The J6 Committee and Conspiracy Theories vs Real Conspiracies

Real conspiracies that succeed don’t succeed because they maintain absolute secrecy, they succeed because they seize control of the apparatus of power and the narrative in such a way that knowing about the conspiracy has no power to stop it.

By Ryan McGreal

Posted June 29, 2022 in Blog (Last Updated June 29, 2022)

For all its faults, the January 6 Committee has incidentally done a fantastic job of drawing a sharp contrast between a conspiracy theory and an actual conspiracy.

In a conspiracy theory, the nefarious agents behind it have vast and near-absolute power to silence everyone and anyone who might be able to blow the whistle. Whole industries around the globe get sucked up into the conspiracy’s absolute power.

In a real conspiracy, even among a relatively small group of people, infighting is constant, no one can keep their mouth shut and it’s impossible to keep a lid on it. Clear evidence of the conspiracy is easy to produce, usually provided by the conspirators themselves.

It is publicly, blatantly, objectively clear that Trump and a group of his followers engaged in a criminal conspiracy to steal the election. The reason they are walking free is not because they managed to hide the evidence of their crimes.

It’s because the Republican Party, by and large, either doesn’t care or actually likes that he tried to steal the election, while the Democratic Party, by and large, feels constrained by institutional norms from holding him to legal account.

If someone is telling you about a conspiracy so vast and powerful that it can suppress all evidence of its existence, you are either being conned by a grifter or piled on by a true believer. Don’t believe the con.

Conspiracy theorists start from a set of a priori preconceptions and then build out a framework big and elaborate enough to reconcile the discrepancy between what they believe (or want you to believe) and what the evidence actually tells us.

The less plausible that set of initial a priori assumptions, the more vast and all-encompassing the conspiracy needs to be to account for the absence of supporting evidence. As such, the most ridiculous beliefs produce the biggest and broadest conspiracy theories.

Again, that’s not how actual conspiracies behave. Because that’s not how actual people behave.