Rev Left Radio - Understanding The Reactionary Mind: Right-Wing Conspiracy Thinking

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

In this episode of Guerrilla History, the guys discuss the psychological, historical, and material underpinnings of right wing conspiracies (with a focus on QAnon) and then explore the reasons why conspiratorial thinking is - and always has been - an essential feature of reactionary politics.  Support Guerrilla History, and get access to episodes like this one, here: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory

Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. So today's episode, I'm just putting out a Patreon episode that we did over at our other project, Guerrilla History. This was initially for patrons only, but then it was unlocked because we thought it was valuable. And overall, we just wanted to encourage people who like guerrilla history to support us on Patreon in exchange for this kind of content. I know money is thin, if you're already supporting Rev.F, totally fine. But for those out there who do like content and have the money to support independent left-wing media, it's always encouraged and deeply appreciated. So putting this out, because it's a good episode in and of itself, it's a deep dive into right-wing conspiracy theories and thinking. And it also is a promotion of our newer project, guerrilla history, which there's probably still people out there that haven't heard about. And it's a perfect example of the sort of content you get on the guerrilla history. history, Patreon feed. So without further ado, let's get into this conversation with my co-hosts on

guerrilla history, Henry Hakamaki, and Adnan Hussein. Enjoy. You remember Den Van Boo? No. The same thing happened in Algeria. In Africa, they didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to a guerrilla history intelligence briefing. For those of you who haven't heard before, intelligence briefings are our Patreon episodes. We released roughly two intelligence briefings per month,

one of which is released initially just on Patreon and then on our general feed later, like this episode will be, and the other half our Patreon exclusive episodes. So if you're interested in the content and you're not on our Patreon already, you can find all of our other intelligence briefings, our Patreon exclusive episodes, as well as get early access to episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-I-L-A history. I'm your host, Henry Hukimaki. I'm joined by my co-hosts, Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queens University. in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing well, Henry. Great to be with you. It's nice to have you. And Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Brett, how are you doing? I understand it's pretty snowy where you are right now. Yeah, we got over a

foot of snow yesterday, but I slid my way to David's house to do this episode, so I'm doing okay. Great. Glad that you made it there at one piece. You know, snow can be a little bit tricky, I think that we're all in agreement that we do love this time of year. So today our topic is going to be something that maybe isn't directly history-related, but we do think that this podcast would have a good way of addressing it. And that topic would be right-wing conspiracy theories. So, guys, I'm going to pitch it over to you right away. Why is a history podcast covering right-wing conspiracy theories is a topic?

Brett, you want to take that first? Sure, yeah. I think it's fascinating, particularly when we're trying to understand history and politics from a left-wing perspective, because once you start thinking about conspiracy theories and the history of conspiracy theories, although it does occur all across the political spectrum, there's a lot of conspiracy theories that are almost foundational to far right-wing thinking, and specifically existing as we do in the wake of Trumpism and, you know, QAnon, is still going strong. I think it does tie in very well with history and that it's important to understand conspiracy theories because it's important to understand the psychology and mindsets of the far right. And even at times just the regular right or, you know, the paranoid ruling class in times of crisis, even the libertarian right has, you know, sort of undercurrents of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories flowing through it at all times. So I think because it's foundational to the right in general. It behooves us to analyze it and try to understand it.

And maybe at some point we can try to think through some of the causes because one of the interesting things about conspiracy theories is I always try to think, you know, come up with a theory, a general theory, you know, what causes conspiracy thinking? And it's very difficult. You can't nail it down to any one ingredient. You know, some people want to say it's purely material conditions or it's purely ideology or even sometimes it's detached from social conditions and it's just a matter of psychology. And I think, you know, trying to pin it on one thing and one thing alone is always going to be a mistake. And really, it's this confluence of complicated factors at different times.

So maybe we can get into that. But in any case, I think it's really important to try to think seriously through this stuff. I couldn't agree more. It definitely is a confluence of issues. And I'll talk about the psychology and just a little bit as the resident scientists on this show. But, Odnan, why do you think that it's important for a history podcast? to be talking about right-wing conspiracy theories. Well, I would agree with Brett that conspiracy thinking and analysis as a form of political analysis

is actually so constitutive of far-right politics and far-right understandings of history that they have a whole history of their own that needs to be studied. And in fact, I would argue that it's a form of historical thinking. in a way is attempting to seek the causes for conditions in the world that they cannot explain in other terms so it is a form of historical inquiry and it's definitely worth seeing because it is absolutely the idiom i would say of far-right political thought is it's all based around conspiratorial ideas of the nation being victims to covert forces that have to be uncovered that are undermining, you know, the nation in some

capacity. And so whether it's immigrants, whether it's global networks of, you know, the global bankers controlled by the Jews as in the Nazi propaganda, far-right propaganda is based in conspiracy sorts of thinking. And so it's very important to understand far-right politics. You can't understand them, really, without engaging in some analysis of conspiracy thinking and trying to situate it. I would say, as I said, that it's a form of historical thinking. And what it is is something that Douglas Hofstetter called in his very famous essay, the paranoid style in American politics, that it's an affinity for bad causes. That is, that it may diagnose certain ills or problems in the contemporary political sphere,

but it's not able to really understand what those causes are. And so it imputes for what I would say systemic analysis and larger forces, personalized kinds of intentions as the explanatory mode. So it's bad causality. That's what history in some ways is. And what we try to do on guerrilla history is understand the causes and the consequences of events. But we try and do it in a more dialectical and material way. And this is the whole point with far right thinking is that it misassociates and assigns causes to phenomena that it finds, you know, concerning or distressing.

Anything that any of you want to add before I talk about the psychology, behind right-wing conspiracy thinking? Yeah, sure. Something about right-wing ideology and thinking, it has to be tied in some respect, in my opinion, toward the gap between how they think about things, right? They're already sort of a-priority commitments and how things actually are.

So if you're a right-wing nationalist in America, you think America is the best country, you think we have the most flourishing democracy. You already have a bunch of these, assumptions that you're not able or most cases not willing to address, criticize, bring for critique. You know, capitalism itself is something that's sort of off the table, especially let's say if you're a right-wing libertarian, you're not going to critique capitalism itself. You might work around the fringes, et cetera. But there is something very interesting. And the further away

reality gets from the right-wing's idea of reality, the more prone they are to falling in to conspiracy theories. And I think we're seeing that now, the crisis in the United States, the complete failure of government, the obvious corruption. I mean, the lies that America tells about itself aren't really being bought by more and more people. Now, the responsible, healthy, mature way is like, yeah, you understand capitalism, you understand crises, you understand how the state is intertwined with capital, et cetera, and you can come up with an explanatory framework that more or less hits the mark. But if you're not willing to bring up some of those things for even consideration, you have to fill the gap somehow. People have to explain reality to themselves

in some way because having a terrible shitty understanding of a situation is psychologically more coherent and cohesive than not having one at all. And maybe that leads quite nicely into what Henry might say about psychology. Yeah, I think that that is a pretty good segue into the psychology. So I'm going to reference to experts in psychology and specifically experts of conspiratorial thinking. The first that I'm going to reference is Stephen Lewandowski, who's at the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Bristol and also does, he works at the School of Psychological Science at the University of Western Australia as well, I believe. He has a book or more of a handbook out. You can find it

for free online. It's called the Conspiracy Theory Handbook. And within this handbook, he lays out seven traits of conspiratorial thinking. And I'm just going to mention what they are. If you're interested, just Google the conspiracy theory handbook, Stephen Lewandowski, you can find it online. I'll also, if I remember to, link it in the show notes for this. But his seven traits for conspiratorial thinking, make a nice little acronym. Conspeer, C-O-N-S-P-I-R. And these traits are contradictory, overriding suspicion, nefarious intent, something must be wrong, persecuted victim, immune to evidence, and reinterpreting randomness. And then he goes through each of these one by one to talk about how each of these traits feeds into conspiratorial thinking. Now, in the

essence of time, I'm just going to leave it there and allow you to look that up on your own time if that's something you're interested in. But I am going to reference another psychologist right now, Robert Altemeyer, who's at the University of Manitoba. And he's really one of the foremost experts in personality research. And one of the personality traits that he thinks is the most important in fostering this kind of conspiratorial thinking is authoritarian personalities. And personally, I would tend to agree with that, that we see a lot of conspiratorial thinking being linked with authoritarian personalities, both by the individuals that are thinking the

conspiracies, as well as the people that are feeding them, the conspiracies. So take, for example, Donald Trump supporters. We have an authoritarian personality in charge. We also have authoritarian personality individuals feeding on that. So here is some of the traits that Robert Altemeyer lays out as being, feeding into having a high degree of authoritarian personality and linking that to this sort of conspiratorial thinking. The first is ethnocentric, strongly inclined to experiencing the world as a member of their in-group versus everyone else. Their strong commitment to

their in group makes them zealous in its cause. Okay, that makes sense. Fearful of a dangerous world. This plays to what Brett was just talking about with material conditions of individuals keeping in mind that people's psychology, not all of it is inherent in them. These are things that come out of lived experience. And here, fearful of a dangerous world is where this really comes into play. Their parents taught them, more than their parents usually do, that the world is dangerous. They also may be genetically predisposed to experiencing stronger than average fear. But that's not necessarily the whole story.

It's not just that they're told that the world is dangerous. They have experience of the world being dangerous. They are also self-righteous. They believe that they are the good people, which unlocks hostile impulses against those who they consider to be bad, aggressive. If an authority figure gives them a green light to attack someone, they lower the boom. Again, we've seen this. And we see this coming out from conspiracy theories. Just think about the violence that's been unleashed by QAnon.

biased, holding prejudices against racial and ethnic minorities, non-heterosexuals and women. Contradictory beliefs, again, this goes back to Stephen Lewandowski's point. Opposite beliefs exist side-by-side in separate compartments in their minds. As a result, their thinking is full of double standards. Poor reasoning skills. If they like the conclusion of an argument, they don't pay much attention to whether the evidence is valid or the argument is consistent. We see this with almost every right-wing conspiracy theory. they like the outcome of the conspiracy theory and therefore if you give them anything that feeds into

that they're going to take it at face value without any sort of critical thinking and thinking whether or not there's any evidence for that dogmatic because they've gotten their beliefs mainly from the authorities in their lives rather than thinking things out for themselves they have no real defense when facts or events indicate they are wrong so they just dig in their heels and refuse to change. I think that you both have seen this many times, you know, online or in person where somebody has conspiratorial thinking and you present them with facts. And rather than acquiesce to the fact that, hey, there's evidence against them, they really just settle in their way of thinking and fight even harder for it. It's like a cornered animal fighting for its life because they

almost think that this is a part of themselves, this conspiratorial belief, dependent on and social reinforcement of their beliefs, and this plays into that last point that I just made. They think that they're right because almost everyone they know, almost every news broadcast they see, almost every radio commentator they listen to, tells them they are. That is, they screen out the sources that will suggest that they're wrong. They're limited in exposure to contrary viewpoints because they severely limit their exposure to different people and ideas. They overestimate the level of agreement with their ideas.

Conviction of being in the majority bolsters their attacks on the undesirable minorities they see in the country. These individuals are easily manipulated. People may pretend to espouse their causes and dupe them to gain their own advantage. And lastly, weak power of self-reflection. They have little insight into why they think and do what they do. I think that this is a pretty good summary of the psychology, at least the kind of top-level psychology underlying a lot of conspiratorial thinking.

And we see this a lot with people on the right wing, even if they don't believe in something so blatantly conspiratorial as QAnon. But as Adnan was saying, right-wing thought in general has a high degree of conspiratorial thinking inherent to it. And I think that by looking at these psychological and personality cues, we can really understand what's underlying the thought process of these overt conspiracies like QAnon, as well as just right-wing thinking more generally. So guys, who wants to pick up that point and go out?

That's pretty much all I'm going to say on psychology because while I'm a scientist, I'm not overly trained in psychological science as though I have studied it someone. Brett? Yeah, sure. I could, Adon, do you want to go because you haven't talked to them? Oh, sure. Just I think that's a really good anatomy

and psychological portrait of the styles of thinking. I think it's important or useful perhaps in addition to that kind of diagnosis of the psychological features and characteristics of this kind of thought or people who are maybe susceptible to it is to also put it in some kind of social context so that it's not just pathologized because, as I was saying, I think it is very intrinsic to a certain, very popular form of political. affiliation and thinking that you know has been growing in our own time and of course has had periods in history where it was ascendant like you know we talk about the 1930s in Europe right so what's interesting or important about it also is how and why it's capable of motivating and mobilizing large groups of people that one wouldn't identify on other bases as suffering some kind of pathology or evident kind of, you know, mental fragility and so on. And I think the only way really to explain the circulation of, like, for example, QAnon that, you know, has

really burgeoned from a very small discussion group, you know, on 4chan or even on Reddit and so on into a large-scale movement that's informing politicians who have run basically on Q&on kind of platforms and actually been victorious in their electoral contests is to understand in some ways that there's a larger social basis for what we were talking about before, some kind of need for meaning and in a dizzying sort of array of neoliberal capitalism where government is captured by corporate interests and nobody is acting on behalf of a sense of the public good and you can isolate oneself in a media ecosystem that only plays to and reinforces one's perspective i think it's very easy for these kinds of forms of thought to become very popular and not path you know and not by

pathological means they may have pathological consequences on our politics and on our society but you know normal people can be sucked in very easily into this and I think one of the reasons why is something that Brett alluded to earlier is that if you don't have an ideologically sound understanding of capitalism as a key causal component for the way the world is structured it's possible to fill in all kinds of other explanations that can be absorbed into scapegoating or finding deflections from an actual politics of liberation an actual platform of universal programs of social justice into thinking that your particular grievances or sense of victimization living in this, you know, terrible economy and feeling powerless because, you know, our public

politics doesn't actually seem to address itself to the needs and concerns of average people anymore, that it's very easy for this to be reoriented towards immigrants, taking, you know, your jobs, racial others as posing a threat to your existence and what you feel you deserve, And it's, it's that, those social conditions, it seems to me, social and economic conditions and political conditions that really make conspiratorial thinking so dangerous and so widespread and attractive, you know, in bringing people to support right-wing, right-wing politics and right-wing ideas. So I would want to situate the psychological elements into a social and economic structural environment because I think that's in fact actually the real problem with it, is that this form of thinking, as I said from the outset, tries to understand what should be understood as systemic and structural conditions as the play of particular personalities and individuals with their evil intentions.

It's kind of like a personal and it's like a narcissistic and theological sort of way of thinking. And I've actually read some very interesting recent work about QAnon as a new kind of religious movement, that it borrows very much not only from religious structures that we see endemic to this paranoid conspiratorial thinking, but that it's even organizing itself now increasingly in church-like hierarchical structures of people who are involved in collective rituals that they enjoy a sense of community together in meditating upon, you know, the problems and praying for relief, you know, and liberation together. And there even are some churches that really interpret the Bible through Q and on sorts of principles and issues. So this religious element, I think, is really interesting.

And maybe later I can talk a little bit about what I think are some of the medieval roots of this kind of religious paranoid thinking. Yeah, definitely. There's so much to say here. I have a whole bunch of notes. Touching on a couple things, I guess, I definitely nurture and nature, right? You can't, and nobody here is doing that, but you know, you can't try to reduce it to one or the other. There are people that are psychologically susceptible to certain conspiracy theories, but in a world where that susceptibility isn't preyed upon, they might not turn to those things in a world where they have actual community, people in their lives to check them and to push back against some of their delusions. You know, they might not fall prey to it. And I think

that's a huge thing with QAnon is also the pandemic. People are increasingly isolated. We're going through not only a biological pandemic, but a mental health crisis. And that is a huge part of what's going on here. People are isolated, their precarity with their economic futures. They're sitting on front of their computer all day because what else is there to do? And when they don't have any meaning, any community, and there's a susceptibility to mental health crises that's preyed upon by the QAnon phenomenon, people are desperate for those sorts of things. And You know, Q&N might not give you a reasonable understanding of the world, but it does give you a sense of community. It gives you a sense of good and evil.

And these sorts of people, you know, the authoritarian mindset, there's almost a childlike need to break things down into good and bad. Trump is good, saving us from the bad guys. And that's a very appealing narrative, particularly to a certain subsect of person. And, you know, it gives you a sense that you're on a team, that you have inside knowledge that other people don't have privy to. And that feels good. also feels good as being a victim. A huge thing about, and, you know, one of the seven traits was a, like you said, Henry, persecuted victimhood.

You know, it feels good to feel like you are a victim. It's very, if you really analyze, even at moments when you feel self-pity for yourself, there's almost a self-righteousness to the feeling of being a victimized in some way. There's, and as also, you know, the fear of a dangerous world. On the right, this is, this is part and parcel with their worldview, whether it's terrorists in the early 2000s or communists in the 80s and 70s immigrants or now it's Antifa right it's like there's always something to fear and hate out in the world coming for you and if you're not vigilant it's going to get you and another thing i want to talk about too we talk

about Q and on you know people can think of the john birch society you can think of even the 90s militia movement with zog Zionist occupied government conspiracy theory the great replacement theory is a conspiracy theory that says Jews own the world and are letting non-white immigrants into the white Western world. And so that is completely coded in anti-Semit conspiracy theories. But let's also talk about 9-11. You know, 9-11 is really foundational here when it comes to ideology and Americans being one of the most propagandized people in the world. If you do not have a material or political understanding of imperialism, 9-11 doesn't make a lot of sense. And what was the big chorus we heard after 9-11?

Why do they hate us? Why do they hate us? People can't figure it out, even talking heads on the media. That was the huge thing. Why do they hate us? Well, I was actually curious of this as a young college student, and I went and read the transcripts from bin Laden. And bin Laden himself laying out in,

and bin Laden's a smart articulate guy, laying out in extreme clarity why he did it. U.S. imperialism. In Lebanon, you know, the onslaught of U.S. imperial attacks in the region for his entire life, the loss of innocent children and women. And he says, we're going to get you. And 9-11 is us striking back. And then what was his other prediction?

By doing 9-11, it's not that we're going to topple your government. We don't have that strength. But playing on the American ignorance and fear and hatred, they'll destroy themselves. And what do we do? We spent trillions of dollars overseas. You know, the pathology inherent in our politics today is somewhat still an outgrowth of that period of time, which we're still living in. right, we're looking down the barrel of a Patriot Act 2.0 with right-wing extremists. Some people talk about fascism as imperialism coming home to roost, right?

So if you don't, if you didn't have an understanding of U.S. imperialism, which U.S. public education and media almost ensures you won't unless you do critical thinking and education for yourself, 9-11 makes very little sense. And I think that speaks to this detachment between how certain people view the world and how the world actually is. And when those things get far enough apart, the only thing that can fill that gap is rabid conspiratorial thinking. And the last thing I'll also say before handing it back over is in the world of social media, you know, a QA non-conspiracy theory or any conspiracy theory, it has its limitations in a non-social media ties, non-internet world. You bump up against the limits

of your sphere of influence. But with social media, it becomes much easier to spread. this like wildfire. And it's really important to note the material underpinnings of this is that social media makes billions of dollars of profit by perpetuating these things, YouTube, Facebook. What keeps somebody locked in to your platform and able to stay on for as long as possible so you can extract their data and sell it? Then these rabbit holes of spending hours and hours going down the rabbit hole. YouTube knows this. Their algorithm presents you with conspiratorial thinking. Facebook knows this Zuckerberg profits off of conspiracy theories and right-wing extremism and they only shut it down when one they absolutely have to or two, it's politically

expedient for them to do so. Oh, Biden administration's coming in. Democrats own the House and the Senate. Maybe it's time we take a firm stance so we can be on the side of power in this new era. So, I mean, these are not clueless people who are fumbling around trying to solve this problem. These are people who are consciously profiting off of this chaos, sowing these seeds so that they can make money. And they only stop when either it becomes unprofitable or something else can, or, you know, it's politically expedient to go in a different direction.

And I think we cannot let the Zuckerbergs and the social media sites and the YouTube's off the hook when we're talking about this stuff. Yeah, I'm so glad that you mentioned American imperialism and how a knowledge of American imperialism does inform on a lot of these conspiracy theories. I also want to mention that, yeah, as you pointed out, Brett, we're not, none of us are saying that, you know, this is inherently all psychological or based in anything. This is a confluence of aspects that cause such thinking.

But there's also one aspect is that there are conspiracies that end up being true. For example, who doesn't know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Okay, let's lay it out for you very quickly if you don't know. one of the reasons why the U.S. got involved in Vietnam is they said, hey, we had a boat in the Gulf of Tonkin and they fired on it. And since they attacked an American vessel, we have to go in and invade. Okay. There was no evidence for that. And years later, it came out that that was an entirely fabricated event, that firing upon that ship had never happened. It was entirely a way of getting the American public on side with an American imperial ambition and an invasion. of a country, a world away from us that had very little bearing on the United States in any material way. But it was a way of getting the American people on site. You know, we have to defend American interests and American soldiers. They fired on this American boat. So we have to invade. It was all a lie. It was all a lie. And that's a conspiracy that ended up being true.

This feeds back to something that Stephen Lewandowski says. He says that actual conspiracy do exist, but they're rarely discovered by the methods of conspiracy theorists. They're discovered rather by conventional thinking. So healthy skepticism of official accounts. Now, if you go into, again, this is in his conspiracy theory handbook, he has a little flowchart of conventional thinking versus conspiratorial thinking. In conventional thinking, you start with healthy skepticism. Now, again, let's take the Gulf of Tonkin incident as an example. There was no evidence for any of the claims that the U.S. government was making being true. There was no evidence whatsoever.

Now, there's also the healthy skepticism in play here from, again, knowledge of the American imperial state. Then you move on to being responsive to evidence. As evidence changes, hey, this boat that they said was fired on, it's completely fine. All of the sailors on the boat are completely fine. None of the sailors on the boat said that they had been fired on. then you strive for coherence okay so you take the government's message and you take the facts that we're getting out this this evidence that's coming out the boat is fine the sailors are fine the sailors say they hadn't been fired on and then you're able to get a coherent message

that hey there actually was a conspiracy here to the point where the government has to admit yeah actually we lied about that you end up with an actual conspiracy on the other hand you have conspiratorial thinking. You start with overriding suspicion, inherent suspicion of everything. You know, the government says something. You inherently believe it's a lie and you're going to remain convinced that it's a lie, no matter what evidence is presented to you. So then you go on to over-interpreting evidence. This is where you're presented with evidence and you take, of course, all good conspiracy theories are rooted in the smallest grain of truth. If you have the smallest grain of truth, able to run with it forever. And that's what these conspiracy theories do. So they'll take a tiny

piece of evidence from a much larger body of evidence. And they run with it. And they overanalyze that one aspect and use that one aspect to explain the whole conspiracy, ignoring every other piece of evidence that that one piece of evidence came from. This leads to contradictory, contradictory views within the conspiracy. It's an imagined conspiracy. It was never a conspiracy, but people saw it as a conspiracy. And I think that using the Gulf of Tonkin is an example of a real, a real conspiracy, an actual conspiracy, a conspiracy that ended up being the truth. Let's us see how we uncover conspiracies versus, as Stephen Lewandowski says, this conspiratorial thinking that very rarely actually uncovers conspiracies that were

actually occurring. Anything that either of you want to add on that? Brett, you look like you have something to say. On this topic, it's just so fascinating. And we can think of the same thing with QAnon, right, the tiny kernel of truth. What happened before Pizza Gate and QAnon really took off, aside from the pandemic and other things, which we now can associate with it, it was the Jeffrey Epstein case. And if you're looking at the Jeffrey Epstein case, right left or center, some fuckery is afoot. And the way he died, the way that the cameras weren't turned on in one of the most control.

and this is where they send international terrorists, right, to be jailed waiting for trial. This is easily one of the most controlled populations. They have the resources. They have the mechanisms. And then all of a sudden, you know, a guard is sleeping and the recording doesn't work. And then what is Jeffrey Epstein, this high-flying pedophile who has deep connections with heads of state, you know, scientists and academia, corporations? So, yeah, there's something very interesting there that we should look at. and you know is the is the sort of kernel of truth and then it gets taken into well i already

hate democrats right then bill clinton is a democrat so okay now pizza gates true right podesta and hillary clinton are in the basement of comet ping pong um drinking the blood of children and you know andrina cone and dream andrina chrome and this sort of it goes back even to like jewish blood stuff or like you know jews would suck the blood of children christians etc so there's the anti-semitism never too far away when we're talking about conspiracy theories. But yeah, so QAnon is really, you can see that outgrowth. And even here in Omaha, when you're going down the most populous interstate, there's an old abandoned industrial building. And it's often tagged with graffiti and stuff. And for the last probably six to nine

months, it's been tagged with Save the Children. So you can see from Epstein down to Pizza Gate, and then you get into hardcore QAnon territory. But how does it expand? Well, there's soccer moms and confused uncles and impressionable teens on their computer. all day because of quarantine and then how do you hit their heart kids are being preyed upon so that soccer mom who is you know not necessarily a conspiracy theorist maybe be maybe is completely apolitical right but has that psychology that is sometimes even rooted in compassion you know you don't ever want to see children get hurt and then all of a sudden the wayfair conspiracy comes you're like hold on child trafficking and before they knew it they're storming the capital getting shot at by capital police

whoa how do we end up here um so yeah that tiny kernel of truth and how it can expand and then how, you know, sort of isolated conspiracy theories can, you know, communities can use the internet to spread to people who otherwise would never even come into contact with these ideas. It all plays this really deep role. And that's, it's another thing it does is, and I think you mentioned this, Henry, with your seven traits from Lewandowski, is there's just grasping at something true. You know, the government is corrupt. Absolutely. You know, there are sort of these high pedophiles, you know, in society who get cover from various institutional figures. Like, you know, there is something that is grasping at that is true.

But then because you don't have that analysis, because you don't have the media literacy to see what you're reading, because you don't necessarily have the critical thinking to systematically, you know, examine evidence and think through its implications, it gets flung into these crazy conspiratorial thinking. It becomes a mainstay. of somebody's psychology. But that turn, that tiny kernel of truth and that grasping at something true is interesting for those reasons as well as that it provides an inroad, at least some of the time, for folks like us to provide an explanation that actually makes sense. If you look at somebody like Ashley Babett, you know, voted for President Trump was a, was a military veteran, got swept up

in these QAnon theories. She herself was a victim of, you know, financialized capitalism, 169% interest rate on her small business loan, if somebody could step in with a left-wing materialist analysis, explain to her why Obama failed you, what the reason is for your business going under, why there's this predatory capitalism, you might have been able to save a soul. Instead, she's in the cemetery right now.

And so, I mean, on the left, we can mock and deride these people, and certainly some of them deserve it. But I think there's also room for compassion and intervention whenever we can. And that's why things like community is so important because it radically enhances your sphere of influence. If you can get to these people and your family and talk to them, but, you know, the hyper-atomization of capitalism mixed with the hyper-isolation of the pandemic, I mean, it's a breeding ground for this sort of stuff. Adnan, you had mentioned that you could trace this thread back to the medieval ages.

And I'm very curious of what you're going to say here. So can you lay this out for us? Well, I mean, I think you can predict a little bit if I should say that the thread that Brett just mentioned of, you know, in Jewish conspiracies, you know, the Christian medieval Christian ideas about the cabal, the counter Easter, you know, the Passover meal being actually a kind of demonic counter ritual to Christian ritual that uses the blood of a sacrifice. young Christian boy to make the Mata Waifer, right? So this blood libel accusation that incubates first in medieval Europe in the 12th century with allegations. The first known case is Hugh of Lincoln, you know, this boy who goes missing and it's presumed later that the Jews are responsible for his disappearance and the explanation is because they, sacrificed him which they do annually as a kind of counter crucifixion sort of or a

continuing crucifixion sort of ritual as part of their Passover so there's this idea that there are that the vulnerable are being victimized so this sense of needing to protect the children it's the most scandalous thing is that children would be made you know objects of attack in this way there's often perverse sexuality and sexual fantasies that are involved. We see that with the Q&on Pizza Gate sort of ideas, but these also are traced to medieval heresiography legends about suppressed the perversities of the heretics, is that usually they're involved in some kind of strange same-sex group rituals, or there's bestiality involved, or there's the exploitation of

children in these perverse fantasies of fear. And these are all about trying to invoke on a real deep psychological level, indeed, cultural and psychological elements of disgust and fear that have to be, you know, that shows the evilness of the enemy and that have to be confronted in a dramatic, almost apocalyptic sort of struggle. That's the other thing that's interesting is that in terms of it as a historical form of thinking, it's really very much like apocalyptic thought because we're always situated in this dramatic turning point era. Everything is decisive right now. The outcome of this moment is going to pattern the rest of history, right?

This is the sort of idea. You never have apocalyptic thinkers in the medieval period, even into the modern, who believe that we're really very far away from the end times. always we're right on the cusp and so you're watching things that are emerging in society the news you watch the news and you interpret it through the prism of the idea that these are signs of some impending dramatic shift and so if you think about this in this manichean style of thinking of good versus evil in absolute terms and that we are in this very important moment historically That's what invests all that intensity and allows these kind of very fantastical elements

to mobilize people's feelings and exploit their feelings. And we see this very much the same in how heresy starts to take off in the 12th and 13th centuries in medieval Europe, is that they develop a sense that Christian society is very vulnerable to the forces, demonic forces of evil, either in the shape of Jews who are doing terrible things like what are alleged in these blood libel notions or ideas, or that heretics are undermining Christians and that they are like us, but they're secret traitors. So this idea of treason is also extremely important, I think, in right-wing conspiracy thinking, and it comes very much from this sense and this idea that Christian society could be undermined by disloyal people.

And also, I would argue that the crusading environment also, which is the analogy I would say with U.S. imperialism, that the way in which you also have an external enemy that puts pressure and requires the society to defend and guard itself from potential fifth columnist and enemies, that this inside internal enemy connecting with and collaborating with an external political and military threat is part of this paranoid sort of thinking that starts when you think of christenedom being formed as a kind of conscious sort of entity that's involved in the crusades

and also with the suppression of jews and heretics within so dissent within by perverse groups that are attempting to destroy us and this enemy outside. And so I think there's a real interaction. And that's something that would be interesting to see in contemporary right-wing thought. I've often felt that in some ways, Islamophobia is this perfect way, especially when it can be allied with this globalist Jewish conspiracy ideas. It really reproduces a medieval pattern of seeing the Jews as these interests. internal, you know, this internal enemy that's connected with the external Muslim enemy,

the Muslim threat, except that in contemporary conditions you have also Muslims within, right? Because you have Muslim diasporic populations, minorities, religious minorities in Europe and North America, and they can become the prototypical outsider coming in as an invader, which this anti-immigrant sort of thinking that's part of right-wing, right-wing thought but what it does is it gives that sort of right-wing bigotry a foreign policy as it were it's like the you know we're part of this grand civilizational war and we have to go confront the Muslims you know in the Middle East and in the Islamic world at the same time also we have to guard against the purity ethno-national and religious purity of our society here because

there's creeping Sharia right this other kind of conspiracy theory that Muslims are attempting to subvert Western democracy by imposing Sharia law, you know, in place of our constitutional law. And this is a kind of pattern that's very common that was said about the Catholics, you know, in the 19th and into the 20th century by white Protestant America that saw this republic as specifically a white Protestant ethno state. And that, you know, if you brought in Catholics, you had people who were loyal to some of, other law and some other power. So anyway, I see that there's a lot to my mind, a lot of symmetries between the structure

and even some of the content of these medieval ideas of polemic and paranoid fantasy that we see against heretics, against Jews, and motivating the call to crusading and the inquisition and suppression of dissent from Europe, that there are ways in which we've not progressed that far in our political and historical analysis and that some of these themes and patterns and motifs seem to be relevant to right-wing conspiracies today. Really quick, Henry, just three things bouncing off. I'm not going to be long, bouncing off what Adnan just said, because you made me think of them, the Salem witch trial. Definitely an example of that medieval pattern of these demonic forces that you're wrestling with leading to this, you know,

conspiratorial framework and this hardcore sort of violence against. women. Also, in a post-Nichian death of God world, you know, those demonic forces that were so readily available to those conspiracy thinkers in the past can get turned. In some cases, Islamophobia, which is still sort of religious in nature, but also, I think, big, in a huge way, anti-communism. You know, it takes that form, it takes that general template and applies it to the political as opposed to the spiritual and religious. And the last point, you mentioned apocalyptic end times thinking Q and not is perfect right because what do they keep doing pushing back the date of the storm even now they're talking about they've now spiraled into this march fourth

or sometime in March is when Trump's going to regain office because of some obscure law from you know 150 years ago in the 1800s look into it if you haven't heard about it but on all three of these fronts from the witch trial to anti-communism to end times prophecy they're all at play in the modern world and it's fascinating to look back and see that historical iteration happen over and over again just with new stuff to play with you know it's it's really interesting and that's why arthur miller does the play the crucible that is the salem witch trials but is about of course the anti-communist paranoia you know of his own time when he's writing so he's using it as an allegory but you know it's an allegory because this structure seems to keep repeating itself yes indeed

indeed. That segues well into how I want to finish this conversation. So I'm going to go through some recent polls and talk about the state of conspiracy prevalence, I guess you could say. While I'm doing that, I want to hear from both of you what you think of the state of conspiracy theories today as well as how we kind of combat this right wing conspiratorial thinking. So I'll give you a little bit of time to think about that while I run through a couple of polls that I had found that had some pretty interesting results in them. So the first poll that I found was a 2013 public policy polling poll. So of course, this is before Trump was running for president and all of that. And of course, a lot of these numbers have gotten worse since then, but that's

kind of why I wanted to use it as a reference point. So, for example, in 2013, 37% of voters believed global warming was a hoax. 51% did not. If you look at that, basically, on political party, 58% of Republicans thought it was a hoax versus 11% of Democrats. Independence, 41% thought that it was. 6% of voters thought that Osama bin Laden was still alive. 28% of voters believed that a secret power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring eventually to rule the world through an authoritarian world government or New World Order. A plurality of Romney voters in this poll believed in the New World Order. 38% said yes, 35% said no.

28% of voters thought that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11. 36% of Romney voters thought that he was. Only 41% did not. 20% of voters believed that there was a link between childhood vaccines and autism. 7% of voters thought the moon landing was faked. And this is my favorite one from this poll. 13% of voters, including 22% of Romney voters, thought Barack Obama was the Antichrist. Now, I phoned a poll very recent from December this year.

It was an NPR Ipsos poll, and there's some very interesting results in here as well. A plurality of Americans, 40% specifically, believed that it was true, that COVID-19 was created in a lab in China. That was more than the number of Americans that thought that it was false, that COVID-19 was. created in a lab in China. There also, less than 50% of Americans said that this statement was false. 37% were untrue. Sorry, 37% were unsure. 17% said true.

A group of Satan worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media. Okay, that's QAnon. 17% of Americans said that that was true and 37% thought that that was false. Almost half of respondents thought that the majority of protests this summer were violent this last summer, that is, now that we're in 2021. Let's see, there was a couple of other good ones here. Here we go, 39% of Americans, this is well over a third. 39% of Americans agree that there is a deep state working to undermine President Trump.

Of course, that is also a tenant of QAnon. a majority of Fox News viewers as well as Republicans of course there's considerable overlap between those groups agreed with that but here is the more shocking part 49% of white men and 49% of rural residents agree with that statement that's shocking that's 50 50 in rural populations as well as white men believe in the the deep state conspiracy there's a little lot more, but I just wanted to lay out some of those because kind of insulated in our left-wing bubbles, such as probably the three of us each are. Of course, you know, there's some right-wing people whom I give the time of day to, but I think it's fair to say that the three of us probably

have a much more left-wing cohort of friends than would be average. For someone like me, these numbers were shockingly high, especially for some of these results. But I wanted to lay those out there because I think that as listeners of guerrilla history, many of you also are probably insulated in more left liberal to just all out left wing bubbles and are unaware of the prevalence of these right-wing conspiracy theories, but they're out there. And these are the things that are fostering the sort of violence

and mass protests like we saw on January 6th. So I think that it's important for us to be aware of how prevalent these beliefs are. But now to close up this episode, our intelligence briefing, I want to turn to each of you and just get your final thoughts on the state of right-wing conspiracy theories today, as well as how we should try to combat them.

So Brett, do you want to start off with that? And then Adnan will finish off with you. Sure, yeah. I think, you know, just really quick touching what you just said, Henry, it's really important to think about not only the big conspiracies, 9-11, Q&N, but all the tiny ones. that are just, you know, we just take for granted. You know, birtherism was a conspiracy theory.

The COVID hoax, climate change is a hoax. Those are conspiracy theories. Anti-maskers, it's really a tool for the government to oppress you. Anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theory. So we are swimming in an ocean of conspiracy theory, some small, some big. What makes Q&N so effective is it can be a structure through which you can plug in any other conspiracy theory and make it make sense, make sense with the entirety of the structure itself. So it's almost not a specific conspiracy theory as much as it is a broad structure where you can

plug a bunch of different conspiracy theories in. So that's important to remember. As for the state of conspiratorial thinking, as the empire dies, as these myths about America are shattered one by one, as less and less people buy into the ideas of the rich or rich because they earned it, and the poor are poor because they don't work hard enough and pull yourself up by your but all the myths that, you know, we're the shining city atop of hill. The myths that America tells about itself as those begin to fall away, I think as we were talking about earlier, those gaps between what is and what you think is get bigger.

Conspiracy theories will continue to fill that gap. As the contradictions heightened, right? It's going to put pressure on people's already existing, sometimes very solid beliefs about what America is and what it stands for in the world. That will give rise to, you know, conspiracy theories we can't even imagine yet. and the internet's not going anywhere in the meantime. So the internet facilitates the spread of conspiracy theories and ways that we've never seen before,

and that will continue to be a problem. So do not think these things are going to go away anytime soon. They're going to be with us our entire lives. As for how we can sort of help solve the problem or address it, it all boils down to reaching out. We've got to create our own media structures that, one, are not for profit because we see how the profit motive can easily align itself. with these sorts of conspiratorial thinking because if you're if you're for profit you just

you just need to keep eyes on your channel or your YouTube page or whatever for as long as possible and that will always you know work against real knowledge you know so creating our counter narratives creating nonprofit media outlets where we can really ground ourselves in facts is important political education in alignment with our community activism is essential you know trying to you know illustrate imperialism and how it works. You know, you can pull people off the ledge. Well, now that I understand imperialism, I understand why 9-11 happened, right? I understand why there's corruption in the government if I understand, you know, a Marxist conception of the state in alignment with

corporate interests. And then, you know, ultimately, the ultimate solution to this stuff is to build community, to build, you know, and socialism, I think, can help with this. Build community, build bonds between people where, you know, some of the more crazy ideas that might fester in a mind isolated from others don't have the chance to fester. And more importantly, you're coming into contact with so many other people that you love and care about that can act as a sort of bulwark against the worst instincts of some of this conspiratorial thinking. Capitalism creates the conditions that lend themselves to conspiratorial thinking, the education system and the media outlets that capitalism constructs don't do enough to work against it.

And in some cases, can feed directly into it. And so on all, all these fronts, we have to do our best. Reach out in your personal sphere, reach out in your organizational sphere, and continue to try to be voices of reason and evidence. And that's why it's so important for the left to stay tethered to science, stay tethered to evidence-based argumentation and not to become dogmatic or overly ideological ourselves, where we untether ourselves from these facts. Because why we might not fold into the deep end of conspiratorial thinking, we do,

at times play into the epistemological shatterings that create the foundations for conspiratorial thinking. So those are just some of my quick thoughts. That was excellent, Brett. Thank you very much. Adnan, what are your final thoughts on this topic before we wrap this up? Well, Brett covered some really important points there. I guess in terms of the status of conspiracy thinking, I would say that it's based in some sense of victimization. but behind the victimization, there are grievances. There is an observation of a corrupt political system. There is an appropriate understanding that politics no longer serves any working class common interest, but that the state has been captured by corporate interests. It reminds me,

for example, very recently on a left-wing media show, there was an interview with a boogaloo boy, who was from Michigan and gave some sort of rousing speech at a certain protest that seemed to accord with a lot of the policies and positions that we as leftists also stand for, which is tolerance and openness to LGBTQ sexuality, to recognizing that the political system seems broken and not serving people's political interest. and you know on and on anti-war right we are also of course anti-war so but it was this libertarian ideology behind it that never condemns capitalism and when we see the anti-corporate dimension of it it's understood through the prism that the corporations are not functioning in the market

in an unfettered way but that they have become socialistic because they received so much largesse and, you know, corporate welfare and these kinds of things. And what was astonishing to me was that this person couldn't see and that the host didn't make this person see, that they had put the cause in the place of the consequence, you know, that the outcome of corporate capture of our state is a function of capitalism and the fact that this is the natural outcome that eventually, corporate capitalism will become powerful enough to subordinate the state, which never was opposed to corporate interests, but it will so dominate it that even the impression that politics is a neutral sphere for the play of different interests in a democracy, that, of course, that is no

longer possible as an analysis. But this person saw the state as the problem that is a priority foundational and the corporations as an epiphenomenon in this case, you know, that they, you know, it was socialism that was the problem. And so it seems to me that you have to have an understanding of causes and consequences. In other words, what I'm saying is that it's really important to understand and study history because your social analysis has to be informed by this evidence-based and analysis of what are the systemic and structural conditions in which these sorts of decisions happen that constrain decisions. If you think about politics and you think about history largely in terms of individual

people and personalities and their decisions, then it's of course possible to obfuscate and not see the forest for those trees. And so that's why I think one of the remedies has to be a better way of articulating and engaging with historical and social analysis that allows people to identify what really the cause and what's really a consequence of those causes I guess the last thing I would I would just say is that we haven't on the left always necessarily done the work of being able to articulate these ideas in a clear fashion and that we've also I think created our own very elaborate discourse you know of complex kinds of

concepts that are valuable but that have, you know, that it's become its own kind of cultural badge, it seems to me, and that, you know, we're creating in and outgroups rather than always founding our discourse, our analysis on universalist principles of emancipation, of liberation, of removing the oppressive structures of capitalism. You know, if we can kind of focus on those larger kinds of concerns, I think we'll be able to attract more people, inform them, and give them the analysis that will allow them not to fall into the kinds of critiques that lead to this sort of scapegoating and conspiratorial thinking. Because I think that the social basis for this is that there is a lot

of discontent. There are reasons. And so we should not do what the liberal sort of discourse does, which is, I think, obfuscate and cover for the fact that there are serious problems and acknowledge that. We have to acknowledge that, and then we have to show how the real solutions to the common problems we face are based in these socioeconomic analyses rather than certain groups that are, they may be profiting from the situation, but there isn't this theological sense of good and evil and the personalizing of, larger scale forces. That's, I think, the real problem that we're facing on the left in being able to articulate a cogent and coherent analysis that other people can understand. We haven't done that job. We need to do it. Yeah, that's an excellent point, Adnan. And just to wrap this

up, I think that you're absolutely right, that articulation and explanation for people who don't have this historical grounding, who don't have this theoretical grounding. And what we're talking about is important. That's why a conversation like this, which is pretty close to an hour long at this point, is important for people. They don't have to necessarily have a deep grounding in order for this conversation to kind of sink into their brain a little bit and at least make them think. One of the things that we run into a lot of the times is if we bring up points like you both just brought up, you know, imperialism explains a lot of this. Capitalism explains a lot of this absolutely and we understand why but for somebody who doesn't have that historical and theoretical

grounding in why imperialism and why capitalism feed into the kind of structures that we see in the world today it just sounds like another conspiracy to them if you say yeah you know why is your life suck capitalism okay well that sounds like your conspiracy my conspiracies it's the pedophiles who work in Washington DC you know take your choice what conspiracy do you want so this explanation, this articulation that we're talking about, going out, meeting people, talking to them, integrating into those communities and using this historical grounding and theoretical grounding that we have and that we're trying to spread, using that in a way that will make sense to them more so than just seeming like, yeah, I'm going to blame capitalism, I'm going to blame

imperialism, okay, they're going to blame the pedophiles in Washington, D.C. Like, there's no real difference there. But when you get out and you explain it and they understand that, yes, there is a reason why U.S. imperialism explains a lot of these actions, like 9-11, like you're talking about, Brother, the Gulf of Tonkin, like I talked about earlier, or how the foundations of capitalism allows for people like the Boogaloo Boys to have some of the same beliefs as people on the left have a completely different conception as to why these things are happening, explaining to these individuals why. it is that capitalism and imperialism are driving the conditions of the world and the conditions of their lives is what's going to make it make us able to really have these deeper, richer conversations with them and allow them to see, hey, you know, there really is no evidence. I mean, beyond that little colonel that we were talking about, Jeffrey Epstein, being, you know, a pedophile sex trafficker, there's no real evidence beyond that to a lot of the QAnonon

phenomena. There's no real evidence, but there's a lot of evidence that capitalism and imperialism are driving a lot of the things that are affecting people's lives, if not the majority of things. And having that articulation, those conversations is going to be critical to snapping people out of their right-wing conspiratorial thinking and getting to think in a critical way that is a healthy skepticism, like Lewandowski writes about, a healthy skepticism that's responsive to facts and not contradictory thinking that is inherently skeptical of everything that they're presented because of this one kernel of truth that they were presented at one time. And the last thing that I'm going to say before I have you tell

the listeners where to find you is that if we don't do that, if we allow these sort of right-wing conspiracies to fester, it's only going to be dangerous for us. So we know how many people there are that believe in QAnon. We've seen the kind of actions that they've taken, but let's take a look at even one of the, maybe even a little bit more radical. I know more radical than QAnon, but more radical conspiracy theories. Like I said in 2013, 13% of voters said that they believed Obama was the Antichrist. 22% of Romney voters thought that he was the Antichrist. Well, it's a small leap in logic then to say, you have some of these individuals, a fairly substantial, amount of them to think that Obama is the Antichrist. And yes, here I'm defending Obama. I'm saying he's not the Antichrist. Sorry to say, folks. But if you have a lot of individuals, I mean, yeah, it's not 50%. You know, the war of ideas is firmly in the field that Obama's not the Antichrist. But it's still a significant number of people. And it only takes one who's willing to martyr themselves for their belief to go out there and commit an act of violence.

to try to assassinate someone who they think is the Antichrist and by not trying to articulate what is historically true, what is theoretically true, and just allowing these sorts of completely insane ideas to fester in these populations. It's only going to lead to violence down the road, whether that's somebody thinking that Obama's the Antichrist trying to assassinate Obama or whether that's QAnon folks, taking over the capital and mowing down anyone who's in their way are having mass violence to try to return Donald Trump to power. It's only going to be dangerous to us in the long run. And that's why it is critical for us to understand this phenomenon of right-wing conspiratorial thinking

and for us to go out and try to combat it in any way that we can, which is why I think that our final points here from both of you talking about how do we combat this was so vital. Any final thoughts before you tell the listeners how we're going to find you? In that case, let's tell the listeners how to find you. Adnan, how can our listeners find you and your other podcasts that you do? Well, listeners can listen to and find the Mudgellis podcast, M-A-J-L-I-S, that's on anchor.fm slash the dash muddlis.

And also you can find me on Twitter at Adnan A-Husane-1-S-A-I-N. Yeah, and highly recommend listening to the muddlis. I learn a lot from it every time I listen to it. And yeah, I'm sure that you will. I should say we have a new episode coming out every month. So just subscribe and you'll get something interesting at least once a month, sometimes twice a month. Yeah, excellent. And Brett, how can our listeners find you in the work that you're doing?

You can go to Revolutionary LeftRadio.com and find all three of the shows I participate in. This one, Grill of History, Rev. Left Radio and Red Menace. And on Red Menace, we just recorded our episode on an introduction to Marxist political economy. So by the time you hear this, there's a good chance that episode will be out. And we also have another episode introducing historical materialism and dialectics. So those two intros on Red Menace are really helpful for people that really want a firmer grounding in Marxist understanding of the world. So that's where I'd point people. Yeah. And I can't give you enough praise for that first episode.

I thought it was excellent. I've sent it to multiple people and I have gotten thanks from people who I've sent it to for how well you did. You and Allison did an explanation of these theoretical concepts within Marxism and how well it allowed them to understand it. So thank you for putting out resources like that for people like me who maybe aren't as good at articulating these theoretical ideas to give to people who are interested in Marxism and entering left politics more generally. So, yeah, really excellent. And everybody should go and listen to that. That was on the Red Menace podcast. As for me, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995.

You can find my Patreon where I write about science and public health, Patreon.com forward slash Huck1995. And you can find our show on Twitter, Gorilla History, at Gorilla underscore Pod. That's G-U-E-R-R, 2-R-S, I-L-L-A-U-A-U-Sore pod. If you're not listening to this on Patreon and you'd like to support the show again you can do that by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history again g-u-r-r-r-r-l-a and do us a favor and share this episode if you liked it with people that your

word of mouth and and sharing the episode is what's going to allow us to expand the show and do do more with that and allow more people to learn about it so on that note thanks for taking part in this guys it was a lot of fun if not somewhat aggravating topic to uh talk about and think about. And I'm looking forward to talking with you both again very soon. Listeners, thank you for tuning in. Solidarity. Thank you. Thank you.