In this last election, the nation was assaulted by imposters masquerading as reporters. They poisoned the conversation with lies on the left and on the right. Many did it to influence the outcome, others, just to make a buck. The president uses the term “fake news” to discredit responsible reporting […] Read more »
Why More Democrats Are Now Embracing Conspiracy Theories
Even as Democrats decry the false claims streaming regularly from the White House, they appear to have become more vulnerable to unsupported claims and conspiracy theories that flatter their own political prejudices. The reason isn’t just that a Republican now occupies the White House. Political psychology research suggests that losing […] Read more »
Donald Trump has brought us the American style in paranoid politics
Political scientists long assumed that U.S. institutions were more open and sturdier than those in other countries. One manifestation of that robustness, the theory went, was that U.S. politics appeared largely free from troubling symptoms like conspiracy thinking. Foreigners — particularly in less-developed countries — might attribute the actions of […] Read more »
Belief in conspiracies largely depends on political identity
Sometimes it seems that Americans will believe anything. And what we know as true or not true these days can depend on our political point of view. But there are many of us who are willing to give at least some credence to the possibility that a claim might be […] Read more »
Many Americans Believe Fake News Is Sowing Confusion
In the wake of the 2016 election, everyone from President Obama to Pope Francis has raised concerns about fake news and the potential impact on both political life and innocent individuals. Some fake news has been widely shared, and so-called “pizzagate” stories led a North Carolina man to bring a […] Read more »
Why Do People Buy #Pizzagate?
Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory started by alt-right Twitter which alleged that John Podesta‘s emails exposed some members of the Democratic party as being part of a DC pizzeria-based child-sex ring, has made its way into Russian social networks. Now some people are convinced of the existence of pedophile lobby that […] Read more »