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Conspiracy theories are not new. Covid-related conspiracies may be new, but conspiracy theories about pandemics and contagious diseases have been around for centuries. Anti-vaccination hysteria goes back decades. The QAnon conspiracy theory may be new (or maybe not really?!), but conspiracy theories themselves are a tale(s) as old as time — or at least time as we know it, from the start of recorded history.

What is a conspiracy theory?

Conspiracy theories are simple explanations for complex phenomena, that often involve a secret group (often some type of global cabal) who are pulling the strings of world events behind the scenes. There is most commonly little to no credible evidence supporting the beliefs of the conspiracy theory, instead relying on superstition, speculation, coincidence, or simple rumor to back up their claims.

QAnon flag epitomizes modern-day conspiracy theories
Image credit: Anthony Crider

A large body of psychological research has shown that there are some deep cognitive reasons that conspiracy theories tend to resonate with us, and especially in particular types of people, or people in certain types of circumstances.

We are fundamentally wired to be storytellers. It’s intuitive why this ability might be hard-coded into our brains, as it so clearly relates to survival, self-preservation, and our ability to navigate and succeed in a complex world. We need to be able to understand cause and effect in an environment of many rapidly shifting variables, and storytelling is a framework for weaving coherent narratives that reduce our anxiety about the great uncertainties in the environment around us.

Conspiracy theories tap into psychological needs

Conspiratorial thinking is far more common than we think, and can ebb and flow in populations based on prevailing conditions. Our ability to see patterns in randomness and dissemble stories on the spot, along with numerous other cognitive and psychological biases, make us vulnerable to belief in conspiracy theories.

Continue reading Why do people believe conspiracy theories?
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Great Replacement Theory is a conspiracy theory animating the radical right wing that claims non-white immigrants are being brought to the U.S. and the west to “replace” white voters with their woke political and cultural agenda. Those who believe this white supremacist ideology see routine immigration policy as a white genocide and extinction of the white race. They also point to low birth rates among white europeans and the promotion of multiculturalism, or “wokeness,” as responsible for the alleged effects.

Promoters of this derivative of Nazi ideology (the claim is that Jews are responsible for this immigration plot) claim that the United States must close its borders immediately to immigration. Many advocate isolationism (“America First!”), white nationalism (and/or forms of nationalism more broadly), and claim that violence may be necessary to keep America under the control of white men.

History of Great Replacement Theory

The term “Great Replacement” was popularized by French writer Renaud Camus in his 2011 book “Le Grand Remplacement.” According to Camus, the alleged replacement is a result of the European elites intentionally allowing mass immigration and promoting multiculturalism to undermine national identity and traditional Western culture.

The Great Replacement Theory has been widely discredited and criticized by experts, as it is based on misinformation, selective data, and biased interpretations. It is important to note that this theory often fuels xenophobia, bigotry, racism, and anti-immigrant sentiments, and has been linked to a number of far-right extremist attacks worldwide.

Demographic changes in Western countries are driven by a complex interplay of factors such as economic migration, political instability, globalization, and changing birth rates. These factors are not part of any orchestrated plot, but rather reflect broader social, economic, and political trends. Unfortunately, it’s in the interest of the right-wing to keep its rabid base riled up — and the Great Replacement Theory conspiracy is an effective tool for generating anger and injecting vitriol into the broader political discourse.

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When using the Broken Record method, think K.I.S.S. for quick and dirty media strategy: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Then, repeat those short phrases or sentences frequently.

Themes to Broken Record for 2022 (and beyond):

Fascism / Authoritarianism warnings

Optimism > Pessimism

Buddhism and Stoicism were hopefully about humanity — these were philosophies that placed humans squarely at the center of an ever-expanding self-awareness journey that we could all commit to as a matter of personal growth. The locus of control was inside the individual.

Christianity changed all that. Now the locus of control was outside of a person — it resided with Jesus and, in turn, God. Considering their pernicious absence on the face of the planet however, numerous human beings claimed to have the bat phone to God, by which to issue allegedly celestial orders to others. The game of telephone always seemed to conspicuously privilege the claimant — God always coincidentally seemed to have great things in mind for the interlocutor, and not much concern for the rest of His creation.

The religious philosophies of Luther and Calvin would debase the popular conception of humanity even further, teaching that no amount of self-humiliation could get us low enough to match our undeservedness — and yet we ought to exhaust ourselves trying to prove it to be the case nonetheless. Under the edicts of the Protestant work ethic, one needs always to be consumed by frantic activity in order to appear worthy of God’s salvation — despite the fact that the core precept of predestination means that none of your obsessive ablutions can actually move the needle. Do it anyway — drop and give Calvin a Moral 20!

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The Republican National Committee, in perhaps the most stunningly stupid self-own in the history of modern politics certainly in my lifetime, finally said the quietest part out loud: that in their official pronouncement, the events at the Capitol on January 6 constituted “legitimate political discourse.” Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were censured by the RNC in the statement as well, for their role on the January 6 Committee and their investigation into these “legitimate” events involving a murderous attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

Yale historian Joanne Freeman had this to say about the RNC statement:

Democracy vs. Authoritarianism is on the ballot in 2022

If there’s any upside to the dark situation we’re in, it’s these gifts Republicans keep on giving — further debasing themselves each time you think they can’t possibly stoop any morally lower — that we can use to our advantage to turn out our base in record numbers in these upcoming midterms. We did it in 2018, and there’s no reason to believe we can’t do it now. Trump’s support is waning, not growing — and the fractures within the GOP are widening, not tightening. Plus, we’ll have 8 million new 18-year-old eligible voters we can potentially reach — the vast majority of whom statistically speaking, are going to be progressive Democrats.

None of the other policy questions or culture wars will matter if we cannot solve the most fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: do we still believe in the ideals of the Constitution, the rule of law, and the vision of a self-governing people shared by the Founders? Or do we want to hand over the keys to the nation to the erstwhile billionaires, old money heirs, and trust fund playboys who want to drag us back to some perverted nostalgic fantasyland that’s part Leave It To Beaver, part wild west, and part Silence of the Lambs?

Do we want democracy, or authoritarianism?

Do we want to choose our leaders, as citizens — or do we want politicians to choose our leaders?

It’s the only question in 2022.

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Originalism is received wisdom by another name.

It is a way of pseudo-argument privileging one narrow type of political view (conservatism) over all others — a view that we must try to divine the “original” intentions of the Founders in our creation and interpretation of the law.

A view that, by the way, the Founders did not share.

Originalism is an excuse framework for denying people the right to self-govern unless approved of by the white aristocratic elite who fancy themselves the Real Americans, over and above everyone else.

It is based on a kind of paternalism over the Founders, whose “perceived shock” at modernity itself would allegedly disallow almost anything the 340 million modern inhabitants of the United States want to do versus what would have been acceptable to the 2.5 million individuals who declared independence almost 250 years ago.

Originalism is a way of allowing conservative judges to play God. It takes the radical ideas of the Enlightenment in our self-governance and twists them back into a form of “received wisdom” delivered by conservative judges’ religious views — in violation of the First Amendment.

Fundamentalist lawyers, judges, and legal operatives often want to drag “original” back even further — to Biblical law. In both cases, the power grab lies in religious nationalists inserting themselves into the picture as the only interpreters of “God’s will” or “the textualist view” (how convenient!), in which they believe the founding documents were theocratic when they clearly were the opposite of that — the Founders talked about it a lot! And many of them were Deists, famously so.

TL;DR: Originalism is bunk.

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Mind control is a type of “psychological technology” used by con artists, cult leaders, and influence peddlers of all stripes to try and modify human behavior, to twist it to one’s own nefarious and usually opaque ends. Also referred to as undue influence techniques, brainwashing, emotional abuse, or thought reform, mind control is a set of techniques designed to hack in to the brain’s cognitive quirks, biases, and numerous psychobiological “opportunities to circumvent rational and critical thought.”

Cults are a specific structure of social organization formed through the application of mind control. There are at least 2 “layers” and often many interstitial rings that draw members ever closer to a hidden agenda lurking at the center — the true purpose of the organization that most of the footsoldiers know nothing about, because they work for one of the many “friendly PR faces” tacked on to the outside of the group to disguise the malignancy within.

Here’s the cult leader playbook:

  1. Position himself (and the group — his extension) as the only safe haven to turn to when afraid: “I alone can fix it!”
  2. Isolate followers from other sources of information — i.e. keep them in the Fox News/OANN/Newsmax ecosystem
  3. Arouse fear in the follower — invent invisible boogeymen everywhere! Huge caravans at the border that mysteriously disappear after elections! Evil liberals trying to do their jobs in schools and educate our youth about our history! INFLATION looms as a large spectre every time the left manages to eke out a few pennies from the cold unfeeling hands of the aristocrats!

Rinse; repeat. Stoking fear is “EZ Mode” — it means one of the parties in our two-party system can “de facto secede” from governance by just sitting on the sidelines and heckling all day, waiting for the problems and frustration to boil over so they can harness the abject anger of poor manipulated people into political weaponry, to break their lives on the wheels of history carelessly and for no higher purpose than personal greed and addiction to power, wealth, and status.

This set of books is a lead on how they fuel their political war machine:

Qualities of a Cult Leader

  • Narcissistic — highly self-absorbed, they demand excessive admiration and slavish devotion to their whims.
  • Charismatic — they have a way of grabbing attention, whether positive or negative.
  • Unpredictable — erratic behavior keeps enemies on their toes and fans “on edge” with desire to please Dear Leader.
  • Insatiable drive — it could be status, money, sex, power, or all of the above, but they feel they deserve it more than anyone else on the planet.
  • Lack of conscience — they have no shame and will demand things a decent human being would not.

…remind you of anyone in particular?!

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President Biden and Vice President Harris commemorated the 1 year anniversary of the January 6 attack on our democracy with morning speeches and a day of remembrance inside the Capitol rotunda with Representatives and Senators giving a number of moving speeches in their respective chambers. The tone on TV news and blue check Twitter was somber and reflective. The President referred to the violent events of Jan 6, 2021 as a terrorist attack on our democracy, and said that the threat was not yet over — that the perpetrators of that event still hold a “dagger at the throat of America.”

Only two Republicans were present in chambers when the moment of silence was held for the nation’s traumatic experience one year ago — Representative Liz Cheney and her father, Dick Cheney, the former VP and evil villain of the George W. Bush years. That this man — a cartoonish devil from my formative years as a young activist — was, along with his steel-spined force of nature daughter, one half of the lone pair that remained of the pathetic tatters of the once great party of Lincoln.

What do you do if you’re in a 2-party system and one of the parties is just sitting on the sidelines, heckling (and worse!?)? How do you restore confidence in a system that so many people love to hate, to the point of obsession? Will we be able to re-establish a sense of fair play, as Biden called on us to do today in his speech?

The Big Lie is about rewriting history

We don’t need to spend a ton of time peering deeply into discerning motive with seditionists — we can instead understand that for all of them, serving the Big Lie serves a function for them in their lives. It binds them to their tribe, it signals a piece of their “identity,” and it signals loyalty within a tight hierarchy that rewards it — all while managing to serve their highest goal of all: to annoy and intimidate liberals. Like all bullies, their primary animating drive is a self-righteous conviction that “I am RIGHT!” at all times and about all things, and that disagreement is largely punishable by death or, in lieu of that, dark twisted fantasies of death passed off lamely and pathetically as “just joking, coworker!”

Continue reading January 6 Attack: A “dagger at the throat of America”
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seditious conspiracy folks working to undermine the united states

It may have seemed like the election of 2016 came out nowhere, and the January 6, 2021 attempted coup event was another deep gash to the fabric of assumption — but in reality, the authoritarian movement to dismantle America has been working diligently for a long time. Depending on how you count, the current war against the government began in the 1970s after Roe v. Wade, or in the 1960s after the Civil Rights Act, or in the 1950s with the John Birch Society, or in the 1930s with the American fascists, or in the 1870s with the Redemption and Lost Cause Religion, or in the 1840s with the Southern Baptist split, or in the 1790s when we emerged from the Articles of Confederation.

We are facing an unprecedented crisis of democracy under attack by the most current roster of these extremists, hardliners, theocrats, plutocrats, and others of their ilk. The following mind map diagrams the suspects and perpetrators of the Jan 6 coup as we know so far — including the Council for National Policy, the Koch network, Trump and his merry band of organized criminals, the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and other right-wing groups — from militia convicted of seditious conspiracy, to rioters who have been arrested in the January 6th probe, to persons of interest who have been subpoena’d by the January 6 Committee in the House, to anyone and anything else connected to the ongoing plot to kill America whether near or far in relation. The map extends to include coverage of the basic factions at work in the confusing melodrama of American politics, and their historical precedents.

Mind map of the seditious conspiracy

I’ll be continuing to work on this as information comes out of the various investigations and inquiries into the attempted coup to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, from the January 6 Committee to Merrick’s DOJ, the GA district attorney, NY district attorney, various civil suits, and probably more we don’t even know about yet. You can navigate the full mind map as it grows here:

Head onward into “Continue Reading” to see the same mind map through a geographic perspective:

Continue reading Koup Klux Klan: The authoritarian movement trying to take over America
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Or capital vs. labor, oligarchs vs. plebes, plutocrats vs. proles, rich vs. poor — however you want to narrate it, the property vs. people struggle continues on in new and old ways, each and ere day.

Here in America, the plutocrats have devised many clever methods of hiding the class struggle behind a race war smokescreen, that is both real and manufactured — instigated, exacerbated, agitated by the likes of schlubby wife abusers like Sloppy Steve Bannon, wrinkly old Palpatines like Rupert Murdoch, and shady kleptocrats like Trump and Putin.

The United States has nursed an underground Confederacy slow burning for centuries, for sociopathic demagogues to tap into and rekindle for cheap and dangerous political power. Like The Terminator, racist and supremacist troglodytes seem always to reconstitute themselves into strange and twisted new forms, from slavery to the Black Codes to sharecropping to convict leasing to Jim Crow to Jim Crow 2.0 — the psychopaths want their homeland.

The political left loves people, and our extremists for the most part destroy capital or property that insurance companies will pay to make shiny and new again — unlike the right wing extremists who bomb federal buildings, killing hundreds of people and costing taxpayers’ money to replace.

Meanwhile, the right wing claims to be the righteous party for its extreme fixation on life before birth, yet its regulation-allergic capitalists destroy people and the natural world more broadly, from factory farming to deforestation, the destruction of habitats, strip-mining and other toxic extraction practices, and on into climate change itself. Being in fact the chief architects of manmade atmospheric devastation, they have managed to make themselves invisible from the deed by simply (wink wink!) denying it exists.

WWJD?!

Certainly, not anything the Republican Party is up to. Jesus would be sad.

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Freedom means the right to make choices. When you have a large population, that means many different kinds of people are making many kinds of different choices for different reasons. That means, mathematically speaking, a broad distribution graph of options chosen over time. Freedom produces diversity, as a direct consequence of its own laissez-faire philosophy.

The Founders knew this. James Madison was an intellectual of his day, and a polymathic student of the great ideas of his time. It is hard not to see the influence of exposure to Condorcet’s theory about decision-making in Madison’s later ideas about diffusing the flames of factions by essentially dousing them in the large numbers of people spreading out within the growing nation. He believed that ideas and interests that were actively opposing each other would be a good way to preserve enough vigor to sustain an active self-governing democracy.

Regardless of the origin, Madison clearly himself was advocating for the power of diversity to preserve the very republic. He believed that this diversity of views in fact provided the structure that would help prevent singular demagogues from rising up too far and destroying democracy forever in their quest for unlimited power. The founders shared this foresight — that giving Americans the freedom to live as they may would lead to a healthy democracy, through the promulgation of different ideas and knowledge as well as through vigorous debate.

You can’t have freedom without diversity

Many who cite Freedom as their patriotic raison d’être do not seem to tolerate well the exercise of freedom by others, particularly others they disagree with or do not like. But as the great Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer once said, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” She had the insight that if her civil rights could be taken away from her, then no one else’s rights would be safe in this nation either.

America has always struggled to live up to its founding ideals — but it seems like if we want to truly honor their memories, we would continue to take that vision at face value and continue to carry the light of the torch of equality, perhaps upwards to the crest of a hill from whence we may shine once again.

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For all their angry rhetoric and now, overtly political violence, I maintain that it is the right wing that is profoundly insecure, anxious, and in need of soothing. They are panicking at the idea that the world can possibly change without their approval, and deprive them of their stolen superiority — they do not want the party to end for white male dominance of this entire planet.

Right-wing authoritarian adults latch on to symbols and ideologies and demagogues as “surrogates” for the childhood safety blanket they once needed — these are the “adult-acceptable” pablum substitutes.

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Moral Flat Earthers characteristically lack discernment between very good and very bad on the moral spectrum — it is as if they see the “absolute value” of the moral impact and judge very evil to be “good” because of its sheer bigness. They are overwhelmed by the size and power of forces beyond their control, and become gobsmacked easily at the sight of muscle being flexed. Many want to be on the side of the flexer.

Moreover, they see the interest in discernment as a waste of time — as inefficient. Which, in the religio-capitalist worldview, is extremely sinful. When the money keeps rolling in, you don’t ask how — just Give it to God and let Jesus take the wheel. Because God loves people with money, and Jesus must have hung out with the poors by mistake, that quirky guy!

Moral Flat Earthers are bad at analogies, because they have no proper sense of the weight or gravity of things relative to each other. They spend very little time turning concepts over in their mind to understand them — their wisdom is largely received, and often sort of cut and pasted there by others. They pastiche their guiding philosophy from random sampling the authorities throughout their lives.

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It feels like the 1930s all over again — and with good reason. The rise of American fascists and right-wing extremism around the world has been a known trend for decades, and America’s past flirtations with fascism had been largely swept under the rug by the then anti-semites who tried to put a stop to FDR‘s New Deal and prevent the U.S. from getting into World War II.

They fought against labor unions and labor organizers, often using private militia as henchmen to do their dirtywork with plausible deniability for themselves. The Ku Klux Klan — the principle paramilitary organization formed during Reconstruction to undo egalitarian gains from the Civil War — was just one of many instruments put to use in service of plutocratic aims to quell any “communist awakening” amongst their workers, lest they get any uppity ideas for themselves. They fell for the popular conspiracy theories of their time, which included Hitler’s bogus assertion that Jewish bankers controlled the world and had to be stopped before they destroyed the white race.

Fascist revanchism

Those fascists, butthurt over America’s overwhelmingly popular decision to enter the war and stop Hitler from exterminating the Jews, seethed with jealousy at the post-war “liberal consensus” that flourished alongside the booming US economy, propelled first by the war effort and later by the peacetime success of the New Deal‘s long shadow and the burgeoning of the American middle class.

The American fascists turned into the John Birch Society, and the McCarthyites, and the Libertarians, and the Moral Majority, and the Gingrich Revolution, and the Tea Party, and the MAGA / QAnon stew sloshing around mass media. The kooks on the far right — the kind of ilk so cray cray that even William F. Buckley excommunicates you from the Republican Party — have taken over the hen house now. Outrage sells, as Facebook well knows — and as two-bit dictators around the world have bribed Mark Zuckerberg to brainwash the masses using the most inanely illogical propaganda prolefeed, the world tilts dangerously towards authoritarianism and the end of our democracy as we know it. And with it, all hope for truth and light into the future for some time to come — the equivalent of a political meteor hitting the Earth.

The American fascists are still around, and now they have tools of propaganda that Goebbels could never have even wet dreamed of. They’re more powerful and more well-connected — to other sociopaths, malignant narcissists, and other pathological cult-leader types who might be of transactional service to each other from time to time. Many of them cling to ideas of Christian nationalism and Strict Father Morality. We’d be wise to keep an eye on these folks.

NameTypeLocationKnown for
Greg AbbottPoliticianTexasThe 48th governor of Texas since 2015 who has presided over multiple energy grid disasters, a self-induced economic fiasco at the border, and ghoulish vigilante legislation designed to terrorize women seeking abortion services, and a perversion of the child sex trafficking apparatus to instead target and tyrannize trans youth
Roman AbramovichForeign agentRussian oligarch close to both Putin and Trump
ACU Strategic PartnersForeign agentA company seeking to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East in partnership with a sanctioned Russia company; Mike Flynn was working for them without having disclosed it to the US government as required.
Sheldon AdelsonBusinesspersonLas Vegas, NVCEO billionaire of the Sands Corp casino empire (died, 2021)
AggregateIQCorporationCanadian data firm connected to Cambridge Analytica parent company SCL Group that played a role in spreading Brexit propaganda
Roger AilesMedia personalityDeceasedPrimogenitor of Fox News whose downfall came over dozens of women testified to his decades of sexual assault and blackmail behaviors
Todd AkinPoliticianMissouriPolitician who lost his Senate race to Clairse McCaskill in 2012 when he made the comment on TV about women having a way to "shut the whole thing down" to avoid becoming pregnant if raped.
Nelson W. Aldrich
Ali AlexanderExtremistOne of the primary organizers of the Stop the Steal rally on January 6 that turned into and/or attempted to mask a coup attempt
Samuel AlitoJudgeWashington, DCSupreme Court Justice who penned a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, riddled with Christian nationalist tropes and arbitrary Originalist interpretations
American Energy AllianceNon-profitA tax-exempt nonprofit that advocated for corporate-friendly energy policies. Koch's Freedom Partners donated $1.5 million in 2012.
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)Non-profitCorporate-funded nonprofit that writes legislation for Republican legislatures, including spearheading the efforts to wrest partisan control over election results in 49 states.
Americans for ProsperityPACThe Koch Brothers' Libertarian political advocacy arm
Philip AnschutzBusinesspersonColoradoCO oil and entertainment billionaire and founder of Qwest Communications
Michael Anton
Lee AtwaterPolitical OperativeInfamously brutal Republican strategist for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush who promoted the "abstraction" of racism via Southern Strategy and ran the infamous Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis in 1988.
Michele BachmanPoliticianMNMinnosota Republican politician who was the first woman in her state to be elected to the House of Representatives, she is known for her extremist Dominionist views
Steve BannonMedia personalityHouseboatsFormer Breitbart provocateur who joined the Trump administration as a key advisor and dark propagandist for Trump intent on sowing chaos
Ross Barnett
William BarrPublic SectorDonald Trump's Attorney General who shielded him from public awareness of his crimes, corruptions, and compromises during the 45th presidency.
Maurice BarresAuthorFranceFrench nationalist author in the early 20th century who introduced Great Replacement theory
Louis BeamWhite Supremacist
Roy BeckWhite SupremacistExecutive Director of NumbersUSA, member of the white supremacist Tanton Network
Andy BiggsPoliticianAZHouse Republican subpoena'd by the January 6 Commission for his role in the attempted coup
Black LegionExtremistMichiganSecret society of black-hooded terrorists working in MI against labor unions and labor organizers in the 1930s. Legionnaires talked of staging a coup to oust FDR and imposing a fascist regime in the United States
David BogatinOligarchNYCA top figure in the Russian mafia who bought 5 luxury condos in Trump Tower to launder money, he admitted in 1987.
Jacob BogatinOligarchDavid Bogatin's brother, and a partner of notorious Russian mob moss Semion Mogilevich
John Wilkes BoothCriminalDeceasedStage actor and Confederate sympathizer who shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head in April 1865, a few months after his re-election in 1864.
L. Brent BozellExtremistBFF of William F. Buckley and author of Conscience of a Conservative to support Barry Goldwater's candidacy in 1960.
Harry and Lynde BradleyKochtopusMidwesterners who built their wealth on defense contracts
Andrew BreitbartMedia personalityFounded both Brietbart and the Huffington Post
Anders BreivikExtremistOslo, NorwayMass murderer who killed 77 people in Oslo, Norway as inspired by the white supremacist ideology of Great Replacement theory
Mo BrooksPoliticianHuntsville, ALHouse Republican from Alabama subpoena'd by the January 6 Committee for his role in the attempted coup
Brother's CircleCriminalOrganized crime gang pursued by then-FBI head Robert Mueller circa 2011
Michael BrownFerguson, MOUnarmed black man killed by the police in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking a series of riots in the city.
Pat BuchananPoliticianWashington, DCPolitician and paleoconservative who worked for presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan before running against incumbent George H.W. Bush in 1992; widely considered a bigot, racist, and antisemite.
William F. Buckley JrMedia personality
Doug BurleyPolitical OperativeFounding and leading both The Family and the National Prayer Breakfast of right-wing power brokers
Cambridge AnalyticaCorporationLondon, UKData firm implicated in the propaganda campaigns of both Brexit in 2015 and Donald Trump in 2016 that stole hundreds of millions of Facebook profiles and mined the treasure trove of information for weaknesses to manipulate in attempts to persuade
Renaud CamusAuthorFranceFrench writer and critic who created the recent 2011 formulation of the Great Replacement Theory
Tucker CarlsonMedia personalityNYCFox News evening opinion anchor and fish stick heir who promotes the Great Replacement conspiracy theory to his primetime audience of older white men.
Doug CaseyBusinesspersonAyn Rand devotee and "anarcho-capitalist" who specializes in how to profit from turmoil
Michael CatanzaroLobbyistPartner at the CGCN Group lobbying firm who headed "energy independence" for the Trump transition team.
Cato InstituteThink Tank
Madison CawthornPoliticianNC
Center to Protect Patient RightsKochtopusDark money group funded by the Kochs to attack the ACA with fearmongering and vitriol
Mike CernovichMedia personality
CGCN GroupLobbyistLobbyist for the Koch brothers
James ChaneyActivistNeshoba County, MSOne of 3 civil rights activists murdered by local white supremacists when engaging in non-violent civil disobedience, along with Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman
Jeremy Joseph ChristianExtremistPortland, ORstabbed 3 people who tried to intervene while he was hurling anti-Muslim slurs at 2 young women in Portland, OR
Chris ChristiePoliticianFormer governor of NJ and former Trump supporter and transition team lead who became a Trump critic
Michael CohenBusinesspersonNYCDonald Trump's personal lawyer, sentenced to 3 years in federal prison for felony crimes, including campaign finance crimes
Steven A. CohenBusinesspersonFinance (SAC Capital Advisors)
Roy CohnPolitical OperativeDeceasedLawyer who represented Senator Joseph McCarthy in the infamous televised 1954 hearings, and later went on to become a mafia-connected fixer in NYC and mentor to budding real estate developer Donald Trump
Competitive Enterprise InstituteThink TankWashington, DCA Washington think tank that had been bankrolled by fossil fuel industries, particularly the Kochs.
Continental ResourcesCorporationOklahomaOK-based shale oil company with a large and profitable fracking operation
Coors brewing familyKoch InvestorColoradoThe Coors gave money to Oliver North to fund the Iran-Contra operation
Council of Conservative Citizens (CoC)
Ted CruzPoliticianTexas
Jefferson Davis
Kim DavisPublic SectorKentuckyFormer county clerk of Rowan County, KY who defied a US federal court order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in 2015
Devos familyKoch InvestorFounders of the Amway marketing empire; Betsy DuVos was the Secretary of Education under Trump
Amadou DialloNew Yorka West African immigrant mowed down by 41 shots from police when leaving his apartment on February 4, 1999.
James DobsonMedia personalityconservative talk-show host and fundamentalist Christian who strongly advocated spanking and corporal punishment be applied liberally to children
Chester DolesFormer KKK leader who runs the white supremacist American Patriots USA. Nearly beat a Black man to death in 1993. Marched in 2017 in Charlottesville.
Rod DreherExtremistBenedict Option author and traditionalist
Dinesh D'SouzaMedia personalityConservative gadly who alleged that Obama was "African" in outlook rather than American, absorbing his "radical" views from his Kenyan father
Doug DuceyPoliticianAZGovernor of Arizona
Aleksandr DuginExtremistRussiaRussia's primary fascist political philosopher and originator of Eurasianism conspiracy theory
David DukeWhite Supremacist
John EastmanPolitical OperativeRan against Kamala Harris in 2010 for California AG, then showed back up in 2020 to write an outrageous op-ed that Newsweek for some reason actually published, that claimed that she was "secretly" not a US resident and therefore not eligible to be the VP! Now the Kamala Harris birther
Myron EbellPolitical OperativeOutspoken climate change skeptic, who headed the Trump transition team for the EPA
Election Integrity Project CaliforniaExtremistElection fraud group working with Leonard Leo
Larry EllisonBusinesspersonGave $5 million to Marco Rubio
Cassandra Fairbanks
Jerry Falwell, JrTelevangelist
The FamilyLobbyistShadowy DC group with tremendous sway in Congress and around the world, following a distorted "strongman Jesus" version of Christianity.
The Federalist SocietyExtremist
Scott FitzgeraldPoliticianWIHouse Republican
Michael FlynnCult Leader
For AmericaPAC
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Fox NewsCorporation
Free Congress Foundation
Freedom CaucusPolitician
Freedom PartnersKochtopusThe Koch Brothers' secretive donor club.
FreedomWorksExtremist
Matt GaetzPolitician
Kevin GentryKochtopusVP of Special Projects and VP of the Koch Foundation
Greg GianfortePoliticianbody-slamming Guardian reported Ben Jacobs while running for a GOP House seat in Montana
Newt GingrichMedia personality
Tim "Baked Alaska" GionetWhite Supremacist
Rudy GiulianiPoliticianNYC
GiveSendGo"Christian" donation platform
Barry GoldwaterPoliticianAZ
Seb GorkaPolitical Operative
Billy Graham
Madison GrantPolitical OperativeClose personal friend of Herbert Hoover who helped draft the exclusionary Immigration Act of 1924 -- the Stephen Miller of his day. His "Passing of the Great Race" was beloved by Hitler as "his bible."
Chuck GrassleyPoliticianSenator
The Great Awakening
Marjorie Taylor GreeneQAnonGA
Eric GreitensPoliticianMO
Harold HammKochtopusBillionaire founder of Continental Resources, an OK-based shale company with large fracking business & one of the charter members of the Kochs' donor circle.
James Henry HammondExtremist
Warren G. HardingPoliticianEnthusiastically supported the white-supremacist work of Lothrop Stoddard et al
Billy James HargisExtremist
Orrin HatchPoliticianSen. Orrin Hatch raised concerns about funding certain entitlement programs. “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything,” he said.
Josh HawleyPoliticianMOMissouri Senator funded by Peter Thiel who gave the January 6 mob a fist bump on his way in to object to certifying the electoral count
Matthew HeimbachExtremistWhite nationalist and one of the founders of the Traditionalist Workers Party
Jesse HelmsPolitician
Leona Helmsley
Diane HendricksWIThe wealthiest woman in Wisconsin at $3.6 billion
Heritage FoundationThink TankWashington, DC
Honest Elections ProjectExtremistA conservative legal organization connected to Leonard Leo that files legal briefs to SCOTUS opposing mail-in ballots and other voting reforms that help more people to vote,
Herbert HooverPoliticianWashington, DCWhite supremacist and wealth supremacist, he was adamant about doing nothing to help people during the Great Depression.
Mike HuckabeePolitician
Laura IngrahamMedia personalityFox News host
Andrew JacksonPoliticianDeceasedUS President
John Birch SocietyExtremist
Andrew JohnsonPoliticianDeceasedUS President
Chuck JohnsonMedia personalityAlt-right super troll
Ron JohnsonPoliticianWisconsin Republican Senator who supported Donald Trump, promoted ivermectin for covid, and said he wasn't afraid of the January 6 mob because they were white people
Alex JonesMedia personalityHost of InfoWars, the 9/11 conspiracy show that put the genre on the map
Jim JordanPoliticianOHA long-time Tea Party hyena, the Congressman known as Gym once helped his buddy cover up decades of sexual abuse of young wrestlers in their care.
Judicial Education ProjectExtremistA legal group tied to Leonard Leo, working to advance conservative takeover of the judiciary.
Islam KarimovOligarchUzbekistanFormer Communist official who became the first president of Uzbekistan in 1991, and remained the country's dictator until his death in 2016.
Alex KaschutaMedia personalityRight-wing podcaster
Brett KavanaughJudgeDC
Dr. D. James Kennedycreating a Dominionist "conversion" playbook
John F. KennedyPoliticianDeceased
Robert F. KennedyPoliticianDeceased
Anna Khachiyan
Martin Luther KingActivistDeceasedCivil Rights leader in the 1960s, and enemy of Southern politicians
Charlie KirkMedia personality
Walter KirnAuthorMTUp in the Air author and disaffected former member of the American intellectual class
KKKWhite Supremacist
Bill KochBusinessperson
Charles KochKochtopusKansasindustries: pipelines, oil refineries, lumber and paper, coal, chemicals, commodity futures, etc.
David KochKochtopusDeceasedindustries: pipelines, oil refineries, lumber and paper, coal, chemicals, commodity futures, etc. (now deceased)
Fred KochKochtopusKansasFather of Charles and David, Fred Koch was an early and fervent acolyte in the ultra-conservative John Birch Society
Frederick KochBusinesspersonNew York
David KoreshCult LeaderWaco, TX
Ku Klux Klan (see KKK)White Supremacist
Kylie Jane Kremer
David LaneWhite SupremacistMember of the white supremacist group The Order who coined the 14-word slogan popular with Great Replacement adherents: "We must secure the exisatence of our people and a future for white children"
Ken LangoneBusinesspersonFounder of Home Depot
Lyndon LaRoucheCult Leader
Robert LeFevreKochtopusCharles Koch's mentor, a quasi-anarchist, who said, "government is a disease masquerading as its own cure"
Leonard LeoExtremistChairman of the Federalist Society, a legal organization working to pack the courts with conservative judges.
Marine Le PenPoliticianFrance
Honor Levy
Liberty CounselChristian special rights group
The Liminal Order
William S. LindPolitical Operative
Kelly LoefflerPoliticianGeorgiaInsider trading immediately upon arriving at her unelected Senate seat when her husband, President of the NYSE, found a way to have some money arrive at Brian Kemp, the Governor, who appointed her.
Dana LoeschMedia personalityNRA spokeswoman
Sen. Huey LongPoliticianDeceased
Thomas MairExtremistAssassin of British MP Jo Cox, who was outspoken against the UK's Brexit campaign
Paul ManafortLobbyist
Clarence Manion
Blake MastersPoliticianAZ
John McAfeeBusinesspersonDeceased
Sen. Joseph McCarthyPoliticianDeceasedSenator best known for his demagoguery against alleged Communist agents in the US government during the Cold War in the early 1950s
Kevin McCarthyPoliticianCA
Michael McKennaKochtopusLobbyist and President of MWR Strategies lobbying firm, who have the Koch brothers as clients
Timothy McVeighExtremistOklahoma City, OKWhite supremacist McVeigh was a disgruntled former military guy who took up with the white power movement and executed the Oklahoma City bombing -- as inspired, he said, by enacting "revenge" for Waco.
Andrew MellonBusinessperson
Rebekah MercerOligarchDaughter of NY hedge fund manager Robert Mercer; she helped guide the Trump transition team following the 2016 election, and funded right-wing social network Parler
Robert MercerOligarchFather of Rebekah Mercer and longtime right-wing donor
MicroChipPro-Trump bot-king
Stephen MillerExtremist
Michael Milken
Cleta MitchellExtremistOKLawyer who represented various right-wing entities including the NRA, and was considered the "fringe of the fringe" -- at age 70 she "represented" Trump during his telephone call to Brad Raffensperger asking him to find ~11,000 votes
Semion MogilevichCriminalNotorious Russian mob boss
Stefan MolyneuxMedia personalityAlt-right troll
Sun Myung MoonCult LeaderLeader of the Moonie cult and self-proclaimed deity, Mr Moon served time in federal prison for tax fraud, among other charges.
Roy MoorePoliticianALTrump-backed politician and pedophile who narrowly lost the Alabama Senate race to Doug Jones in 2018.
JP MorganBusinessperson
Rupert MurdochOligarchFox News owner famous for his amoral media
Jack Murphy
Benito Mussolini
MWR StrategiesKochtopusLobbying firm for the Koch brothers
Dasha Nekrasova
neo-NazisExtremist
Terry NicholsExtremistBlew up the Oklahoma Federal Building with Timothy McVeigh
Richard NixonPolitician
Ralph NormanPoliticianHouse Republican who skirted the metal detectors to enter the House floor after the January 6 insurrection
NRAExtremistNational Rifle Association
NYPDPublic SectorNew York Police Department
Barack ObamaPoliticianChicago, DC, Los AngelesThe 44th President of the United States, and the first black person to hold the job. He was widely loathed by the Right despite his positive record.
John M. OlinKochtopusChemical and munitions company titan
Viktor OrbanPoliticianRadical right president of Hungary and Putin supporter
The OrderWhite supremacist group
Candace OwensExtremist
Matt ParrottExtremistCo-founder with Matthew Heimbach of the Traditionalist Workers Party
Laszlo Pasztor
Norman Vincent PealeBusinesspersonChristianity as a business man's religion
Mike PenceMedia personalityDonald Trump's VP
Rick PerryPolitician
Scott PerryPoliticianHouse Republican who skirted the metal detectors to enter the House floor after the January 6 insurrection
Jordan B PetersonAcademicA sort of hero figure to the incel crowd
William Pierce
Pioneer FundA white supremacist group set up for "race betterment" in 1997 at a private club.
Jeanine PirroMedia personalityFox News host known for having a bit of a drinking problem and a brash on-air personality
Mike PompeoPublic SectorSec of State after the firing of Rex Tillerson; former CIA Director; former Republican congressman from KS and largest recipient of Koch campaign funds in all of Congress
Jack PosobiecMedia personality
Lewis PowellBusinesspersonWrote a 1971 memo that rallied the largely white and male business community around a plan to dismantle the New Deal and the liberal consensus
Sydney PowellPolitical OperativeAlso Associates with UFO believers and anti-vaxxers
Proud BoysExtremistMilitia group involved in the January 6 coup attempt
Thomas PyleBusinesspersonpresident of the American Energy Alliance, funded by Exxon and the Kochs
QAnonQAnonConspiracy theory about Democratic pedophiles that recycles Nazi ideology
Jean RaspailAuthorFranceFrench author of the 1973 Camp of the Saints novel about migrants organizing to take over France; the racist fiction inspired the white power movement of the 1980s, Steve Bannon, and a host of other fascist movements in Europe, America, and around the world
Nancy ReaganMedia personalityDeceased
Ronald ReaganPoliticianDeceasedActor and Republican who became the 40th President from 1981 through 1989
Kyle Rittenhouse
Pat RobertsonTelevangelist
Dylann Roof
George Romney
Mitt RomneyPoliticianUT
Murray RothbardExtremist
Dave Rubin
Richard Mellon ScaifeKoch InvestorHeir to the Mellon banking and Gulf Oil fortunes, and Koch donor
David SchnarePolitical Operative"Free-market environmentalist" who accused the EPA of having blood on its hands, who joined climate change denier Myron Ebell on the Trump transition team for the EPA
Stephen SchwarzmanFinance
Rick ScottPolitician
Jeff SessionsPoliticianAL
Marc ShortPolitical OperativeRan the Koch Brothers' secretive donor club, Freedom Partners, before becoming Mike Pence's senior advisor during the 2016 presidential transition
Sinclair Broadcasting GroupCorporation
Paul SingerKoch InvestorFinance (Elliott Management hedge fund). Supported Rudy Giuliani.
SNCCNon-profit
Social Contract PressWhite SupremacistA racist publishing company, part of the Tanton Network, that published the white nationalist novel Camp of the Saints
Richard SpencerWhite Supremacist
Balaji SrinivasanBusinessperson
State Policy NetworkKochtopusFunded in part by the Kochs
Dan SteinWhite SupremacistPresident of Tanton Network organization FAIR
Lothrop StoddardWhite SupremacistAuthor of the 1920 book The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy
Roger StoneLobbyist
Richard StrongBusinesspersonStrong Capital Management Mutual Fund
Sen. Robert TaftPolitician
John H. TantonWhite SupremacistMichiganWhite nationalist who organized The Tanton Network of 13 anti-immigrant organizations
Tea PartyPACIntensely antitax group
Peter ThielBusinesspersonLos Angeles, CAEccentric Silicon Valley billionaire and pocketbook for the New Right project
Clarence ThomasJudgeWashington, DC
Ginni ThomasPolitical OperativeWashington, DC
Three PercentersExtremistMilitia group who had a heavy presence at the January 6 attempted coup
Traditionalist Workers PartyExtremist
Turning Point USAExtremistCharlie Kirk's right-wing PR organization
UnabomberCriminal
Unification ChurchCult Leader
Unite the RightActivistCharlottesville, NCCharlottesville, NC event in 2018 where white supremecist groups marched with tiki torches, and activist Heather Hyer was killed by a right-wing extremist who drove his car through the crowd.
University of Texas at AustinAcademicAustin, TX
JD VancePoliticianOHVenture capitalist and Peter Thiel acolyte running for Senate in Ohio
Ricky Vaughn
Ruben VerastiguiCriminalDCFormer RNC and other GOP offices staffer who made social media ads for the Trump campaign and was later arrested with child porn on his phone after a DHS sting.
John VinsonExtremistHead of the Tanton Network-backed anti-immigrant hate group American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF)
George WallacePoliticianAlabama
Joe WalshMedia personality
Kelli WardPoliticianAZGOP Chair
Ron WatkinsExtremistIdentified as the most likely suspect to be Q of QAnon
Randy WeaverWhite SupremacistNaples, ID
Vicki WeaverWhite SupremacistNaples, ID
WeevWhite SupremacistAndrew "Weev" Auernheimer
Paul WeyrichWhite SupremacistArch-deacon of the New Right ultraconservative movement and hugely influential figure who founded the Heritage Foundation, Council for National Policy, and ALEC.
White Citizens CouncilsWhite Supremacist
Geert Wilders
Darren WilsonPublic SectorPolice officer who brutally killed a Black man, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, MO in 2014.
WikiLeaksForeign agent
Milo YiannopoulosMedia personality
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A strong and prevalent cognitive bias that causes a large majority of people to rate themselves more highly and more skilled than statistically possible. Lack of self-awareness can cause us to overestimate our knowledge or ability in a given area, and this phenomenon is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Posited in 1999 by two Cornell psychologists, Professors Dunning and Kruger also found that low-skilled people often have a double bind: they think of themselves as very skilled, but the lack even the basic level of skill that would allow them to detect and learn from their mistakes to get better. It’s very difficult for them to get out of the “trap” of perceiving themselves as superior, thus obviating any need to continue effort at improvements.

They also found that individuals of high skill levels also suffer from a sort of “lensing effect” (now dubbed the Dunning-Kruger Effect accordingly) in terms of their own self-assessment, but in the other direction — they are not generally aware of the rarity of their gifts. They assume most other people have the same kinds of knowledge and critical thinking skills that they do. In other words, careful study of our images of ourselves found us all to be living in a bubble of inaccurate self-perception, on both ends.

How to counteract the Dunning-Kruger Effect:

  • Ask for feedback from other people, and listen to it honestly.
  • Keep learning and gather knowledge and improving your skills.
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