 GOP candidates and Florida Republican US Congressman Ron DeSantis (Media Matters, 2018). Husband of Arizona GOP Senate candidate Kelli Ward (The Hill, 2018).
The list is noteworthy for its diversity. It spans candidates and officials in a wide range of positions that are geographically diverse and covers a long time span. This should come as no surprise though. The GOP has long had a problem with it attraction to conspiracy theory. US Congressman Ron Paul was very close to conspiracy theory groups. In addition to being the favorite candidate of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, Dr. Paul has long had a strong relationship with the John Birch Society (John Birch Society, 2011; Vision Liberty, 2013a, 2013b). Ron Paul is not alone on this. His son, US Senator from Kentucky Dr. Rand Paul, has been associated with the League of the South (SPLC, 2013). As well as making claims about the truth of conspiracy theories like the North American Union (Buzzfeed, 2015). More recently, Rand Paul appears to be being much more careful about his association with conspiracy theory.
As Obama Birther conspiracy theories dominated the earlier administrations, the Trump Administration has its own grassroots conspiracy theory – QAnon and the Deep State. QAnon has been associated with the Trump Administration since its inception. QAnon luminary Michael Lionel Lebron appears to have personal connects with President Donald Trump (GQ, 2018), as well as being strongly supported by other QAnon figures (Right Wing Watch, 2019). I personally became aware of the QAnon conspiracy theory by talking with members of the now defunct Trump-supporting group, The Proud Boys. Members of the Proud Boys and their so-called “support group” The Proud Girls, told me that Pizzagate was real and that Muslim rape gangs are roaming through the USA. Looking through the Facebook accounts of these people, I found all of them (yes, every one) had links to other conspiracy theory accounts, such as Alex Jones, InfoWars, Prison Planet and even gang stalking Facebook groups (Motherboard, 2016). Some had extensive libraries of photos and images related to 9/11 and other conspiracy theories.
Most recently, you can see the conspiracy ideology of the Republicans in action following the recent pipe bomb attacks on leading Democrat political figures by Cesar Altieri Sayoc. Republicans and right-wing observers went wild speculating that this was really a conspiracy between the Democrats and the FBI to win sympathy for the Democrats (New Republic, 2018). The situation became so bizarre that even conservative pundits such as Erick Erickson, had to step in and criticize conservatives for spreading the rumor (NBC News, 2018).
Science Becomes the Enemy
It wasn’t always this way. The first organized conspiracy theory organizations in the United States revolved around anti-communist hunts and groups like the John Birch Society (Bell, 2017; Lipset, 1955; Trow, 1958), and its founder, Robert Welch, typically supported the Republicans. But the left wing of the 1960s was also filled with conspiracy theory. This is not immediately evident from the research literature, but writings produced by members of the radicalized left show just how similar the conspiracy theory suggestions found in today’s version of the conspiracy right. SDS founder Tom Hayden writes extensively about this in this memoirs. In Hayden (2015), he talks at length about how the revolution of the 1960s was stopped by the targeted and planned assassination of its most effective political leaders. Realizing that some people will see this as conspiracy theory, he coins the term “conspiracy explorer” to reduce the stigma attached with the idea. He then goes on to talk about rumors circulating through the revolutionary group the Weathermen that President Nixon was going to declare martial law and begin imprisoning his opposition in concentration camps. The Weathermen apparently took this concern quite seriously, as they went on to form an underground terrorist organization that planned murders and actually carried out armed robberies and killings. So it is clear that going into the 1970s, there was not this distinction between the left and right with their use of conspiracy theory as a rhetorical and ideological weapon. Belief in conspiracy theory was organized politically with a leadership and membership that acted upon this belief for both the left and the right.
By the 1970s a unified discourse about conspiracy theory was beginning to appear. Groups like the John Birch Society and the Weather Underground focused on cabals of political, military and business elites organizing to control political events and global affairs. Conspiracy theory began to take on a new look. In addition to the idea that history was really being controlled by forces that were sinister and little understood, theories now developed that included scientists and doctors as unseen agents of control. While this was not entirely new (see for example, Water fluoridation controversy) the breadth and scope of these new conspiracy theories became huge.
Despite overwhelming scientific acceptance, debates about the biological evolution of life had been going on since the concept was introduced. The 1970s saw the emergence of Christian activists challenging the use of policy based evolutionary sciences. They began by constructing a body of information that could be used publicly to confront scientific policy. In 1970, creationists in California established the Institute for Creation Research. This was followed by numerous attempts to force public schools to teach that life has not evolved. However, the scientific consensus on evolution is clear and attempts to challenge it have largely failed.
Around the same time, a scientific discourse about climate change was beginning. In 1989, the fossil fuel industry responded to the threat of regulation by forming the Global Climate Coalition and the George C. Marshall Institute. Working with public relations models developed to oppose tobacco regulation, a heavily-funded climate change denial machine was constructed involving a wide range of participants. A discourse created by conservative foundations and think tanks, front groups and astroturfed organizations are feed into an echo chamber of conservative media, politicians and bloggers (Dunlap & McCright, 2011; Dunlap, 2013; Elsasser & Dunlap, 2013) to create the impression that science has yet to reach a consensus on climate change.
By the turn of the century, almost every aspect of science had a conspiracy theory. HIV and AIDS were created by the CIA (Ross et al, 2006) or perhaps didn’t exist at all (Kalichman et al, 2010). Vaccination caused autism (Davidson, 2017) or perhaps was being used to kill people, (Snopes, undated), even being the true source of the disease. The 9/11 attacks were carried out by agents or associates of the US government, using scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to produce a flawed or even fake investigation blaming fire on the collapse of buildings in the World Trade Center complex (World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories). Shadowy forces were involved in the geoengineering of the Earth using a technology referred to as ‘chemtrails’ (Chemtrail conspiracy theory). More recently, we have seen a resurgence of NASA and outer space conspiracy theories (Moon landing conspiracy theories) and the idea that the Earth is not spherical or revolving around the Sun (CBC, 2019).
So the idea of a conspiracy theory is no longer strange. There are conspiracy theories that cover every facet of existence. Nothing in public life is as it seems. Medicine, politics, business and science are all controlled by dark, shadowy figures whose identity is not clear. History is not what we have been taught. At best, history is confusion about what has really been happening in the world. But it is more easily seen as a lie created to confuse us about who really runs the world. It is a story we are told by dark agents whose real motives we can only guess at. Often these forces are assumed to involve the scientists and scholars who create the mainstream opinions that fill textbooks and classroom instruction. They are included among the agents of this conspiracy theory, as are government officials, professional workers, such as professors, physicians, and peace officers who control the security of the state.
Modern Christianity and the Occult
Christianity is an occult religion. A clear definition of the term occult has been elusive (see Staudenmaier, 2009 for a discussion of this) but the term is often used to describe beliefs that there are forces in the universe that are unseen and perhaps even unseeable, beyond science or supernatural. These forces are powerful and shape the universe, even if we can’t always see how they do it. Occult beliefs lend themselves to the idea that history, or even nature, is not what it seems to be. History is teleological in its nature. It is unfolding with a purpose. There are forces and actors involved in this, some of whom might even realize who they are and what role they are playing in the great drama of history. It is a kind of historical revisionism and much historical revisionism is occult (Goodrick-Clarke, 1993).
Not all Christians are occultist. But the Bible does describe the universe in these terms, and this has not gone unnoticed by many Christian writers, and some of these Christians embrace the idea. Beginning back in the 1980s, Christian writers began producing popular books about the End Times. There are vast numbers of these books but leading authors include Hal Lindsey (Hal Lindsey, undated), Tim LaHaye (Tim LaHaye, undated), and a whole slew of writers discussing how a diabolical force called the Anti-Christ is predicted in the Biblical Book of Revelations will establish a political and economic system prior or the return of Christ and his kingdom (see for example, Mary Stewart Relfe, undated)
Contemporary Christian practice overlaps a great deal with the idea of the occult. Surfing through Youtube, you will find many videos about demons and the invisible world of diabolical magic that threatens a good Christian life. I have spoken with American missionaries on Facebook about their belief in witches and witchcraft. They have warned me that my research in to this might expose me to demonic forces that could take over my life. Exorcism is on the rise in America (Mariani, 2018), or so they say. The demonic is taking over our popular culture, including beverages (MONSTER Energy drinks are the work of SATAN!!!, 2014), children’s cartoons (DEMONIC CARTOON AND CHILDREN, 2018), and the abuse of children (Father falsely accused of being a ‘satanic cult pedophilia ring leader’ Victoria Derbyshire, 2015), to name but a few of these instances.
But not all of this is bad news for Christians. There is magic from God that you can use to fight back with and enrich your life. Using principles taught in Prosperity Theology (Prosperity theology, undated), you can use God’s power to accumulate the kind of things, such as wealth and power, that have historically been seen as the rewards for the worship of Satan and his minions. In addition, there are a growing numbers of Christians who tell us that it is possible for you to get instructions about your life directly from God. Using methods that resemble those used by ghost hunters more than 100 years ago, you can get direct help from God in the form of writing and instructions (Book called Jesus Calling – False book ! , 2019). Living prophets walk the Earth telling us new things that God wants from us (New Apostolic Reformation, undated).
So what is this world being described to us by the core supporters of the Republicans? It is an empire of secrets. It is an invisible world. It is inhabited by dark forces aligned with demonic and diabolical entities. They shape history but it is not always clear how they are doing this. The ‘facts’ we are taught in school and in our books are distorted by these forces. The world and all of humanity are being threatened by things that most people have no knowledge of, and among those who have heard the secrets of the real universe, the ideas are ridiculous or ‘unscientific’. It is a world of conspiracy, where the only solid ground that can be found is among others who think like you.
Christians and the Republicans
By now, everything is anti-climactic. Beginning in the 1980s, Christians started to become aware of themselves as a block with political power. They had interests and identified with certain kinds of issues. In the decades that have followed, they have become increasingly politicized, voting for candidates who support their perceived interests.
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