The Top 10 Political Rumors/Conspiracies of 2008 (Thus Far)
by Prof. John L. Jackson--<http://chronicle. com/review/ brainstorm>
by Prof. John L. Jackson--<http://chronicle. com/review/ brainstorm>
I should probably start off with a mild disclaimer by admitting that I am an anthropologist who has been interested in studying urban legends and
conspiracies for the several years. My new book on racial paranoia spends a lot of time unpacking conspiracy theories, past and present, especially the kinds
linked to race and racism. But a person doesn't have to go out of his or her way looking for conspiratorial thinking these days. It is all over the
place, particularly in connection to this electoral season's heated presidential campaigns.
With that in mind, I decided to take a second to see if I could list at least ten election-related conspiracy theories that I've heard since the beginning of 2008. Again, this isn't me going out of my way and hunting down obscure claims from some dark and dysfunctional corner of the Internet. I just wanted to stick to conjecture that I've overheard in the streets or seen debated on cable news shows-or even those that have served as subtext (some people argue) for political ad campaigns.
There are probably more out there, but I figured that I'd stop at ten. Some are more outlandish than others, more or less fantastical and even offensive. But they are all already circulating (to greater and lesser degrees), and they each inform how some people think about the race for the White House. In no particular order, here are the ones that most immediately jump to mind:
1. Obama as Anti-Christ. This one has been making the rounds quite explicitly over the last week or so, so it seems sensible to begin here. With Obama's seemingly mesmeric charisma and worldwide celebrity, there are many detractors who want to link him to this prophesied Biblical figure. The anti-Christ is supposed to be so seductive that he fools the entire world into thinking he is some kind of harbinger of peace. Instead, he is a Trojan Horse for the devil's attempt at destroying humankind. When critics say his supporters have "drunk the Kool Aid," they are only voicing a softer and secular version of this same suggestion about people being wildly delusional vis-à-vis Obama.
2. McCain as Manchurian Candidate. Remember the film. American POWs get brainwashed while in captivity and turned into political pawns programmed to kill at a moment's notice-and without even knowing it. In this scenario, McCain's service and sacrifice to the country gets reconceptualized as a cause for suspicion, especially given supposed claims about his uncontrollable/ unexplainable/ irrational temper. There are two versions of this one. Either foreign powers have their finger on the McCain button, or the Bush administration will be making the puppeteering calls. Either way, McCain's sacrifice gets used to disqualify him from the presidency.
3. Obama will enslave white America. Jon Stewart playfully prodded Obama about this one on his TV show, but don't let its absurdist excesses fool you. The kernel of the concern/conspiracy is quite pervasive. The argument is that Obama isn't really a post-racial candidate at all. He is just trying to fool whites into voting for him. Once he gets into office, the theory goes, he'll only be an advocate for Black interests.
4. Obama as Jihadist. This one has gotten a lot of traction in some quarters. People look at his name, his biography, and his supposed cavorting with anti-American zealots to conclude that his commitments to Christianity are all a sham. He just needs that religious pretense to get himself into position to bring down America from the inside-for Allah. This crypto-Muslim theory hovers closely to the "anti-Christ" and "enslaving whites" hypotheses mentioned above. (His courting of evangelicals is doing some work to beat back this theory-as did his appearance with Reverend Warren.)
5. The Clinton Two-Step. Hillary and Bill Clinton are secretly trying to sabotage Obama so that Hillary can run again in 2012-and to make sure they maintain control of the party. They are pretending to back him (so that the Democrats don't ostracize them), but they will keep sending out subtle signals to their supporters that counter their more official positions of support.
6. The Other Clinton Two-Step. Bill Clinton has always wanted to support Obama, a candidate who mirrors some of his own oratorical gifts and political tendencies toward the middle. But since he can't do that in public, any racial faux pas he committed on the campaign trail with Hillary can be read as a self-sacrificial attempt to derail her candidacy. With full confidence that he can mend fences with angry and insulted Black voters once he and Obama publicly make up, Bill has been working against his wife all along. How else, folks argue, can you explain a masterful speaker making so many unexplainable mistakes this past Spring?
7. The Michelle Obama Trump Card. Karl Rove has a DVD of Michelle Obama calling whites "whitey" that will sink the Obama ship once and for all. However, he is waiting to release it until late October. That way, he doesn't give the Obama camp any time to placate offended white voters.
8. The 9/11 Plan. A powerful and secret cabal of powerful and wealthy Americans will organize a major attack on the United States before the election to either (i) shore up McCain's advantage as function of his military background or (ii) provide the pretext for Bush to call off the elections altogether and put FEMA in place to run the country indefinitely. I've heard the first one more often than the second, but the latter's advocates are much louder.
9. The Chain Reaction. Obama's presidency is little more than a ruse for creating a full-fledged race riot in 2009. In this scenario, Obama will be allowed to take office only so that a white racist can be allowed to assassinate him. That will set off a series of riots in urban America, which will be met by violent governmental and militia response. Racial concentration camps, the theory goes, are not too far behind. (I talk about earlier versions of this theory in the new book.)
10. Blame the Black Guy. In the 2005 movie Left Behind (based on the bestselling book series), Oscar-winner Louis Gossett, Jr., plays the President of the United States, and when we first meet him, he's sitting in an oval office that is completely engulfed in flames. During Morgan Freeman's portrayal of a sitting American President in 1998's Deep Impact, he delivers his most powerful speech of the film from the blasted-out shell of the state capital building. These two black presidents preside during the collapse of the nation-state itself. This theory maintains that America won't hand the reigns over to a black politician until it is clear that the country is on the brink of collapse, which will allow them to blame the black guy for all of it. With the economy seemingly in a freefall, three "wars" overseas (if you count Georgia), China flexing its military and economic muscles, and a rising sense of America's vulnerability to terrorist attack, the BBG theory holds that Obama is being set up to play fall guy for everything. If it happens on his watch, BBG theorists argue, he's going to be held responsible. "See what happens when you give a black person a country to run. They turn it into a version of Africa."
And I'm sure people can think of more. Did I miss anything major?
Return to Davey D's Hip Hop Corner
With that in mind, I decided to take a second to see if I could list at least ten election-related conspiracy theories that I've heard since the beginning of 2008. Again, this isn't me going out of my way and hunting down obscure claims from some dark and dysfunctional corner of the Internet. I just wanted to stick to conjecture that I've overheard in the streets or seen debated on cable news shows-or even those that have served as subtext (some people argue) for political ad campaigns.
There are probably more out there, but I figured that I'd stop at ten. Some are more outlandish than others, more or less fantastical and even offensive. But they are all already circulating (to greater and lesser degrees), and they each inform how some people think about the race for the White House. In no particular order, here are the ones that most immediately jump to mind:
1. Obama as Anti-Christ. This one has been making the rounds quite explicitly over the last week or so, so it seems sensible to begin here. With Obama's seemingly mesmeric charisma and worldwide celebrity, there are many detractors who want to link him to this prophesied Biblical figure. The anti-Christ is supposed to be so seductive that he fools the entire world into thinking he is some kind of harbinger of peace. Instead, he is a Trojan Horse for the devil's attempt at destroying humankind. When critics say his supporters have "drunk the Kool Aid," they are only voicing a softer and secular version of this same suggestion about people being wildly delusional vis-à-vis Obama.
2. McCain as Manchurian Candidate. Remember the film. American POWs get brainwashed while in captivity and turned into political pawns programmed to kill at a moment's notice-and without even knowing it. In this scenario, McCain's service and sacrifice to the country gets reconceptualized as a cause for suspicion, especially given supposed claims about his uncontrollable/ unexplainable/ irrational temper. There are two versions of this one. Either foreign powers have their finger on the McCain button, or the Bush administration will be making the puppeteering calls. Either way, McCain's sacrifice gets used to disqualify him from the presidency.
3. Obama will enslave white America. Jon Stewart playfully prodded Obama about this one on his TV show, but don't let its absurdist excesses fool you. The kernel of the concern/conspiracy is quite pervasive. The argument is that Obama isn't really a post-racial candidate at all. He is just trying to fool whites into voting for him. Once he gets into office, the theory goes, he'll only be an advocate for Black interests.
4. Obama as Jihadist. This one has gotten a lot of traction in some quarters. People look at his name, his biography, and his supposed cavorting with anti-American zealots to conclude that his commitments to Christianity are all a sham. He just needs that religious pretense to get himself into position to bring down America from the inside-for Allah. This crypto-Muslim theory hovers closely to the "anti-Christ" and "enslaving whites" hypotheses mentioned above. (His courting of evangelicals is doing some work to beat back this theory-as did his appearance with Reverend Warren.)
5. The Clinton Two-Step. Hillary and Bill Clinton are secretly trying to sabotage Obama so that Hillary can run again in 2012-and to make sure they maintain control of the party. They are pretending to back him (so that the Democrats don't ostracize them), but they will keep sending out subtle signals to their supporters that counter their more official positions of support.
6. The Other Clinton Two-Step. Bill Clinton has always wanted to support Obama, a candidate who mirrors some of his own oratorical gifts and political tendencies toward the middle. But since he can't do that in public, any racial faux pas he committed on the campaign trail with Hillary can be read as a self-sacrificial attempt to derail her candidacy. With full confidence that he can mend fences with angry and insulted Black voters once he and Obama publicly make up, Bill has been working against his wife all along. How else, folks argue, can you explain a masterful speaker making so many unexplainable mistakes this past Spring?
7. The Michelle Obama Trump Card. Karl Rove has a DVD of Michelle Obama calling whites "whitey" that will sink the Obama ship once and for all. However, he is waiting to release it until late October. That way, he doesn't give the Obama camp any time to placate offended white voters.
8. The 9/11 Plan. A powerful and secret cabal of powerful and wealthy Americans will organize a major attack on the United States before the election to either (i) shore up McCain's advantage as function of his military background or (ii) provide the pretext for Bush to call off the elections altogether and put FEMA in place to run the country indefinitely. I've heard the first one more often than the second, but the latter's advocates are much louder.
9. The Chain Reaction. Obama's presidency is little more than a ruse for creating a full-fledged race riot in 2009. In this scenario, Obama will be allowed to take office only so that a white racist can be allowed to assassinate him. That will set off a series of riots in urban America, which will be met by violent governmental and militia response. Racial concentration camps, the theory goes, are not too far behind. (I talk about earlier versions of this theory in the new book.)
10. Blame the Black Guy. In the 2005 movie Left Behind (based on the bestselling book series), Oscar-winner Louis Gossett, Jr., plays the President of the United States, and when we first meet him, he's sitting in an oval office that is completely engulfed in flames. During Morgan Freeman's portrayal of a sitting American President in 1998's Deep Impact, he delivers his most powerful speech of the film from the blasted-out shell of the state capital building. These two black presidents preside during the collapse of the nation-state itself. This theory maintains that America won't hand the reigns over to a black politician until it is clear that the country is on the brink of collapse, which will allow them to blame the black guy for all of it. With the economy seemingly in a freefall, three "wars" overseas (if you count Georgia), China flexing its military and economic muscles, and a rising sense of America's vulnerability to terrorist attack, the BBG theory holds that Obama is being set up to play fall guy for everything. If it happens on his watch, BBG theorists argue, he's going to be held responsible. "See what happens when you give a black person a country to run. They turn it into a version of Africa."
And I'm sure people can think of more. Did I miss anything major?
Return to Davey D's Hip Hop Corner
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