More on crank magnetism

Last month I blogged about crank magnetism, the way people who believe in one absurd thing frequently end up drawn into more crank ideas, and more extreme ideas to boot. In listing some of the possible reasons I don’t think I touched on how much right-wing grift plays into it. There are people who want to believe in nonsense and/or nonsense conspiracies; some pundits make hay by catering to them.

Right-wing talking head Candace Owens, for instance, has declared that while she’s not a flat-earther she’s not a round-earther either. No, she’s someone who “left the cult of science” when she realized it was a “pagan faith.”

I’m curious what prompted this. I know flat-earthers are out there and a lot of them are RWNJs such as Kandiss Taylor, a Georgia politician who thinks Taylor Swift is Satan’s handmaiden. Are there enough of them that they’re actually a constituency worth chasing after? Or is Owens simply struggling to compete in a marketplace stuffed with Republican bullshit — ah, the flat earth, that will grab some clicks! As one recent WaPo article put it “The most extreme comments garnered the most attention, until every conversation became a contest of provocations.”

Owens is, I note, awkwardly trying to thread the needle — it’s not that she’s a flat-earther, it’s that she doesn’t believe in the round Earth either. Nice try but the round Earth is reality. Claiming not to believe in it doesn’t make you sensible or thoughtful (any more than RFK Jr. saying he won’t take sides on 9/11 conspiracy theories). As Fred Clark says, reality “refers to the actual truth of actual things as they really are. There ain’t no such thing as ‘different realities.’ As Philip K. Dick, of all people, put it, ‘Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.'”

And no, science is not a “pagan faith.” It’s not a faith of any kind. Muslims, Christians, atheists and Jews all practice science. Here I’m sure Owens is playing to the PO’d religious conservatives who can’t accept that science shows evolution works (not to mention the anti-vaxxers and others). For people who are clueless about science, it’s just a bunch of “beliefs” like their own belief system — therefore teaching it in school without teaching creationism is religious bigotry. That creationism has been discredited repeatedly doesn’t matter.

I’m a little less sure about Owens’ holocaust denial and her anti-Semitic conspiracy theories (discussing how many Jews are in Biden’s cabinet). It’s possible, again, that it’s calculated marketing but it’s every bit as possible she’s an anti-Semite. She’s certainly willing to provide cover and support for anti-Semites such as Nick Fuentes (at the second link). Either way she’s a moral cesspool. Maybe a version of Trump’s own statement that it’s OK to be evil if you get good ratings.

Anti-Semitism pops up because once you start embracing conspiracy theories you need someone behind the conspiracy. As they’re so insanely big and sinister, you need some villain capable of pulling that. For much of our history, that’s been The Jews. Embracing anti-semitism is a reflex. So it’s no surprise Christiane Northrup, a right-winger who believes (or claims to) in Qanon and covid conspiracies also thinks The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a realistic depiction of the Jewish Threat. And she fits into the Republican right fine, just like Nick Fuentes and anti-Jewish preacher Joel Webbon. Who also thinks women shouldn’t vote (because it’s men’s job to wage war and politics is war!) and hates seeing nonwhite, non-Christian families in his neighborhood. He seems nice.

A pox on them all.