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Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power
_______
‘Timely and troubling’ Evening Standard
‘A necessary book’ David Aaronovitch
‘Frequently jaw-dropping’ Huffington Post
From UFOs to the New World Order, the inside story of how conspiracy theories won over America.
In November 2017, a serial climate change denier and anti-vaxxer was elected President of the United States. The rise of Donald Trump marked the beginning of a new American epoch: the age of the conspiracy theorist.
Now, Anna Merlan goes undercover in America’s sprawling network of conspiracy theorists and uncovers their secrets. She meets the UFOlogist who claims to have travelled to Mars with a young Barack Obama. She chats with the ‘pizzagate’ truthers who think Washington D.C.’s favourite pizzeria is run by a satanic paedophile ring. And she bumps into Alex Jones, the YouTube impresario who thinks the state is using chemical warfare to turn the population gay – and who happens to be on first-name terms with the leader of the free world.
Merlan reveals a world of innuendo and propaganda lying just beneath the surface of US culture. It might just help explain the political turmoil of our time.
_______
‘Through exhaustive research, personal interviews, and a critical yet at times appropriately empathetic approach, writer Anna Merlan has written a captivating book that illuminates the landscape of conspiracy theories.’ New York Magazine
‘An entertaining taxonomy of toxic ideas’ Herald
‘A rock-steady narrator with a ready command of history, nerves of steel, and incisive social insights . . . We need a thousand of her, or a million.’ The Nation
‘Timely and troubling’ Evening Standard
‘A necessary book’ David Aaronovitch
‘Frequently jaw-dropping’ Huffington Post
From UFOs to the New World Order, the inside story of how conspiracy theories won over America.
In November 2017, a serial climate change denier and anti-vaxxer was elected President of the United States. The rise of Donald Trump marked the beginning of a new American epoch: the age of the conspiracy theorist.
Now, Anna Merlan goes undercover in America’s sprawling network of conspiracy theorists and uncovers their secrets. She meets the UFOlogist who claims to have travelled to Mars with a young Barack Obama. She chats with the ‘pizzagate’ truthers who think Washington D.C.’s favourite pizzeria is run by a satanic paedophile ring. And she bumps into Alex Jones, the YouTube impresario who thinks the state is using chemical warfare to turn the population gay – and who happens to be on first-name terms with the leader of the free world.
Merlan reveals a world of innuendo and propaganda lying just beneath the surface of US culture. It might just help explain the political turmoil of our time.
_______
‘Through exhaustive research, personal interviews, and a critical yet at times appropriately empathetic approach, writer Anna Merlan has written a captivating book that illuminates the landscape of conspiracy theories.’ New York Magazine
‘An entertaining taxonomy of toxic ideas’ Herald
‘A rock-steady narrator with a ready command of history, nerves of steel, and incisive social insights . . . We need a thousand of her, or a million.’ The Nation
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 16, 2019
268 people are currently reading
4133 people want to read
About the author
Anna Merlan
2 books54 followersAnna Merlan is a New Mexico-born, New York-based journalist, specializing in politics, crime, religion, subcultures, conspiracy theories, and women’s lives. She is currently a reporter at the Special Projects Desk, an investigative division within Gizmodo Media Group. She has previously worked as a senior reporter at Jezebel, and as a staff writer at the Village Voice and the Dallas Observer. Her work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, BBC Travel, Topic, and on the op-ed page of the New York Times. She has been accused of being both a lizard person and a CIA agent, but never at the same time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 247 reviews
August 6, 2021
It Must Be Something in the Water
Conspiracy is a form of American poetry. It is incredibly imaginative, inspiring for many, and captures the essence of the civilisation from which it emerges, namely it’s ill-educated resentment of the world, especially of itself. From before the foundation of the country, Americans have considered themselves victims of some ‘higher power’ which oppresses them and seeks to destroy something essential about them. In the colonial era the oppressor was the native inhabitants, the English Crown, the French,... and witches. In the 19th century it was immigrant Catholics. In the 20th century it was Jews and socialists. In the 21st century the oppressor is the Deep State in all its complex manifestations from Satan worship by the elite to poisonous contrails to the government itself.
In this sense among others, the election as President of an arch-conspiracy theorist is perfectly representative of the population. Trump’s only notable skill is his ability to tap into the pervasive victimhood of Americans. But this is apparently enough to maintain him in power. He knows his audience. They live in a vague fear which they attribute to Central American immigrants, or disruptive black activists, or dishonest drug companies, or militant atheists, or the perfidious Chinese. But this is obvious projection. What they really fear is themselves. What actually oppresses them is their own continuing failure to confront their failure as a political entity. Trump helps them celebrate this evasion and they love him for it.
Not that there aren’t real conspiracies underway in America. But these are not hidden - the commercial process by which political campaigns are financed, the blatant gerrymandering by politicians, the influence-peddling within the military/industrial complex, the overt attempts to racially restrict voting, and the overthrow of foreign governments, often democratically elected ones. These all severely damage democracy and require active participation by large numbers of people. Yet there are no national radio shows, cable television programmes, militant interest groups, or privately funded news syndicates for these as there are for the investigation of alien invasion, the JFK assassination, the exposure of mass shootings as fake, and the conspiracy against conspiracies being carried out by the mainstream news media.
There is a clear link between American ‘conspiracism’ and Evangelical apocalypticism. Both are Gnostic in origin, which as Harold Bloom has noted, is the real national religion of America. Gnosticism is spiritualised paranoia, the belief that the world is out to get you, particularly by those in charge of the world, who have probably achieved their status through demonic influence. Gnosticism holds that we are all victims, but that only those of us who know we are victims are worthy of consideration. There is very little psychic distance between being convinced that there is a pedophile ring of top government employees and that the signs of the final trump (no pun intended) are obvious. The logic of conspiricism sits comfortably with that of American Fundamentalism in both its secular and religious versions.
Pizzagate, bitherism, antivaxxers, Twin Towers as CIA plot, and the dozens of other conspiracies publicised every day on the InfoWars and Alex Jones media are not odd beliefs held by marginal people in the USA. These are now legitimate, respectable opinions endorsed by celebrities, politicians, and academics. There are interest groups who apparently sincerely believe that the US is in danger of invasion by the United Nations, that the Las Vegas mass shooting of 2015 was orchestrated by the Obama administration (or ISIS or Mexicans depending on which senior politician you listen to), that the Sandy Hook massacre of school children was faked by ‘crisis actors,’ that Fox News and Breitbart accurately promote Conspiracy as an explanation for any murder or scandal.
So, as Anna Merlan says, “... people who peddle lies and half-truths have come to prominence, fame, and power as never before.” No longer can the crazy views prevalent in America be considered as idiosyncratic expressions of freedom of speech. The inmates do have control of the asylum. These are symptoms of mass psychosis. The political system in America may have contributed to this condition, but what contributed to the design of that system as well as the increasing irrationality of American society is something culturally more fundamental. An inherent feeling of victimhood is one way to express it. And it seems to have turned the country into a madhouse.
Postscript: The recognition of American victimhood is not news. See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Conspiracy is a form of American poetry. It is incredibly imaginative, inspiring for many, and captures the essence of the civilisation from which it emerges, namely it’s ill-educated resentment of the world, especially of itself. From before the foundation of the country, Americans have considered themselves victims of some ‘higher power’ which oppresses them and seeks to destroy something essential about them. In the colonial era the oppressor was the native inhabitants, the English Crown, the French,... and witches. In the 19th century it was immigrant Catholics. In the 20th century it was Jews and socialists. In the 21st century the oppressor is the Deep State in all its complex manifestations from Satan worship by the elite to poisonous contrails to the government itself.
In this sense among others, the election as President of an arch-conspiracy theorist is perfectly representative of the population. Trump’s only notable skill is his ability to tap into the pervasive victimhood of Americans. But this is apparently enough to maintain him in power. He knows his audience. They live in a vague fear which they attribute to Central American immigrants, or disruptive black activists, or dishonest drug companies, or militant atheists, or the perfidious Chinese. But this is obvious projection. What they really fear is themselves. What actually oppresses them is their own continuing failure to confront their failure as a political entity. Trump helps them celebrate this evasion and they love him for it.
Not that there aren’t real conspiracies underway in America. But these are not hidden - the commercial process by which political campaigns are financed, the blatant gerrymandering by politicians, the influence-peddling within the military/industrial complex, the overt attempts to racially restrict voting, and the overthrow of foreign governments, often democratically elected ones. These all severely damage democracy and require active participation by large numbers of people. Yet there are no national radio shows, cable television programmes, militant interest groups, or privately funded news syndicates for these as there are for the investigation of alien invasion, the JFK assassination, the exposure of mass shootings as fake, and the conspiracy against conspiracies being carried out by the mainstream news media.
There is a clear link between American ‘conspiracism’ and Evangelical apocalypticism. Both are Gnostic in origin, which as Harold Bloom has noted, is the real national religion of America. Gnosticism is spiritualised paranoia, the belief that the world is out to get you, particularly by those in charge of the world, who have probably achieved their status through demonic influence. Gnosticism holds that we are all victims, but that only those of us who know we are victims are worthy of consideration. There is very little psychic distance between being convinced that there is a pedophile ring of top government employees and that the signs of the final trump (no pun intended) are obvious. The logic of conspiricism sits comfortably with that of American Fundamentalism in both its secular and religious versions.
Pizzagate, bitherism, antivaxxers, Twin Towers as CIA plot, and the dozens of other conspiracies publicised every day on the InfoWars and Alex Jones media are not odd beliefs held by marginal people in the USA. These are now legitimate, respectable opinions endorsed by celebrities, politicians, and academics. There are interest groups who apparently sincerely believe that the US is in danger of invasion by the United Nations, that the Las Vegas mass shooting of 2015 was orchestrated by the Obama administration (or ISIS or Mexicans depending on which senior politician you listen to), that the Sandy Hook massacre of school children was faked by ‘crisis actors,’ that Fox News and Breitbart accurately promote Conspiracy as an explanation for any murder or scandal.
So, as Anna Merlan says, “... people who peddle lies and half-truths have come to prominence, fame, and power as never before.” No longer can the crazy views prevalent in America be considered as idiosyncratic expressions of freedom of speech. The inmates do have control of the asylum. These are symptoms of mass psychosis. The political system in America may have contributed to this condition, but what contributed to the design of that system as well as the increasing irrationality of American society is something culturally more fundamental. An inherent feeling of victimhood is one way to express it. And it seems to have turned the country into a madhouse.
Postscript: The recognition of American victimhood is not news. See: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
November 19, 2018
I never do this, but here is the first sentence of Republic of Lies: “In January 2015, I spent the longest, queasiest week of my life on a cruise ship filled with conspiracy theorists.”
SOLD! Anna Merlan has put herself through a brain-exploding experience to tell us about the astounding variety of lies Americans tell about themselves and their country. It’s a whirlwind tour of conspiracies, hate, ideology, religion, UFOs, and politics. They are all urgent matters. The nation is at risk. Time is running out.
To Merlan’s point (and book title), Americans have very good reason to suspect conspiracy. American governments and government agencies have a horrific history of conspiring against citizens and lying about it. The FBI under J.E. Hoover sent a blackmail letter to Martin Luther King Jr, instructing him to commit suicide lest his sexual history be exposed. The Freedom of Information Act has led to whole volumes of FBI files being made public, showing it had files and actively interfered in the lives of innocuous groups and individuals. The FBI admits its COINTELPRO program was designed to insert disinformation into various organizations in the hope they would spin out of control. Similarly, agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration are known to have given informants kilos of cocaine as payment or incentive. There was warrantless wiretapping exposed by Edward Snowden. The CIA experimented on the unknowing with LSD, plutonium and syphilis. So Americans come by the conspiracies legitimately. What you sow, so shall ye reap, someone once said. Americans are highly trained conspiracists.
The government sterilized the feeble-minded (ie. blacks), incarcerated the homeless after Louisiana floods, and routinely classifies everything Top Secret. Most recently, government agencies have taken to seeding protest marches and demonstrations with thugs who start fights and riot in the streets to discredit the efforts. So yes, there is reason to suspect conspiracy.
Into this atmosphere comes social media, the ideal incubator for conspiracy theories. The result is a huge overreaction of conspiracies like false flag accusations. In false flag, absolutely anything that happens can be construed as a government act to scare people, or prepare them for military occupation, a coup, or some loss of rights. So massacres at schools, night clubs and churches never actually happened. No one actually died. They’re all false flag scare tactics. Like astronauts landing on the moon, it was all staged for somebody’s advantage. On social media, this appeals to millions to disbelieve their own eyes, in preference for a conspiracy theory.
Americans have a decided preference for child molestation and slavery conspiracies. They see it everywhere. They suspect it of the “elite” and lowly pizzerias. I remember the Wenatchee child molestation trials, where the complete lack of physical evidence was successfully submitted at trial as proof of guilt, because nothing could be that free of evidence. Merlan devotes a chapter to the epidemic, focused on Pizzagate, which nearly turned into a genuine tragedy when someone took it all as real.
Possibly the most revolting part of the book is these followers’ harassment of the victims of massacres. They have attacked surviving students of the Parkland School and gone after the parents of children killed at Sandy Hook. They demand proof the murdered ever existed. They doxx the survivors. They find and circulate drivers’ licenses, social security numbers and other personal data so more followers can harass and attack them with demands and death threats. Sending threatening e-mails to one parent’s lawyer causes a bill to be generated: a quarter hour for each one received. An interesting way to bankrupt someone. It puts survivors in a double jeopardy having to deal with grief and then also being attacked for good measure. Not responding is no solution either, as the attackers assume that is proof they are hiding something. It is ruining the lives of many undeserving victims. The perpetrators remain largely anonymous and shielded.
What all the causes, cults and movements seem to have in common is they are operated for and by white male Christians. Merlan is Jewish (not to mention a woman) and has reported on highly charged racist gatherings where white male Christians gather to promote the removal and/or death of Jews. She routinely reveals her religion to her interlocutors, which results in backpedaling and diversions like “Well, it’s complicated” or “You’re a very beautiful woman.”
The most valuable service performed by Republic of Lies is the sheer variety of nonsense underway. There is a conspiracy for every topic and every event. There are followers for all of them. It is a much bigger sickness than a simple day of Fox News would demonstrate. There is also far more of it than I realized. Merlan describes a number of political conspiracies I had not known of, but which have thousands of adherents.
And newly minted celebrities. The quickest path to celebrity in America seems to be by conspiracy theory. Whoever makes it up becomes the greatest authority on it, and is legitimized by the media interviewing them and profiling them. Very often, they seem to be losers, with criminal pasts and no future. Their conspiracy theories boost them into fame and a new direction in their failing lives. She profiles a number of them, and they tend to come off as rather pathetic.
They eat their own too, constantly infighting, breaking apart and creating new groups. As one participant memorably described them: “We have a circular firing squad of everyone telling everyone else they are the opposition.”
It has made the USA a paranoid laugh riot.
David Wineberg
SOLD! Anna Merlan has put herself through a brain-exploding experience to tell us about the astounding variety of lies Americans tell about themselves and their country. It’s a whirlwind tour of conspiracies, hate, ideology, religion, UFOs, and politics. They are all urgent matters. The nation is at risk. Time is running out.
To Merlan’s point (and book title), Americans have very good reason to suspect conspiracy. American governments and government agencies have a horrific history of conspiring against citizens and lying about it. The FBI under J.E. Hoover sent a blackmail letter to Martin Luther King Jr, instructing him to commit suicide lest his sexual history be exposed. The Freedom of Information Act has led to whole volumes of FBI files being made public, showing it had files and actively interfered in the lives of innocuous groups and individuals. The FBI admits its COINTELPRO program was designed to insert disinformation into various organizations in the hope they would spin out of control. Similarly, agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration are known to have given informants kilos of cocaine as payment or incentive. There was warrantless wiretapping exposed by Edward Snowden. The CIA experimented on the unknowing with LSD, plutonium and syphilis. So Americans come by the conspiracies legitimately. What you sow, so shall ye reap, someone once said. Americans are highly trained conspiracists.
The government sterilized the feeble-minded (ie. blacks), incarcerated the homeless after Louisiana floods, and routinely classifies everything Top Secret. Most recently, government agencies have taken to seeding protest marches and demonstrations with thugs who start fights and riot in the streets to discredit the efforts. So yes, there is reason to suspect conspiracy.
Into this atmosphere comes social media, the ideal incubator for conspiracy theories. The result is a huge overreaction of conspiracies like false flag accusations. In false flag, absolutely anything that happens can be construed as a government act to scare people, or prepare them for military occupation, a coup, or some loss of rights. So massacres at schools, night clubs and churches never actually happened. No one actually died. They’re all false flag scare tactics. Like astronauts landing on the moon, it was all staged for somebody’s advantage. On social media, this appeals to millions to disbelieve their own eyes, in preference for a conspiracy theory.
Americans have a decided preference for child molestation and slavery conspiracies. They see it everywhere. They suspect it of the “elite” and lowly pizzerias. I remember the Wenatchee child molestation trials, where the complete lack of physical evidence was successfully submitted at trial as proof of guilt, because nothing could be that free of evidence. Merlan devotes a chapter to the epidemic, focused on Pizzagate, which nearly turned into a genuine tragedy when someone took it all as real.
Possibly the most revolting part of the book is these followers’ harassment of the victims of massacres. They have attacked surviving students of the Parkland School and gone after the parents of children killed at Sandy Hook. They demand proof the murdered ever existed. They doxx the survivors. They find and circulate drivers’ licenses, social security numbers and other personal data so more followers can harass and attack them with demands and death threats. Sending threatening e-mails to one parent’s lawyer causes a bill to be generated: a quarter hour for each one received. An interesting way to bankrupt someone. It puts survivors in a double jeopardy having to deal with grief and then also being attacked for good measure. Not responding is no solution either, as the attackers assume that is proof they are hiding something. It is ruining the lives of many undeserving victims. The perpetrators remain largely anonymous and shielded.
What all the causes, cults and movements seem to have in common is they are operated for and by white male Christians. Merlan is Jewish (not to mention a woman) and has reported on highly charged racist gatherings where white male Christians gather to promote the removal and/or death of Jews. She routinely reveals her religion to her interlocutors, which results in backpedaling and diversions like “Well, it’s complicated” or “You’re a very beautiful woman.”
The most valuable service performed by Republic of Lies is the sheer variety of nonsense underway. There is a conspiracy for every topic and every event. There are followers for all of them. It is a much bigger sickness than a simple day of Fox News would demonstrate. There is also far more of it than I realized. Merlan describes a number of political conspiracies I had not known of, but which have thousands of adherents.
And newly minted celebrities. The quickest path to celebrity in America seems to be by conspiracy theory. Whoever makes it up becomes the greatest authority on it, and is legitimized by the media interviewing them and profiling them. Very often, they seem to be losers, with criminal pasts and no future. Their conspiracy theories boost them into fame and a new direction in their failing lives. She profiles a number of them, and they tend to come off as rather pathetic.
They eat their own too, constantly infighting, breaking apart and creating new groups. As one participant memorably described them: “We have a circular firing squad of everyone telling everyone else they are the opposition.”
It has made the USA a paranoid laugh riot.
David Wineberg
July 16, 2024
Are you deeply suspicious of our political and business leaders? Do you suspect they’re part of a massive plot to subjugate and defraud the people? Maybe it’s time for you to step up and investigate what’s really going on. Perhaps you too can be a vigilante for truth and justice, like Nancy Drew, Tin Tin, Miss Marple, or Alex Jones. Where the watchdogs of vested interest muzzle independent inquiry and manipulate scientific research, your personal investigations could uncover the suppressed evidence, put the pieces together, and reveal the truth.
I like how Merlan takes a long view on the history of conspiracy theories. She shows how normal it is to wonder if there’s something “behind” appearances. Actual conspiracies to harm or deceive the public do happen, like the FBI’s efforts to character-assassinate black civil rights leaders, or the tobacco industry–sponsored fake science on the effects of smoking. So it’s possible that each new conspiracy theory is real. As Merlan notes, “In 2014, Uscinski and Parent published American Conspiracy Theories, which presents the results of years of research and makes a pretty conclusive case that nobody in this country is not a conspiracy theorist, at least to some extent.”
Of course lone rangers for the truth tend to be subject to their own biases, blind spots, or xenophobic hatreds. As the numbers of truthers in the cybersphere rise exponentially, they tend to ride in herds, producing what in China is called a “flesh-eating search engine” of self-appointed morality police. Concerning the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories, Merlan has to lament, “Once again, as Americans, we lapsed into an occult hysteria, a persistent need to seek out new witches among us and burn them, one by one, even when they refused to be found.” She cites Masha Gessen worrying that pushers of Russiagate accusations against Trump were “prompting a xenophobic conspiracy theory in the cause of removing a xenophobic conspiracy theorist from office.”
Merlan explores a huge challenge to our capacity to think as a society. Where deference to professional expertise, journalistic fact-checking, or peer-review of research findings are deemed tactics of control by corrupt elites, the field of information sources seems leveled. All are empowered to speak directly on public media, almost regardless of their relevant experience, amateurishness, or scientific illiteracy. The notions of being “qualified” to speak on a subject, or of evaluating all available evidence like in a court of law, seem to be replaced by a simple question of “Who do you believe?” And as Trump seemed pleased to inform the Washington press corps: “the public doesn’t believe you any more. Now maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you.”
I like how Merlan takes a long view on the history of conspiracy theories. She shows how normal it is to wonder if there’s something “behind” appearances. Actual conspiracies to harm or deceive the public do happen, like the FBI’s efforts to character-assassinate black civil rights leaders, or the tobacco industry–sponsored fake science on the effects of smoking. So it’s possible that each new conspiracy theory is real. As Merlan notes, “In 2014, Uscinski and Parent published American Conspiracy Theories, which presents the results of years of research and makes a pretty conclusive case that nobody in this country is not a conspiracy theorist, at least to some extent.”
Of course lone rangers for the truth tend to be subject to their own biases, blind spots, or xenophobic hatreds. As the numbers of truthers in the cybersphere rise exponentially, they tend to ride in herds, producing what in China is called a “flesh-eating search engine” of self-appointed morality police. Concerning the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories, Merlan has to lament, “Once again, as Americans, we lapsed into an occult hysteria, a persistent need to seek out new witches among us and burn them, one by one, even when they refused to be found.” She cites Masha Gessen worrying that pushers of Russiagate accusations against Trump were “prompting a xenophobic conspiracy theory in the cause of removing a xenophobic conspiracy theorist from office.”
Merlan explores a huge challenge to our capacity to think as a society. Where deference to professional expertise, journalistic fact-checking, or peer-review of research findings are deemed tactics of control by corrupt elites, the field of information sources seems leveled. All are empowered to speak directly on public media, almost regardless of their relevant experience, amateurishness, or scientific illiteracy. The notions of being “qualified” to speak on a subject, or of evaluating all available evidence like in a court of law, seem to be replaced by a simple question of “Who do you believe?” And as Trump seemed pleased to inform the Washington press corps: “the public doesn’t believe you any more. Now maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you.”
May 20, 2019
I bought this book on the strength of one of Merlan's tweets, which for me encapsulated 2017.
The weak side of this book is that it recounts conspiracy-related beliefs and internecine quarrels that I have, for the most part, already read about. I know about the white supremacist who had an affair with his wife's stepfather's wife and how InfoWars and Goop are sourcing their woo-filled pseudomedical products from the same places and the Pizzagate people who are convinced that abuse is occurring in the basement of a building that does not have a basement. If you've been reading about all these stories all along, it weakens the rationale for picking up this book.
The strong side is that Merlan does pull out some fresher themes. One is that, given all the terrible things the government has done (especially to black folks) and tried to cover up, it's not insane to believe some of these theories. Another is that some conspiracies are now fueled by what she calls "conspiracy entrepreneurs," which may not be a new thing but is certainly more effective in the Internet Age. Sobering for the library crowd is the habit of conspiracy believers to say that they were awoken after having "researched" a matter, or urging others to "do some research" to learn the truth--where "research" apparently means to Google and watch some nutty YouTube videos. A parallel notion of how discover the truth appears to be solidifying out there on the Internet.
Finally, she ends the book with an exploration of wishful-thinking liberal Twitter, where people (people I have long since muted) try to convince each other that a massive, clearcut Russia plot is about to be revealed, leading to a decisive impeachment movement. If you were tempted to laugh at the conspiracy theorists in the earlier chapters, this is a sobering antidote.
What does the concept of "today" mean when every day lasts for 5,000 years and contains dozens of the dumbest things that have ever occurred
— Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) May 16, 2017
The weak side of this book is that it recounts conspiracy-related beliefs and internecine quarrels that I have, for the most part, already read about. I know about the white supremacist who had an affair with his wife's stepfather's wife and how InfoWars and Goop are sourcing their woo-filled pseudomedical products from the same places and the Pizzagate people who are convinced that abuse is occurring in the basement of a building that does not have a basement. If you've been reading about all these stories all along, it weakens the rationale for picking up this book.
The strong side is that Merlan does pull out some fresher themes. One is that, given all the terrible things the government has done (especially to black folks) and tried to cover up, it's not insane to believe some of these theories. Another is that some conspiracies are now fueled by what she calls "conspiracy entrepreneurs," which may not be a new thing but is certainly more effective in the Internet Age. Sobering for the library crowd is the habit of conspiracy believers to say that they were awoken after having "researched" a matter, or urging others to "do some research" to learn the truth--where "research" apparently means to Google and watch some nutty YouTube videos. A parallel notion of how discover the truth appears to be solidifying out there on the Internet.
Finally, she ends the book with an exploration of wishful-thinking liberal Twitter, where people (people I have long since muted) try to convince each other that a massive, clearcut Russia plot is about to be revealed, leading to a decisive impeachment movement. If you were tempted to laugh at the conspiracy theorists in the earlier chapters, this is a sobering antidote.
July 21, 2019
This is some controlled opposition type garbage masquerading as journalism. No, thanks.
May 7, 2019
I know far too many people who desperately need to read this book but never will.
April 6, 2019
I admire anonymously the monumental efforts like those of people at Media Matters, who endure hours upon hours of the likes of Fox News so that the sane of us don't have to watch to see what nonsense is being spewed at any given instance. And then there is Ms. Merlan, who takes such to extremes, diving into the belly of so many beasts to write this she has to have brain bleach on autorefill. Hat's off and bravo. There have always been conspiracists and their theories - whacky, out there, unreal. I semi-argued in frustration with someone some years ago who thought the feed from the International Space Station was faked, as was the moon landing (it was faked, of course, by Stanley Kubrick, but he always liked to shoot on location ;) ). Sadly, she wasn't the only person I've known who believed that mind-boggling gem, and I know anti-vaxxers, some who think fluoride is poison brainwashing, and a few Deep Staters and birthers just for starters. The fallout from 2016 is alarming enough that when I saw this, I requested and was sent an Advance Reader's Edition from the publisher through LibraryThing.
Ms. Merlan calls this "a surreal time", where the subcultures she writes about are "achieving a hallucinatory new level of fame." In the western hemisphere, conspiracies have been around since the Euro-occupants (my term) got here. She says
She's got a lot here, from the usual Pizzagate & UFOs to Agenda 21 and the kingpin, Alex Jones, medical conspiracies, mind control, Deep State, white nationalists, to the heinous false flaggers (the abuse and harassment the parents of the victims of the so, so many mass school shootings is heart-rending) who think that anything is a government action and government cover up. She's attended conventions, rallies, interviewed the more famous of the various conspiracy adherents...she even spent a week on a "cruise ship filled with conspiracy theorists."!! Yes, there is a Conspira-Sea Cruise!
I love her discard of restraint when she calls out the perpetrators: on a manufactured conspiracy around a tragic unsolved murder, rumors and BS were "spurred by the biggest conspiracy megaphone there is: Fox News, specifically Sean Hannity, the network's biggest Trump defender." On the real conspiracy of Russians trying to draw the T campaign into its meddling, she says, "we know this because we had the deeply idiotic emails between Trump son-in-chief Donald Trump, Jr. and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin..." When Ted Cruz, on his first senatorial run, said on Glenn Beck's (another serial offender) radio show to cry about Agenda 21 he warned that it would end single-family homes, ranching, private cars, ... She says, "that's not a flase flag; it's just very, very stupid. (So stupid that the national Republican Party put an anti-Agenda 21 plank in their national platform...) Double slam in one paragraph. And in response to the too little too late semi/pseudo controls of the Facebbok, iTunes, Pinterests, etc. and the really too little and way too late Twit-ter,
Sometimes the paranoia is too comical: some of the false flaggers even accuse the grand poobah Alex Jones of being a false flag! A government plant spreading hoaxes as real (but their hoaxes are not hoaxes, if you will.)
She calls to task Joesph Uscinski, coauthor of American Conspiracy Theories who said
In her epilogue, she has a sobering observation that there "are no brakes available. There is no mechanism to prevent another Edgar Welch storming into a pizza parlor or another James Field getting behind the wheel, speeding toward Heather Heyer."
Too much to summarize, read the book. Or don't. The best way to arm oneself against stupidity is too learn about. Read Ms. Jones's point again.
[On the overall book, one problem I had was the sourcing, or lack, of a lot quoted material. There was a ten page list of sources in my copy, and no index, but no citations. And the list seemed incomplete. I noticed because I was trying to figure out where one part of a thread came from and didn't see anything in the end list of sources.]
Ms. Merlan calls this "a surreal time", where the subcultures she writes about are "achieving a hallucinatory new level of fame." In the western hemisphere, conspiracies have been around since the Euro-occupants (my term) got here. She says
Conspiracy theories tend to flourish especially at times of rapid social change, when we're reevaluating ourselves and, perhaps, facing uncomfortable questions in the process. In 1980, the civil liberties lawyer and author Frank Donner wrote that conspiracism reveals a fundamental insecurity about who Americans want to be versus who we are.Well, one need only look to religions to see the same thing.
She's got a lot here, from the usual Pizzagate & UFOs to Agenda 21 and the kingpin, Alex Jones, medical conspiracies, mind control, Deep State, white nationalists, to the heinous false flaggers (the abuse and harassment the parents of the victims of the so, so many mass school shootings is heart-rending) who think that anything is a government action and government cover up. She's attended conventions, rallies, interviewed the more famous of the various conspiracy adherents...she even spent a week on a "cruise ship filled with conspiracy theorists."!! Yes, there is a Conspira-Sea Cruise!
I love her discard of restraint when she calls out the perpetrators: on a manufactured conspiracy around a tragic unsolved murder, rumors and BS were "spurred by the biggest conspiracy megaphone there is: Fox News, specifically Sean Hannity, the network's biggest Trump defender." On the real conspiracy of Russians trying to draw the T campaign into its meddling, she says, "we know this because we had the deeply idiotic emails between Trump son-in-chief Donald Trump, Jr. and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin..." When Ted Cruz, on his first senatorial run, said on Glenn Beck's (another serial offender) radio show to cry about Agenda 21 he warned that it would end single-family homes, ranching, private cars, ... She says, "that's not a flase flag; it's just very, very stupid. (So stupid that the national Republican Party put an anti-Agenda 21 plank in their national platform...) Double slam in one paragraph. And in response to the too little too late semi/pseudo controls of the Facebbok, iTunes, Pinterests, etc. and the really too little and way too late Twit-ter,
And surely, in part, some of these services are hamstrung by a grim, darkly funny logical endpoint: Trump is the best-known political figure on earth to use social media to spread conspiracy theories. Any banning policy would, in the end, have to cover him, too.Yep. Of course, the Twit-ter lets him violate their abuse policies incessantly, so don't hold any breaths.
Sometimes the paranoia is too comical: some of the false flaggers even accuse the grand poobah Alex Jones of being a false flag! A government plant spreading hoaxes as real (but their hoaxes are not hoaxes, if you will.)
She calls to task Joesph Uscinski, coauthor of American Conspiracy Theories who said
"I mean, they were burning women at the stake four hundred years ago, long before the Internet Facebook didn't tell them to do it." He points out, too, that the number of people who visit conspiracy sites is far lower than those who visit non-conspiratorial, traditional news sites. "There's tons of everything on the Internet," he said. "When I put in the words 'duck confit recipe,' I get half a million recipes. But nobody's racing home to cook duck confit. Just because it's there doesn't mean anyone cares. The things people look at are things they're predisposed to look."Nailed it. And she continued: "More important, Facebook and Twitter have a way of flattening information, making every source look the same or appear equally plausible." There lies a problem with our anti-social media...they feed, we can skip, but not unsee.
Uscinski's position doesn't take into account the role of social media, however. Through Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube, more and more people who might not be predisposed to reading about the Clinton body count or pedophiles in the pizza parlor will nevertheless run across tha content.
In her epilogue, she has a sobering observation that there "are no brakes available. There is no mechanism to prevent another Edgar Welch storming into a pizza parlor or another James Field getting behind the wheel, speeding toward Heather Heyer."
Countering an idea that has taken root is incredibly hard. Studies suggest that trying to argue someone out of a conspiratorial belief does not work, likening conspiracy theories to religious faith, which helps us see how they can be similarly fixed in the mind.So true. She also observes that we cannot just label something as fake and turn away, because "millions of people across the country are not doing the same." Take one look at a certain "News" Channels ratings and you'll see what she means (my words.)She quotes reporter Sarah Jones, writing for the New RepublicThe alternative is to allow conservative propaganda to fester. An impenetrable bloc of voters will continue to blame Latinos for their woes, to ignore basic facts that are staring them in the face, to trumpet American exceptionalism while neo-Nazis roam the streets, and to look to a strongman in their image to save them. We will have an unfree country, ruled by fear, and if we do not act we will bear some of the responsibility."
Too much to summarize, read the book. Or don't. The best way to arm oneself against stupidity is too learn about. Read Ms. Jones's point again.
[On the overall book, one problem I had was the sourcing, or lack, of a lot quoted material. There was a ten page list of sources in my copy, and no index, but no citations. And the list seemed incomplete. I noticed because I was trying to figure out where one part of a thread came from and didn't see anything in the end list of sources.]
May 25, 2019
I received an advance copy of this book through a LibraryThing giveaway.
“In January 2015, I spent the longest, queasiest week of my life on a cruise ship filled with conspiracy theorists.”
The interesting first sentence of this book couldn't help but draw me in, and began her tales of her time on the “Conspira-Sea Cruise." It took much much too long to read this book. The lesser reason is because I have a hard time reading paper books. The greater reason is I could handle only a little of this at a time.
The author covers a lot of conspiracy theories, and some of them (think Watergate) were proven true. Our government, with some of the unconscionable experiments it has done in the past, can engender conspiracy theories. But some of them are so outrageous, so blatantly false, that you have to wonder why people believe them. The author did try to explain that to my satisfaction, but not entirely. So much of it seems driven by hate, by conflicting views of feeling superior at the same time as needing to feel someone is lesser because of (choose whatever option of many here). Some are harmless. Some are not only continuing to divide this country but are deadly. I can't imagine the survivors and parents of Sandy Hook must feel when they hear that they did not exist at all or that they are simply actors. Some of these theories are believed by incredibly gullible or naive people who will not look beyond their biased “news” sources. And some of the people starting these theories just want to make money. Despicable.
While most of these are right-wing theories or the tin-foil hat set, the left is not immune, as with “Russiagate.” Some of the theories might have some degree of truth to them, but most are made of whole cloth. In these days of social media, the hatred, the lies, the paranoia easily becomes viral.
This is an interesting book for anyone who cares about the direction our world, and especially the US, is headed.
“In January 2015, I spent the longest, queasiest week of my life on a cruise ship filled with conspiracy theorists.”
The interesting first sentence of this book couldn't help but draw me in, and began her tales of her time on the “Conspira-Sea Cruise." It took much much too long to read this book. The lesser reason is because I have a hard time reading paper books. The greater reason is I could handle only a little of this at a time.
The author covers a lot of conspiracy theories, and some of them (think Watergate) were proven true. Our government, with some of the unconscionable experiments it has done in the past, can engender conspiracy theories. But some of them are so outrageous, so blatantly false, that you have to wonder why people believe them. The author did try to explain that to my satisfaction, but not entirely. So much of it seems driven by hate, by conflicting views of feeling superior at the same time as needing to feel someone is lesser because of (choose whatever option of many here). Some are harmless. Some are not only continuing to divide this country but are deadly. I can't imagine the survivors and parents of Sandy Hook must feel when they hear that they did not exist at all or that they are simply actors. Some of these theories are believed by incredibly gullible or naive people who will not look beyond their biased “news” sources. And some of the people starting these theories just want to make money. Despicable.
While most of these are right-wing theories or the tin-foil hat set, the left is not immune, as with “Russiagate.” Some of the theories might have some degree of truth to them, but most are made of whole cloth. In these days of social media, the hatred, the lies, the paranoia easily becomes viral.
This is an interesting book for anyone who cares about the direction our world, and especially the US, is headed.
May 18, 2019
A comprehensive stroll through America’s predilection for mass conspiratorial ideation. Merlan strings together a series of vignettes that range from absurd to terrifying. Her focus on the real-life victims of conspiracists is well done. My problem with this book is that it seems content to gawk and scoff at conspiracy weirdos, but has no underlying theory as to the cause of this phenomenon en masse. There is an attempt to tie things together in the epilogue, but, even there, the focus is on fighting the symptoms, not diagnosing the illness. There is no genuine examination of the tendency of people who are unable to pinpoint the locus of their real or perceived social alienation, economic precarity, and/or declining status to seek reassurance in narratives that transfer blame to shadowy forces beyond their control, instead of reckoning with the banal and obvious material explanations behind their misery. A drunken podcaster once said, “conspiracy thinking is what fills the space that’s left where class consciousness should be.” I’d argue that this space is left unfilled in this book as well.
August 11, 2019
A lot of this is pretty interesting but it's also slanted completely towards the right being in the wrong and the left being in the right. I'm not a Trump fan by any measure but it's inaccurate to say the left doesn't use conspiracy theories, falls flags and other media tactics to their advantage just like the right. If you want to make the case Trump has taken it to another level, sure, I'm completely on board with that. You need some objectivity however and cannot put this all on one side of the aisle as a practice.
The nonpolitical stuff was excellent. There are some major wackos out there who you cannot argue with on this stuff. The people going after the families of mass shootings as government plants and ignoring their grief make me sick.
The nonpolitical stuff was excellent. There are some major wackos out there who you cannot argue with on this stuff. The people going after the families of mass shootings as government plants and ignoring their grief make me sick.
July 28, 2019
A very informed, detailed, sobering and yes, depressing read. Conspiracy theories in America exist for a reason: our government has a history of keeping disturbing secrets from the public. Its a wonder we see some evil plot everywhere we turn. Yet lately it feels like its gotten out of control. The author is witty, humorous and admits to her biases upfront. But she's quick to call out people on her side of aisle as well for being paranoid.
June 12, 2020
Conspiracy theories are as old as the hills. They have been part of the American system of governance and culture and thought since its beginnings, but it seems that the election of Donald Trump allowed a network of conspiracy profiteers to accrue wealth and credibility. In this book Anna Merlin offers an overview of the most prolific, ranging from infoWars’ Alex Jones to white supremacist Richard Spencer.
Read
April 23, 2019Here’s my review of this book on NPR. https://www.npr.org/2019/04/20/715211...
August 14, 2020
We're all familiar by now with the fact that many of our fellow citizens are prone to believing in conspiratorial theories and driven by grandiose fantasies of nefarious forces colluding against them. If those people aren't in our immediate families, they're at least visible enough on our social network feeds that we're aware they exist. And, while it's been easy to ignore these people and mock their backward, peasant-like ignorance, it's all become less funny now that they're shooting up public places, bringing back previously-vanquished illnesses and, worst of all, electing leaders every bit as delusional as they are. This is ground that's been covered extensively in books, articles and documentary films, but Anna Merlan's Republic of Lies is more than just a simple retread of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History or The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory.
For one thing, Merlan has the advantage of writing this book in the wake of the 2016 Election, the apotheosis of batshit conspiratorial thinking. She can reference phenomena like Pizzagate or QAnon, occurrences so outlandish previous writers on this topic could never have envisioned them. Beyond that, what Merlan really does well is look past the believers of conspiracies themselves--people to whom she's surprisingly kind (often too much so for my taste) in her portrayal--and focusing instead on the assorted hucksters, con artists, flimflam men, etc. getting really rich and successful from stoking fear and spreading division: people like Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich and, of course, Donald Trump. Merlan's analysis raises the question of whether these people are true believers or cynical opportunists.
Merlan has previously written for the publication Jezebel, but she employs little of that site's trademark snark or intentional mischaracterization of alternative viewpoints here. Instead, she immerses herself with the various anti-vaxxers, false flag "researchers" and alien abduction enthusiasts. It's great analysis: timely, well-written and, as much as possible, balanced. She's skilled at contextualizing even the craziest of viewpoints and referencing moments of actual conspiracies that really happened in American history. At the same time, she follows the obvious thread linking nearly all conspiracy theories and subgroups of believers: antisemitism and white supremacy. All in all, it's a clear and exhaustive exploration.
For one thing, Merlan has the advantage of writing this book in the wake of the 2016 Election, the apotheosis of batshit conspiratorial thinking. She can reference phenomena like Pizzagate or QAnon, occurrences so outlandish previous writers on this topic could never have envisioned them. Beyond that, what Merlan really does well is look past the believers of conspiracies themselves--people to whom she's surprisingly kind (often too much so for my taste) in her portrayal--and focusing instead on the assorted hucksters, con artists, flimflam men, etc. getting really rich and successful from stoking fear and spreading division: people like Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich and, of course, Donald Trump. Merlan's analysis raises the question of whether these people are true believers or cynical opportunists.
Merlan has previously written for the publication Jezebel, but she employs little of that site's trademark snark or intentional mischaracterization of alternative viewpoints here. Instead, she immerses herself with the various anti-vaxxers, false flag "researchers" and alien abduction enthusiasts. It's great analysis: timely, well-written and, as much as possible, balanced. She's skilled at contextualizing even the craziest of viewpoints and referencing moments of actual conspiracies that really happened in American history. At the same time, she follows the obvious thread linking nearly all conspiracy theories and subgroups of believers: antisemitism and white supremacy. All in all, it's a clear and exhaustive exploration.
August 7, 2019
In many ways Republic of Lies is a perfect book to read at this exact moment in time. Most of Merlan's chapters target an issue that's really in the zeitgeist: the rise of white supremacy, the anti-vaxxer movement, our schizophrenic national response to mass shootings, etc. These important topics then get discussed in a way that tries to balance the forest and the trees: she will pick a specific example to examine and then expand out to explain how that case is indicative of the larger problem. This is a very level-headed book which tries to be as even-handed as possible while discussing some of the most extreme ideas that are currently defiling America's national discourse.
However, I did have one fairly major issue with the book: its epistemology is far too fuzzy for my taste. Merlan acknowledges that most of these conspiracies have some kernel of truth at their core- our government really does have a long history of doing shady things to its own citizens - but then never explains how she draws the line between "this is an objective truth about this issue" and "this is an unfounded conjecture about this issue."
Part of me thinks that I'm being a bit too nit-picky here - I mostly agree with where Merlan has drawn her lines in the sand; for the most part they line up with "common sense" takes on the issues. And I also have to respect her for going out of her way to mention the kernels of truth that underlie these 'delusions' - a more prejudiced writer would have ignored or minimized mentions of COINTELPRO or the Tuskegee syphilis experiments etc. so they could make a stronger argument for these conspiracies being utterly crazy.
However, at the end of the day I do think that her lack of epistemological clarity is a real problem because it is hard to refute a conspiracy if you can't delineate clearly where the kernel of truth ends and the wish fulfillment begins. A big part of grappling with conspiracy thinking is wrestling with humanity's basic inability to ever prove anything objectively; at a certain point in every argument about what is / is not a "fact" you have to fall back on "this must be true because most people agree that it is true" - even though that's an obviously flawed assertion because there are innumerable examples of big groups of people having wrong beliefs all throughout history. Taking that extra step is frustrating because it involves admitting doubt about things that are self-evidently true - but it is also necessary to take that step because if you don't do that then it appears that you've arbitrarily defined what is / is not "true" to suit your own rhetorical needs.
Admitting that 'truth' always exists on a slippery slope is a bit maddening, but... that makes sense when we're talking about conspiracy theories, doesn't it? They wouldn't be so pernicious if they weren't so difficult to disprove...
However, I did have one fairly major issue with the book: its epistemology is far too fuzzy for my taste. Merlan acknowledges that most of these conspiracies have some kernel of truth at their core- our government really does have a long history of doing shady things to its own citizens - but then never explains how she draws the line between "this is an objective truth about this issue" and "this is an unfounded conjecture about this issue."
Part of me thinks that I'm being a bit too nit-picky here - I mostly agree with where Merlan has drawn her lines in the sand; for the most part they line up with "common sense" takes on the issues. And I also have to respect her for going out of her way to mention the kernels of truth that underlie these 'delusions' - a more prejudiced writer would have ignored or minimized mentions of COINTELPRO or the Tuskegee syphilis experiments etc. so they could make a stronger argument for these conspiracies being utterly crazy.
However, at the end of the day I do think that her lack of epistemological clarity is a real problem because it is hard to refute a conspiracy if you can't delineate clearly where the kernel of truth ends and the wish fulfillment begins. A big part of grappling with conspiracy thinking is wrestling with humanity's basic inability to ever prove anything objectively; at a certain point in every argument about what is / is not a "fact" you have to fall back on "this must be true because most people agree that it is true" - even though that's an obviously flawed assertion because there are innumerable examples of big groups of people having wrong beliefs all throughout history. Taking that extra step is frustrating because it involves admitting doubt about things that are self-evidently true - but it is also necessary to take that step because if you don't do that then it appears that you've arbitrarily defined what is / is not "true" to suit your own rhetorical needs.
Admitting that 'truth' always exists on a slippery slope is a bit maddening, but... that makes sense when we're talking about conspiracy theories, doesn't it? They wouldn't be so pernicious if they weren't so difficult to disprove...
July 23, 2019
The conspiracy theorists seized power in America through their fake news.
This is the non-fiction book as Anna Merlan went uncover to interview many conspiracy theorists and disclosed their secrets. The election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States sparked the new American age: The Conspiracy Theory Age, not AI or Space Age.
Some people were very livid with the federal government's so-called cover-up of their secrets such as Area 51 and the death of JFK. They wanted the truth but wrote their made-up theories, which became the fake news. This caused one of the severest political turmoil in the history of the United States.
Anna interviewed the UFOlogist who claimed that he was abducted to Mars with Barak Obama. She bumped into Alex Jones, the friend of Trump. Jones ran the InfoWar on YouTube channel. That was the horrible propaganda among the US culture spreading antisemitism and racism. They still think the Jews rule the world through their banking chains.
I thank Anna for uncovering the truth behind the political turmoil and her warnings against the fake news.
Caesar XIII
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review
This is the non-fiction book as Anna Merlan went uncover to interview many conspiracy theorists and disclosed their secrets. The election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States sparked the new American age: The Conspiracy Theory Age, not AI or Space Age.
Some people were very livid with the federal government's so-called cover-up of their secrets such as Area 51 and the death of JFK. They wanted the truth but wrote their made-up theories, which became the fake news. This caused one of the severest political turmoil in the history of the United States.
Anna interviewed the UFOlogist who claimed that he was abducted to Mars with Barak Obama. She bumped into Alex Jones, the friend of Trump. Jones ran the InfoWar on YouTube channel. That was the horrible propaganda among the US culture spreading antisemitism and racism. They still think the Jews rule the world through their banking chains.
I thank Anna for uncovering the truth behind the political turmoil and her warnings against the fake news.
Caesar XIII
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review
June 23, 2019
merlan's book makes some solid points regarding conspiracies, but it really never ties them all together into anything solid. it's your standard walk-through of various ideologies, and while there's a historical through-line to all of this, the end result is a book which never digs thoroughly enough into any one facet to really give more than a gloss.
the results skew modern, as well, making for an intriguing possibility regarding the connections to the current political climate. that, too, is squandered, never really grasping any one particular aspect long enough to really follow its path from beginning to end.
given the possibilities of tracing ufo conspiracies through to lizard people to pizzagate or even bohemian grove could fill an entire book on their own, granting any of these conspiracies just a chapter ends in a book that is, essentially, a well-crafted primer.
the results skew modern, as well, making for an intriguing possibility regarding the connections to the current political climate. that, too, is squandered, never really grasping any one particular aspect long enough to really follow its path from beginning to end.
given the possibilities of tracing ufo conspiracies through to lizard people to pizzagate or even bohemian grove could fill an entire book on their own, granting any of these conspiracies just a chapter ends in a book that is, essentially, a well-crafted primer.
August 13, 2019
63rd book for 2019.
Anna Merlan—pronounced like Merlin the magician—offers a handy primer to the various conspiracy groups now inhabiting Trumplandia (formerly known as the (Dis)United States of America).
A useful guide to read before doing a deep dive into Fox and Friends, 8Chan, and the POTOS's Twitter feed. Recommended.
4-stars.
Anna Merlan—pronounced like Merlin the magician—offers a handy primer to the various conspiracy groups now inhabiting Trumplandia (formerly known as the (Dis)United States of America).
A useful guide to read before doing a deep dive into Fox and Friends, 8Chan, and the POTOS's Twitter feed. Recommended.
4-stars.
May 16, 2019
Well written, very thoroughly researched. Incredibly depressing and disheartening.
July 16, 2021
A reader suggested that journalist Anna Merlan go on a conspiracy-themed cruise. That cruise is recorded here:
One Week on a Cruise for Conspiracy Theorists - ConspiraSea
That 2016 cruise launched her on a path that culminated in this 2019 book, two years before conspiracists tried to overthrow the election. She covers everything from UFOs to vaccines, to the alt-right. The stage was set by some conspiracies that were real, such as the MKUltra project by the CIA. She went to a white supremacist cookout and admitted she was Jewish. That takes some courage.
The internet has rapidly promoted the spread of all kinds of conspiracy theories, but their popularity is a symptom of the increasing ignorance and lawlessness in society.
“Even those flat earthers—one of the most fringe subcultures there is, besides those who believe the world is ruled by twelve-foot lizards—have seen a real uptick in their numbers.” p.12
One Week on a Cruise for Conspiracy Theorists - ConspiraSea
That 2016 cruise launched her on a path that culminated in this 2019 book, two years before conspiracists tried to overthrow the election. She covers everything from UFOs to vaccines, to the alt-right. The stage was set by some conspiracies that were real, such as the MKUltra project by the CIA. She went to a white supremacist cookout and admitted she was Jewish. That takes some courage.
The internet has rapidly promoted the spread of all kinds of conspiracy theories, but their popularity is a symptom of the increasing ignorance and lawlessness in society.
“Even those flat earthers—one of the most fringe subcultures there is, besides those who believe the world is ruled by twelve-foot lizards—have seen a real uptick in their numbers.” p.12
May 21, 2019
Paranoid much?
In the wake of the release of the (redacted) Mueller report Anna Merlan (blogger for the feminist site Jezebel) has released a book about the prevalence of conspiracy theorists and how they seem to be everywhere in today's political climate. Begun as Merlan's attempt to cover the "Conspira-Sea" boat cruise for the aforementioned Jezebel (this is the sort of thing that Jezebel and related sites published by Gizmodo Media like to cover and mock), it snowballed when Merlan realized just how many people actually believe in conspiracy theories.
It would be one thing if Merlan just used this book to reveal a bevy of conspiracy theories and the subcultures they have spawned. Such a book would no doubt be interesting, because some of these theories are batshit crazy. But Merlan goes many extra miles here--explaining the historical context behind why people might take these theories seriously (an example: the anti-vaxxing movement has its origins in some morally dubious experiments performed on minorities, prisoners and the generally dispossessed during the 20th century) and also exploring the idea that these theories are dangerous until they aren't--the fact that anti-vaxxing is a thing is causing public health crises not just in the United States, but worldwide. In addition, Merlan focuses on another insidious side-effect of conspiracy theories--for those gullible enough to believe, there are hucksters ready to pounce and profit. While bloviating shithead Alex Jones is brought up frequently, it turns out there are armies of these snake oil salesmen taking advantage. While some of these con men get their comeuppance, Jones and Donald Trump (among others) haven't received their just due yet.
Merlan is able to provide us with scientific studies as to why people believe in conspiracy theories (it's more akin to religious belief than anything else) and also the context of how fear and a feeling of powerlessness enter into the equation. White supremacy makes some small amount of sense when you understand that those who espouse its disgusting philosophies have bought into the lie that the reason they don't have jobs is because of Mexicans, African-Americans and Jews and they feel like their government doesn't do anything to help. This does not by any means excuse the white supremacists (they're assholes) but it does help to understand why someone who tread that path, and without understanding, we as a nation won't be able to solve the cause of the disease rather than the symptoms.
Merlan has some suggestions for creating a society that does not invest so heavily in conspiracy theories, but these sorts of common sense ideas (fairer elections, less "dark money" in the political process, etc) are much to radical for anyone to adopt. Perhaps that's the biggest conspiracy of them all?
In the wake of the release of the (redacted) Mueller report Anna Merlan (blogger for the feminist site Jezebel) has released a book about the prevalence of conspiracy theorists and how they seem to be everywhere in today's political climate. Begun as Merlan's attempt to cover the "Conspira-Sea" boat cruise for the aforementioned Jezebel (this is the sort of thing that Jezebel and related sites published by Gizmodo Media like to cover and mock), it snowballed when Merlan realized just how many people actually believe in conspiracy theories.
It would be one thing if Merlan just used this book to reveal a bevy of conspiracy theories and the subcultures they have spawned. Such a book would no doubt be interesting, because some of these theories are batshit crazy. But Merlan goes many extra miles here--explaining the historical context behind why people might take these theories seriously (an example: the anti-vaxxing movement has its origins in some morally dubious experiments performed on minorities, prisoners and the generally dispossessed during the 20th century) and also exploring the idea that these theories are dangerous until they aren't--the fact that anti-vaxxing is a thing is causing public health crises not just in the United States, but worldwide. In addition, Merlan focuses on another insidious side-effect of conspiracy theories--for those gullible enough to believe, there are hucksters ready to pounce and profit. While bloviating shithead Alex Jones is brought up frequently, it turns out there are armies of these snake oil salesmen taking advantage. While some of these con men get their comeuppance, Jones and Donald Trump (among others) haven't received their just due yet.
Merlan is able to provide us with scientific studies as to why people believe in conspiracy theories (it's more akin to religious belief than anything else) and also the context of how fear and a feeling of powerlessness enter into the equation. White supremacy makes some small amount of sense when you understand that those who espouse its disgusting philosophies have bought into the lie that the reason they don't have jobs is because of Mexicans, African-Americans and Jews and they feel like their government doesn't do anything to help. This does not by any means excuse the white supremacists (they're assholes) but it does help to understand why someone who tread that path, and without understanding, we as a nation won't be able to solve the cause of the disease rather than the symptoms.
Merlan has some suggestions for creating a society that does not invest so heavily in conspiracy theories, but these sorts of common sense ideas (fairer elections, less "dark money" in the political process, etc) are much to radical for anyone to adopt. Perhaps that's the biggest conspiracy of them all?
July 2, 2019
Why do Americans believe such crazy things? Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power doesn't just summarize all of American's crazy beliefs, it spends time diving in to each one in an attempt to explain why these beliefs are so appealing to us, and why people keep falling for ideas that have been completely and thoroughly shown to be false. It's amazing to me, as a science oriented person, that people completely believe that all the scientists and researchers in the world are conspiring together to push a 'false' world view that evolution is real, climate change is real, ancient aliens aren't real, vaccines are safe, and on and on and on. Anyone who has ever attended any sort of engineering or scientific conference will quickly understand that a lot of these scientists and researchers are in competition with each other, and many times really hate each other, and would love nothing more than to prove their colleagues wrong. And this is exactly how and why science progresses towards the truth.
(Note: this book was provided to me by the publisher as a LibraryThing early reviewer.)
(Note: this book was provided to me by the publisher as a LibraryThing early reviewer.)
May 14, 2019
This is really, really good. It explores the reasons why Americans are given to conspiracies and why it is important to recognize their importance in the current discourse.
The chapters all run on themes, from Medical conspiracies (which she points out has some historical precedence, especially for African Americans), to Military, and to UFOs. It's all tied into the overarching theme I stated above. She bravely goes into the rallies, conferences, and other places where she is often not welcomed to see what people are talking about. It's not biased; how can it be when she is talking to people who think that her religious group are responsible for the ills of the planet? But she keeps an even tone, a monumental task, I feel.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it could easily be longer - and enjoyed that it shows why conspiracy culture is relevant, and how it can be so disruptive, even if most people think the conspiracy is harmless.
The chapters all run on themes, from Medical conspiracies (which she points out has some historical precedence, especially for African Americans), to Military, and to UFOs. It's all tied into the overarching theme I stated above. She bravely goes into the rallies, conferences, and other places where she is often not welcomed to see what people are talking about. It's not biased; how can it be when she is talking to people who think that her religious group are responsible for the ills of the planet? But she keeps an even tone, a monumental task, I feel.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it could easily be longer - and enjoyed that it shows why conspiracy culture is relevant, and how it can be so disruptive, even if most people think the conspiracy is harmless.
December 8, 2019
I thought Merlan did a fine job of outlining current conspiracy theories, how they started, why they started and how they continue to flourish and continue to influence current politics. The theories run the gambit between ones that I am unfortunately familiar with (Pizzagate) and ones I have never heard of, such as the Sovereign Citizens Movement (who believe the government opens a bank account in your name with a quarter of a million dollars when you're born and that that there are secret ways to get that money, by not paying your taxes??). Sometimes I found Merlan's use of the terms "conspiracy" and "conspiracy theory" confusing; she notes that the term "conspiracy" refers to something secretive that actually happened and "conspiracy theory" refers to something that can not be proven. I felt that she used the terms interchangeably though and sometimes I had a hard time telling which things actually happened (OH MY GOD, IS THIS HOW IT STARTS?)
September 30, 2020
Forced myself to read this after seeing far too many people I know well getting swept up in conspiracy theories, particularly QAnon. I was nervous to read it as I thought it might send me deeper into a spiral of frustration, and while the feeling of wanting to shake someone violently until they get off Reddit won't go away, I'm grateful to have a better understanding of the science and reasoning behind conspiracies. For example: anti-vaxers came out of the Tuskegee studies. You almost can't blame them. It doesn't make the conspiracies any less dangerous or scary, but I appreciate learning what drives people to create and grab onto these wild theories.
The book can best be summed up with: “We will not be a less paranoid country until we are a fairer one. We need genuinely represented elections, better education on science and media literacy, a less moneyed system of democracy, and true and permanent government transparency.”
The book can best be summed up with: “We will not be a less paranoid country until we are a fairer one. We need genuinely represented elections, better education on science and media literacy, a less moneyed system of democracy, and true and permanent government transparency.”
February 24, 2023
While the book covers American conspiracy theories almost exclusively, it says so right in the title. I gave it only two stars instead of three because it saves most of its interpretations of how conspiracy theories actually work for the (rather brief) epilogue. In my opinion, it spends too much of its previous bulk on simply presenting the theories and its actors, in parallel with actual historical events that may contribute to conspiratorial thinking. It can also be tedious and messily structured at times.
December 28, 2019
If you’ve ever wondered about the origin of conspiracy theories, from beliefs in UFOs to anti-Vaccination conspiracies, “Republic of Lies” will bring you closer to understanding why seemingly thoughtful people from myriad political spectrums get caught up in conspiratorial movements. Particularly interesting is the author’s research into the lies our own government has spread in the past and how the past fuels current beliefs in conspiracies.
March 23, 2020
I wish there were more analysis in this book and less reporting. It seems like a refresh of Anti-intellectualism in American life and I would have liked to see more connecting of UFO conspiracies vs. alex jones type stuff. There are clearly differences, but are there similarities? And are Americans more conspiracy minded than anyone else? I suspect not. It seems to be the human condition. Anyway, just a bit more editorial and a bit less reporting would have made for a better book
August 15, 2019
Really well written journalistic account of how conspiracy theorizing has broken free of the paranoid fringe and gone mainstream. Merlan manages to write empathetically about some people who are hard to feel empathy for, and is by no means dismissive of the tendency. Ends with an impassioned plea to become the kind of society in which people don't need to seek refuge in conspiracy theories.
April 30, 2019
An excellent read about the mainstreaming of conspiracy theory in American culture and (more disconcertingly) American politics.
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