A few weeks ago, I became aware that
someone I have known for almost forty years drank the Kool-Aid and
unexpectedly entered an alternate reality, subscribing to conspiracy theories I
had thus far relegated to the mindset of a lunatic fringe. This awakening
prompted me to take a closer look at how these off the wall doctrines relate to
how people are reacting to our government’s attempt to manage the current virus
outbreak.
According to Michael Butter, a professor
of American literary and cultural history, who teaches at the University of
Tubingen, the outbreak of pandemics has always been accompanied by the
dissemination of rumors and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories tend to
claim that some covert but influential group – typically political in motivation
and oppressive in intent – is responsible for unexplained events. This group is
allegedly plotting to control and destroy an institution or the entire world.
These theories have become increasingly common place in mass media, and emerged
as a cultural phenomenon during the late 20th and early 21st
century.
A fairly recent, important, entrant into
the conspiracy world is QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory detailing a
supposed secret plot by a so-called deep state against President Donald Trump
and his supporters. QAnon came onto the scene in October of 2017, in an
anonymous post published by someone using the name Q, claiming to have access
to classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents
in the U.S.. One of its prominent theories projects that the president operates
at the center of a fight against a pedophile ring run by Democrats. They
believe that world governments are being controlled by a shadowy cabal of
pedophiles, who will eventually be brought to justice by Donald Trump.
Relative to Covid-19, its disciples posit
the so-called “mole children” theory, which holds that the virus is a ploy to
arrest members of the satanic ‘deep state’ – Tom Hanks, Barack Obama, Hillary
Clinton et. al. – and to release these hostages (sex-slave children) from
underneath Central Park. (Joseph Uscinski and Adam Enders, “The Coronavirus
Conspiracy Boom,” Th Atlantic, Apr 30, 2020.}
While QAnon followers may be some of the
most vocal, eccentric and prominent at President Trump’s rallies, they only
represent the tip of the iceberg among a plethora of coronavirus conspiracy
theories. Professor Uscinski suggests that these theories come in two
varieties: Those that doubt the virus’s severity and those that suggest it
might be a bio-weapon.
Conservative-media personalities continue
to cast doubt on the reality of the pandemic, even as the death toll keeps
rising. Rush Limbaugh has suggested that our public health officials are deep
state operatives and might not even be health experts. Some other commentators
have pushed the theory that our hospitals aren’t actually treating any Covid-19
patients. And some, more closely aligned with QAnon, claim that the virus was
intentionally disseminated by foreign powers like Russia or China, or by George
Soros or Bill Gates, in a nefarious plot to control the world with vaccines.
Our current pandemic is by no means the
only one generating conspiracy theories. The Black Death, which ravaged Eurasia
and Northern Africa between 1345 to 1352 and killed 75-200 million, reducing
the world’s population by 30%, was blamed on the Jews. European conspirators
pushed the theory that Jews caused the outbreak by poisoning wells in a bid to
kill all Christians and control the world. Jewish people were accused of being behind
the plague and found themselves subjected to deadly progroms and forcefully
displaced.
The so-called Spanish Flu pandemic, which
ran roughly from March 1918 to April 1919 and killed 21 million people
world-wide, including 600,000 Americans, germinated its own set of conspiracy
theories. While this flu probably started in the U.S., not in Spain, among
military troops that fanned out across Europe during World War I and spread the
disease. Conspiracies tended to claim that Germany had produced “a terrible new
weapon of war,” releasing the germs off a German ship in Boston Harbor and,
alternatively, by German infiltrators carrying vials filled with germs brought
to shore and released in theatres and other crowded places. (Ofer Aderet,
Haaretz, March 26, 2020.} Another prominent theory was that the German
pharmaceutical firm Bayer had inserted the germs into aspirins. The mantra
became: “Take an aspirin for a headache and the germs will creep through your
body. Then your fate is sealed.”
An interesting side-note to the spread of
this pandemic is that Donald Trump’s grandfather, Frederick Trump (born
Friedrich), became one of the first casualties of this virus. While out walking
with Trump’s father, Fred, on May 29, 1918, Frederick suddenly fell ill. He died
the next day at the age of 49.
Much of this is interesting for
curiosity’s sake. However, when, as is estimated, that one in three Americans
subscribe to some elements of current conspiracy theories, consequences are
real. Blaming the coronavirus emergence on the wrong source, or doubting its
seriousness, could be life threatening on a massive scale. If that many
Americans believe that the effects of Covid-19 have been exaggerated and choose
to forego crucial health practices, the disease could spread faster and farther
then otherwise and could cost many thousands of lives. And if a significant
percentage of the public questions the value and safety of vaccines and refuses
to be inoculated whenever a Covid-19 vaccine is successfully produced, the
health of all of us will continue to be at stake.
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
No comments:
Post a Comment