Taylor Swift and the New Conspiracism

The right-wing's newest paranoia

Taylor Swift RED Tour, 19 March 2013

According to the newest MAGA conspiracy theory, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, the NFL, and the Biden administration are in cahoots with a psy-ops campaign to win the next presidential election. Depending on which version of this conspiracy you listen to (there are many), Swift and Kelce's romance is fake, the NFL is rigging games so Kelce's Kansas City Chief's win, and Swift is possessed by a demon.

This is a good example of the "new conspiracism," a term coined by Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum in A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy. (Purchase a copy from the AVC bookstore here, or watch my interview with the authors about the book here.)

The new conspiracism, unlike classic conspiracism, is conspiracy without theory. Classic conspiracy attempted to "connect the dots," conspiracists would say, to construct their explanations. But the new conspiracism is mere assertion.

Muirhead and Rosenblum write,

The is no punctilious demand for proofs, no exhaustive amassing of evidence, no dots revealed to form a pattern, no close examination of the operators plotting in the shadows. The new conspiracism dispenses with the burden of explanation. Instead, we have innuendo and verbal gesture: "A lot of people are saying ... " Or we have bare assertion: "Rigged!" — a one-word exclamation that evokes fantastic schemes, sinister motives, and the awesome capacity to mobilize three million illegal voters to support Hillary Clinton for president. This is conspiracy without the theory.

None of this should be read as a defense of classic conspiracism. "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a classic-conspiracism classic, did lead to the Holocaust, the death of 6 million Jews, after all.

But it's important to understand the ease at which the new conspiracism spreads and the dangers that come with that. The new conspiracism threatens our democracy through disorientation and delegitimation. Conspiracy consumers are handed such a dizzying array of fabrications, they begin to lose grip on reality and even the concept of truth itself. After the Super Bowl, for instance, there will swiftly be a new conspiracy to grab our attention. And these repetitive falsehoods seek to deligitimize the institutions that are genuinely working to seek and tell the truth. Together, disorientation and delegitimation undermine the processes, mores and institutions that support our democracy.

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AVC Pastor Conferences

We had a great turnout at our Phoenix conference last week. I spoke with many of the pastors and ministry leaders who joined us. They were very engaged with the content and had a lot of thoughtful questions for the speakers. Thanks to everyone who participated. We'll be sharing some of the content that was recorded when it becomes available.

Our next conference will be in just two weeks in Orlando on February 15! In addition to pastors and ministry leaders, we're inviting seminary students to join us at a discounted rate.

Russell Moore will be delivering the keynote address at 7pm and that event is open to the public.

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What Else We're Reading

Politico: "When QAnon fundraises for Kari Lake ... she shows up"

Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake is headlining a campaign fundraiser on Friday hosted by two wealthy QAnon supporters, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO.

Caryn and Michael Borland, who have shared numerous QAnon posts on their social media platforms, are holding the fundraiser for the likely GOP nominee at their mansion in Prescott, Arizona. Tickets for the Lake fundraiser are sold on a sliding scale, from $50 per person to $13,200 to be a “Leadership Committee” co-chair, $6,600 to be a “co-host” and $3,300 to be a “sponsor.”

Read the rest.

AP: "Man accused of beheading his father in suburban Philadelphia home and posting gruesome video online"

Mohn embraced violent anti-government rhetoric in writings he published online going back several years. In August 2020, Mohn published an online “pamphlet” in which he tried to make the case that people born in or after 1991 — his birth year — should carry out what he termed a “bloody revolution.” He also complained at length about a lawsuit that he lost and encouraged assassinations of family members and public officials.

In the video posted after the killing, he described his father as a 20-year federal employee. He also espoused a variety of conspiracy theories and rants about the Biden administration, immigration and the border, fiscal policy, urban crime and the war in Ukraine.

Read the rest.