Wisdom of Crowds Matthew Walther on Conspiracy Theories
Dead almost six years, Jeffrey Epstein is back in the news. The sordid details of his crimes, and the elaborate conspiracy concerning elites that he may or may not have been a part of, have become a central issue within the MAGA coalition. Conspiracy theories in general are now a part of daily political life. None of us can escape them. Most of us probably half-believe in at least one of them. Why is that?
Today’s guest is the writer Matthew Walther, editor of The Lamp, biographer of John Henry Cardinal Newman, and a columnist for The New York Times. He has written extensively about Epstein, Russiagate, and the place of conspiracy theories in American politics. He joined Shadi Hamid and Damir Marusic to ponder the Epstein saga and its potential to hurt Trump’s coalition.
“We live in an awesome country, why do we have to make up stories about a decline that doesn't even really exist?” Shadi says near the beginning of the conversation. Walther explains how conspiracy theories are politically useful, and how they “almost on a dime can become useful to one side or another.” Damir agrees about the bipartisan nature of conspiracy-mongering: “For the Left it was the Pee Tape, and for the Right it’s this [Epstein] stuff.”
The conversation goes deep into the nature of conspiracy theories and the psychological need they satisfy. Epstein, Stop the Steal, Russiagate and of course, the Kennedy assassination are all discussed. Walther quotes the English philosopher Gilbert Ryle as a guide: “A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth is accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them.”
In our bonus section for paid subscribers, the gang discusses the work of Seymour Hersh; Damir and Shadi argue whether the Democrats have ever had a cult of personality equivalent to that of Trump; Matthew argues that Obama is a lot like Trump; Matthew explains why Nixon was “the last, great technocratic leftist”; Shadi distinguishes emotional versus material self-interest in order to explain why MAGA won’t break with Trump; Damir and Shadi disagree about technocracy; and more!
Required Reading:
* Matthew Walther, “Sorry, This Epstein Stuff Isn’t Going to Hurt Trump” (New York Times).
* Matthew Walther, “The Pointless Triumph of a Hapless President” (New York Times).
* Matthew Walther, “The Jeffrey Epstein case is why people believe in Pizzagate” (The Week).
* Matthew Walther, “The most respectable conspiracy theory in Washington” (The Week).
* Matthew Walther refers to Paul Fussell’s concept of “high proles” in “Talking About Class in America” (American Conservative).
* Jonathan Chait, “What If Trump Has Been a Russian Asset Since 1987?” (New York).
* “The CIA Reveals More of Its Connections to Lee Harvey Oswald” (Washington Post).
* Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Amazon).
* Musa al-Gharbi, “No, America is not on the brink of a civil war” (The Guardian).
* “Airline Deregulation: When Everything Changed” (Smithsonian Air and Space Museum).
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