Brendan Nyhan has a great post comparing the prevalence of conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace and 9/11. Here is the money graph, with responses broken down by party:
He concludes:
…both party’s bases are disturbingly receptive to wild conspiracy theories.
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This is hardly the first time that the two issues have been compared, even though it’s been proven that Obama is a US citizen while nobody knows what Bush did or did not know about 9/11 beforehand. (After all, Bush never testified under oath about it.)
In fact, it seems a rather disingenuous attempt to lump in people who are dissatistified with the official 9/11 story with the “birthers’, the implication being that all “conspiracy theories” are created equal.
Is Condolezza Rice in on this conspiracy theory? After all, she claimed the President was told “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”.
Polls that actually test for conspiracy theories (were there bombs in the towers? was WTC7 hit by a missile? was the US behind the attacks?) find support closer to 6% nationally.
oh come on. I’m pretty far out left field, but
“People in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted to United States to go to war in the Middle East.” (that’s the wording of the question)
is pretty crazy.
“took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted to United States to go to war in the Middle East”
Which part is crazy? That the government took no action, or that it wanted to go to war with the middle east? In fact, both those things are documented facts. Presumably, it is the “because” part that leads you to find the entire statement “crazy” …
“Unfounded” might be a better word to use in that case, given that the rest of the statement is not only plausible but actually true.
Since this is a social science blog, I’m surprised that you treat “because” – establishing a causal relationship – as just a little word. It’s actual a pretty typical marker of conspiracy theories:
Fact 1: JFK was assassinated.
Fact 2: JFK was unpopular with parts of the CIA
Crazy statement: JFK was assassinated because he was unpopular with parts of the CIA.
Continue at will.
In you case, the “had prior knowledge” statement is “unfounded” – I think the fact that the administration knew that Al Qaeda planned some type of massive strike at some time in the future is quite different from “taking no action”.
Linking the two statements with “because” is crazy conspiracy theory – unfalsifiable and not supported by a single shred of concrete evidence.
The point I was trying to make was simply that 9/11 and the Obama birth accusations have nothing to do with each other.
To label them both equally crazy (is that an actual term used in social science?) and then use that wholly subjective label to “prove” that both people on the left and right and equally willing to believe crazy theories is circular logic.
Is it time for current day right wingers to emulate D. W. Griffith with a flick titled:
“Birthers of a Nation”?
oh but Dan they have plenty in common with each other:
1. There is no actual evidence for either of them.
2. There is some pseudo evidence that gets paraded around (the long-form birth certificate, photos of the plain (or not) impact in the Pentagon etc.)
3. There is a claim that there is crucial part of the evidence that would settle all of this but that is being withheld.
4. No actual evidence will do to convince the adherents of either theory that they are wrong.
5. There is a vast conspiracy of the “MSM” to not address these important questions.
6. They assume that a conspiracy that would need to involve hundreds of people
7. Either side asserts that the opposite (political) side is not just wrong but treacherous and evil.
Obviously, the crime that truthers accuse their opponents of is a lot more heinous…
As for “crazy” as a social science term – all academics I know use this or a similar term (I’ve liked “loonie left”) to refer to the “towners” who will show up at talks (preferably of high-caliber visiting scholars) and go into long, almost impossible to interrupt, off-topic rants during Q&A (usually about the vast conspiracy of the US gov’t). So yeah, I think it’s a social science term.
The important thing, in my view, is not how receptive people are to conspiracy theories, but how elites in both parties and ideological groupings treat the two sets of claims. To my knowledge, the 9/11 conspiracy theory was never pushed by any Democratic members of Congress and never received any substantial play in the media. You cannot say the same thing about the birthers. There is a problem here!
oh I’m 100% with you that the conservative movement and establishment is a _lot_ crazier (and open to crazies) than the liberal one.
Next to the quasi-birthers in the House the Republicans also have Mr. “global warming conspiracy” Imhofe in the Senate etc.
But I think it’s important to keep in mind that there are some very deluded people on the left, too. I think the question on why they’re pretty much not represented in either the liberal part of the (ms) media or the higher echelons of the Democratic party is indeed fascinating.
Sebastian – the problem with your list there is that the 9/11 “conspiracy theorists” are not homogeneous in their views but represent a wide spectrum. On one hand you have those who do believe the crazy stuff you describe but on the other you have folks such as myself who believe that the events of 9/11 happened pretty much as the government says but that somewhere in the background there could have been operatives from the US government involved. Or at the very least somebody in the Federal government had a pretty good idea that something was about to happen and made the decision not to try to stop it.
Ask yourself: given all that we’ve learned about the Bush administration, isn’t the “crazy” point of view to believe everything they have told us about 9/11? Hell, even some of the 9/11 Commission members themselves have spoken out against their own report.
Hasn’t Oceania always been at war with Eastasia? Only crazy people would think otherwise.
So-called conspiracy theorists are the most marginalized and ridiculed group in the political spectrum. And yet, on a slow news day, throughly embraced. Cable news talking heads love them when there’s nothing else to talk about.
Dan:
What type of information would convince you that you are wrong?
If none such information exists (and I don’t think, the way you phrase your theory, it possibly can), you’re following a conspiracy theory.
I find Orwell references incredibly off-putting. If you think Bush’s America had anything to do with the totalitarian states Orwell wrote about I encourage you to revisit your history books.
And that’s the point of John’s post two above this one – you’re essentially equating the Bush administration to a totalitarian/orwellian regime and claim sinister things for which you have no proof whatsoever.
That does kind of remind me of the people who compare Obama’s healthcare to socialism or fascism (or both) and claim sinister intentions – without any factual basis, either.
Which was the whole point of this discussion.
Sebastian: I probably can’t be convinced that I’m wrong because I’m not convinced that I’m right. I’m just open to possibilities and think that a lot of questions about 9/11 have not been answered to my satisfaction. To me, 9/11 is just like JFK: it will always be something of a mystery.
You’re right that Orwell references can be abused but one of the themes of 1984 that doesn’t come up much is the idea that questioning authority is actually a form of mental illness (according to Big Brother).
I make no claim to know for sure who was behind 9/11, but I do know who wished for it beforehand and who benefited from it afterwards and they’re pretty much the same people.
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