A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy

by Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead

How the new conspiracists are undermining democracy-and what can be done about it

Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new-conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and what needs to be done to resist it.

Classic conspiracy theory insists that things are not what they seem and gathers evidence-especially facts ominously withheld by official sources-to tease out secret machinations. The new conspiracism is different. There is no demand for evidence, no dots revealed to form a pattern, no close examination of shadowy plotters. Dispensing with the burden of explanation, the new conspiracism imposes its own reality through repetition (exemplified by the Trump catchphrase "a lot of people are saying") and bare assertion ("rigged!").

The new conspiracism targets democratic foundations-political parties and knowledge-producing institutions. It makes it more difficult to argue, persuade, negotiate, compromise, and even to disagree. Ultimately, it delegitimates democracy.

Filled with vivid examples, A Lot of People Are Saying diagnoses a defining and disorienting feature of today's politics and offers a guide to responding to the threat.

• ISBN10: 0691188831
• ISBN13: 9780691188836
• Publish Date: 16 April 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Princeton University Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 232
• Language: English
• URL: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/17209.html

Reviews

[Kevin Costain]

Right from the beginning, you know this is about Trump. From using his catchphrase as a title to labelling him the “conspirator in chief ” in the introduction. So, yes very critical of Trump, but are we going to also get a deeper examination of hive mind conspiracies? This is my hope.

The point about Red Sox fans and their ambulance to The Yankees hit well:
“With respect to the Yankees, the question of justified belief does not arise for RedSox fans, at least not in a philosophic or scientific way. It arises from a tribal context, where validation comes from repetition by those in the relevant community—in this case, RedSox Nation.“

Conspiracism is not skepticism.

The problem isn’t that he does not know this or that, or that he does not know this or that. Rather, the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something.” This is dangerous in a president, Will observes, for it “leaves him susceptible to being blown about by gusts of factoids that cling like lint to a disorderly mind.”1 And when that mind demands that its reality be accepted as how things are, we are embattled by an assault on our sense of what it means to know something.

So, even with this book, we don’t have a definitive answer on how to face this scourge. I do wish it delved deeper into the beginnings of some of the more crazy theories such “Pizzagate,” but as a short look at these problems we now face regularly, this book does well.

[luddite]

Does a decent job of theorizing the runaway conspiracy theories on the US right-wing, but ignores several key structural factors. Zooms in a little too much on the Trump presidency without situating it in the larger media/knowledge-generating context. A good read nonetheless.