The NPR Politics Podcast - Conspiracy Theories Are Having A Moment — It's Bad For Democracy

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s embrace of conspiracy theories and famous last name have made him a guest in the contrarian podcast space. His bid has been boosted by the likes of Elon Musk and Steve Bannon.And the lead actor of a breakout Christian thriller — based on the dubious claims of an anti-sex trafficking organization — has spread a number of conspiracy theories as he's promoted the movie, which has been embraced and promoted by a host of establishment conservatives.Why are malignant conspiracies finding such purchase in the American public — and what does it say about the health of our democracy?This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving, and disinformation correspondent Shanon Bond.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

G'day, I'm Al. And I'm Kelly. I'm Xavier and we're from Albion Park in New South Wales in Australia. And we're on our first ever whale watching cruise off the New South Wales south coast at Jervis Bay. Conservationists say there's been the largest humpback migration in recorded history. And the time is? 11.23am on Friday, July 21st. Things may have changed since the time this is 11.23am on Friday, July 21st. Things may have changed since the time this is recorded. But hopefully we'll have seen our first humpback whale ever. Okay, here's the show. Oh wow.

Wow. Our timestamps sound so adventurous with an Australian accent. I want to be out there with the whales. Me too. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. And NPR's Shannon Bond joins us today. Hey, Shannon. Hey, guys. So Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in the race for president. He is challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. He's 69 years old, and he is, of course, a member of one of the most famous political families in our country's history. But this is actually his first foray into politics. He spent decades as an environmental lawyer before

eventually becoming best known for his advocacy questioning things like the science and safety of vaccines, among many other views that could be considered conspiracy theories involving the government and other institutions. Shannon, give us a sense of Kennedy's more controversial views and how widespread they are. Yeah, I mean, as you said, he really has become sort of in the last couple decades, the poster child for the anti-vax movement, despite multiple scientific studies like debunking any connection between vaccines and autism. That is something he has stuck to. He continues to claim that vaccines cause autism. He's also claimed that chemicals in

the water supply may be turning children transgender. He suggested there's a connection between Wi-Fi and cancer, that it causes what he calls leaky brain. He has lots of theories around other diseases and relationships to vaccines. He suggested falsely that the Spanish flu was caused by a vaccine trial. He suggested that AIDS may not be caused by HIV. I mean, it is really quite the array of just stuff. But he is out there talking about this with this very famous name. He also gained a particular level of new visibility during the pandemic, especially as questions about vaccine safety were still ongoing because of the pandemic. That's right. The anti-vax movement overall, you know, got a big boost during COVID.

You know, it was this novel disease. There was kind of a lot of questions, lack of answers. And that's a great opportunity for kind of people to come in with false claims and kind of fill what we call this information gap. And, you know, Kennedy, you know, partially, you know, he's been very involved in this movement. He has an influential group called Children's Health Defense that, you know, works on these issues. And they really came to the forefront. They were named as one of the top spreaders of misinformation about COVID and vaccines on social media back in 2021. They earned a ton of money. His group, according to federal tax filings, their revenue really increased.

I mean, they clearly got to be more visible. He became not just a critic of, you know, COVID vaccines, you know, aligning with his earlier suspicions about vaccines and concerns about safety. But also, you know, he kind of adopted a lot of these wider criticisms of the way the government handled COVID. He was very opposed to things like vaccine and mask mandates. He was very opposed to lockdowns, you know, shutdowns of schools and businesses. You know, he wrote a book attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci and basically like accusing him of carrying off, you know, what he called this historic coup d'etat in pushing COVID restrictions. And so he gained a lot of prominence. And I would say, you know, also, we sort of started to hear an even wider variety of

conspiracy theories and just suspicions, very anti-establishment suspicions of the government. RONAN FARROW, Jr.: Ron, he's running for president. He's running as a Democrat. I think it's safe to say he will not be the Democratic nominee in 2024. But he's also polling in double digits. And that does suggest that there is an audience for this candidate and this message. There is certainly an audience for an alternative to President Biden. We know from an NBC poll that came out in April that 70 percent of the people in the country think Joe Biden shouldn't run again. That doesn't say they're necessarily all going to vote against him, but they just think he shouldn't run again. And the main reason is that he's 80 and another term would take him all the way to 86. So that is a broadly

shared view within the Democratic Party and beyond the Democratic Party. And right now there is no notable, major, serious opponent to Joe Biden in the Democratic Party other than RFK Jr. There's Marianne Williamson. Some people follow her. But RFK Jr. has by far and away the greater name recognition and is the one who is getting all of the attention. Now, for good reasons and bad, his name puts him up there in the percentage that makes it something worth talking about. However, he has recently been exposed on videotape. He said it was an off-the-record conversation, making remarks that many people found outrageously. And a Semitic was saying that the vaccine that had been developed, which he says was developed in a lab in China,

exempted Ashkenazi Jews and exempted the Chinese, but was aimed at white people and black people. He, of course, walked back those remarks this week. But I believe that as the controversies that have swirled around him, and Shannon has catalyzed those very well, I believe that as those controversies come more and more to the fore, his percentage in the polls will probably decline. One of the fascinating dynamics of his campaign, such as it is,

is that he's getting a fair amount of media. He was on Capitol Hill just this week testifying, but his interests and the people he's speaking to tend to be more aligned with the right. You know, he has appeared on things like the Joe Rogan podcast, where I'm sure there are many people who are Democrats who listen to Joe Rogan, but certainly culturally he is more aligned with the right or independents who lean that way. You know, he was invited to speak on Capitol Hill about many of his views by House Republicans. These are not typical steps for someone seeking a Democratic nomination. Certainly not.

And if he will, I mean, some of his support from some of the high tech titans is probably more tied to his libertarian views about what the government should have to say about what's in social media. And there are people who identify with that. But we should bear in mind that he has been in many respects encouraged to be a factor in the presidential election by the likes of Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart entrepreneur and former strategic advisor to former President Donald Trump, who has broken with Trump in many respects but on the other hand still seems to be in touch with him. Roger Stone, another Trump operative with a very long history, has suggested that maybe a unity ticket of Trump and RFK Jr. would be successful in 2024. So that's the kind of realm that we're dealing in here. And I think, I mean, Sue, you mentioned he was just testifying on Capitol Hill. I mean,

that I think really showed sort of just how much of a sort of surprising embrace he's gotten by Republicans and how much, you know, despite some, you know, some of these some of these other views on things, you know, like like the environment. You know, he claims to support abortion rights, you know, that are more traditionally aligned with Democrats. I mean, there's a lot of ways in which it does feel like he has moved to the right. And he denies this. He says he's still a Kennedy Democrat. But he's really made common cause, you know, out of this experience of COVID and the backlash he's received during COVID for, you know, a lot of these conspiratorial and anti-vaccine views he spread. You know, he was banned from Instagram for a while. They let him back on once he announced his presidential campaign. But that has really kind of brought him into this, you know, camp of we hear from many Republicans and some

disaffected liberals, this idea that, you know, they are being censored, that their views are being censored on social media. You know, they claim that the Biden administration is, you know, working with Facebook and Twitter to shut down their views. And that was basically the entire point of this hearing that he came on to this week to talk about how he feels he's been censored. And, you know, there was very much a warm reception from Republicans, you know, who see this as an example of government overreach and who are just, you know, generally have been mad for a very long time at the social media companies for the policies they put in place. I think he will continue to have this broader base of support among these kind of

anti-establishment types who are very eager to hear this message, you know, criticizing the government and saying, you know, we really need to overhaul things. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about a surprise hit at the box office. Hey, a quick plug for our latest bonus episode. We're trying out a new trivia game. I have a couple thoughts in my head. Ron, can I have a hint? Yes. Your hint is Asia. I feel like that's not the most helpful hint. I agree. That's not the most helpful hint. No, I have a couple. I know the name.

Check out that episode and find out how you could have a chance to play if you're an NPR Politics Podcast Plus listener. And we're back. And Shannon, it's premiere weekend for Barbie. It's premiere weekend for Oppenheimer. But today we're going to talk about a movie called Sound of Freedom. I hadn't heard much about it, but you've done some very interesting reporting about it. So tell us about sort of the origin story of this film. Yeah. So Sound of Freedom is this, it's a Christian thriller that's based on true events. It's about a former federal agent who goes out and rescues children from exploitation and sex trafficking. This film is interesting. Sort of if you step back. It's actually several years old. It was filmed, I believe, filming was completed back in like 2018. It was originally picked up by Fox, but then Disney bought Fox Studios and the film got shelved.

So it's had this sort of long road to actually debuting on screens finally this year. And when it came out, you know, it actually, surprisingly, its first day of release, it earned almost as much money at the box office as the final Indiana Jones movie. Wow. Which I think caught a lot of people by surprise. People hadn't really, I think many in the mainstream had not heard about this film. I mean, I think partially it shows there's this, you know, kind of whole world of conservative media that, you know, sometimes I think more mainstream outlets are not paying attention to. But this one has gotten particularly – gotten a lot of attention because of this focus on this controversial anti-trafficking activist and kind of this broader story that we've seen many conservatives get very concerned about in recent years around child trafficking, around exploitation of children. You know, this also kind of dovetails into the issues we've seen around transphobia, concerns about drag queen story hours, but a lot of it kind of traces back to the kind of story this film tells, which is about terrible people in the world exploiting

children and then sort of the story of their heroic rescue. It's important, I think, to note that this was filmed back before the QAnon movement sort of became very much more widespread and well known. But the interests of people who subscribe to the QAnon conspiracy and this film are now deeply intertwined in part because of the star of the film, right? That's right. So a lot of the reception or the response to this movie has been, you know, there's concerns that it's basically it's been described as, like, quote, QAnon adjacent. And like you said, I mean, first of all, it was filmed before QAnon was a widespread phenomenon. And there's nothing in the film about QAnon specifically. There's nothing in the film about these kind of QAnon claims.

But the star of the film is Jim Caviezel, who people may remember played Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ years and years ago, the Mel Gibson film. He's been a long time. He's a conservative. He's a devout Catholic. But in recent years, partially promoting this film after this film was completed and they've been out there talking about this for years before the film came out. And then on the press tour for the film, it turns out he has become a big believer in QAnon. So he is out there talking about sort of some of the most wild QAnon claims, particularly this false idea that there is an international cabal of elites that, you know, kidnap and abuse and kill children to extract a substance called adrenochrome, which is sort of supposed to

give them like mystical powers or, you know, eternal life. I mean, again, totally baseless. But Jim Caviezel is out there, you know, he's on Steve Bannon's podcast. He's talking to Charlie Kirk. You know, he's talking to Fox News. And when he's been promoting this film, he's very directly connecting it to these very false QAnon claims. Well, Ron, also where it's fascinating, where it also gets enmeshed with our politics, too, is people like former President Trump have embraced the movie. He's had a screening of it. I mean, not only do people want to see this film, but people at the most senior levels of the Republican Party are really embracing it and encouraging people to go see it.

They are using it. Let us put it that way. To what degree they truly embrace it, to what degree they truly believe everything that Jim Cabezal is promoting, that's another question. I don't mean to suggest that they believe the QAnon conspiracy, but it's all entangled now. Indeed. And that is exactly the point, that it all gets entangled. And in that melange of impressions, what they are communicating, former President Trump among them, they are communicating a kind of simpatico with a very large portion of their voter base. Many of the people who voted for Donald Trump, who have voted for the Republicans who are the majority party in the House, have a certain affinity for some of these conspiracy theories.

They may not believe them. They certainly may not believe all of them. But they see the world largely in terms of us versus them. And the us is the ordinary, regular, American, straight, upright individual. And the them is some kind of murky international conspiracy elite that can take in such conventional corporations as Disney at times and can take in certainly the Democratic Party or the liberal portion of America's electorate. And all of that, you know, is very poorly borderlined. We don't have any clear sense of where the lines are drawn, but the affinity is there. And that helps to, if you will, cement or make permanent the relationship between those voters and these individual politicians.

Shannon, do the film's backers, have they weighed in on any of this? I mean, this film is ultimately based on a true story about a real person. Child sex trafficking is a real problem. But it's been so entangled now with these conspiracy theories. I wonder if they have tried to disentangle it at all. Yeah. So the distributor of the film is this company called Angel Studios. And they have been quite public in rejecting any associations with conspiracies.

You know, their executives have given interviews. They declined an interview with us, but they've told other outlets, you know, that there is no association. If you watch the film, you know, there's nothing about QAnon in it, which is true. Tim Ballard, the former federal agent who this film is based on, he's the character that Jim Caviezel plays. He and his organization, Operation Underground Railroad, which is this organization that carries out these missions to rescue exploited children. They, in the past, have made statements saying, you know, we're not affiliated with any conspiracies. You know, we don't traffic in that at all. But Ballard has also kind of danced close to the line in some of these ways. You'll probably remember this false story about the furniture retailer Wayfair.

There was this idea going around a few years ago, right, that these claims that Wayfair was selling children in the guise of furniture on its website. And, you know, Ballard was in the press at that time sort of talking about, well, you know, children do get sold on the internet and, you know, it's maybe this is not so crazy. And then more recently, I know he on the film's press tour has also suggested that this idea that, you know, children are having their adrenochrome harvested. So, you know, he's danced quite close to some of this, maybe not the full embrace we've seen from Caviezel. But, you know, sort of as Ron said, I mean, these kind of ideas do have a lot of traction in right-wing circles. I mean, this idea that, again, child trafficking is a problem, human trafficking is a problem. But this particular focus on sort of child sex trafficking and that there is some sort of larger organized movement to exploit children.

You know, that is something that we've seen Ballard and his organization, I think, kind of use to their benefit. Ron, this has not been a particularly feel-good week on the podcast when it comes to the state and health of our democracy. And I'm fascinated, you know, conspiracy theories are not new. They're not new in American politics, but they seem, at least in my lifetime in this election, to be much more mainstreamed, maybe, than they have in the past. And that doesn't seem like a particularly healthy democracy when that can take hold.

It's certainly not a healthy direction for democracy. They are front and center in a way I have not seen in several years of covering politics, several decades of covering politics. It's always been out there on the fringe. There have always been people with dark theories about how Dwight Eisenhower was a communist or Ronald Reagan was a dupe for the Soviet Union, you know, things that were absurd on their face, but which, because they were absurd, and because they therefore weren't subject to normal rational discourse, took on a life of their own, usually in a very small dark corner of the general electorate. But in our time, and I would go so far as to say that social media has got to be looked at in this regard, a small corner of the electorate can look much larger to the people who are in it.

And when they're talking exclusively to each other, it can come to seem corroborated and real. So that is, I think, given a new life to the whole importance of conspiracy theories. And we're all still trying to figure out how to deal with it. All right. Let's take a quick break. And when we get back, it's time for Can't Let It Go. And we're back. And it's time to end the show like we do every week with Can't Let It Go, the part of the show where we talk about the things from the week that we can't stop talking about, politics or otherwise. I'm going to go first, and my can't let it go involves Mitt Romney and his love of hot dogs.

Well, as you all know, today is National Hot Dog Day. And perhaps you also know that hot dog is my favorite meat. I love hot dogs. I love them in buns. I love them outside of buns. I love them with baked beans. I just like hot dogs. It's the best meat there is without question. So to all of you who, like me, are celebrating National Hot Dog Day, congratulations to you. And may there be many, many more hot dogs served in our wonderful land. I don't know why hot dog is my favorite meat is so funny, but it is a funny, weird line. It's so weird. Also, like, I would dispute the idea that like, I mean, yes, hot dogs are made of meat, but like, I don't know,

someone's like, what's your favorite meat? Like hot dog? Hot dog. Yeah. No, no, no. Also in the video, he's wearing a baseball cap that has a hot dog on it. And I love this because I'm not alone in it. It has been viewed over 5 million times, this video of Mitt Romney's interest in hot dogs. And I just love it. It just made me laugh. It also reminded me a couple of years ago, Romney also went a little viral with another food related video. I don't know if you guys remember this, but it was his birthday and they had a cake in his office for him and it had all the candles on it. And he individually took out every single candle and blew out each candle so as not to blow all over the cake. It's like more hygienic.

So Mitt Romney, he's got a lot of food layers that I didn't know about. Shannon, what about you? What can't you let go of? Mine is also food related, although it is not hot dog. I have been obsessed lately. It's obviously summertime. I live in the Bay Area. We have amazing produce. But my obsession lately is making caprese salad. Oh, yeah.

Instead of putting tomatoes in, you've got to put in stone fruit. Like peaches? Like peaches, nectarines, cherries. This is an idea I got from the New York Times cooking, but it's been a big hit in our house. And you chop up your fruit, you put a little sugar, a little salt, best if you have sort of those big crystal, like the big flaky salt, and you let it sit for a few minutes to kind of let the juices all kind of come together. And then you put on your mozzarella and your fresh basil and you like drizzle a little olive oil. And it's just, it's like sweet and savory and it's so good. And it's like all I want to

eat all summer. I don't want to brag, but my basil looks fantastic right now. I should take a picture and send it to you, Shannon, as I feel like now you are someone who would appreciate how good I'm taking care of my basil this summer. I would totally. But we have, we have like deer who come through, so it's real hard for us to grow stuff in our yard. So I'm very jealous of people who can cultivate and hang on to their plants. Ron Elving, what can't you let go of this week? Well, first of all, I'm certainly taking notes on all of you. I have only so much time to absorb newspaper news, and I don't always have a chance to go through all the sections.

But I am getting the impression that there is a really interesting movie that's opening this weekend. And it is apparently called Barbieheimer. And it has many different parts, many different parts. Many of the parts are, shall we say, pink. There's a great deal of sort of upbeat Ryan Gosling sort of level saccharin sort of, I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I'm just glancing over at this, right? I don't really have time to look at it very thoroughly. But apparently, and this was a little known fact, apparently at some point in her career, Barbie was tasked with the awesome decision of deciding whether or not

to detonate the first atomic bomb. Physicist Barbie. Ron, which movie are you more excited to see this weekend, Barbie or Oppenheimer, or are you going to see both or neither?

I think the best way to respond to that is to go to the theater where they're showing Barbie and watch the people going to see Barbie and then go to another theater and see

Oppenheimer. I actually have had something of an obsession with Oppenheimer. Oh, I was so hoping you were going to say Barbie, Ron. I mean, it makes sense that you were more obsessed with Oppenheimer, but Barbie would have made my heart sing. No, but there's a wonderful documentary about him that was made many years ago, actually with him in it, in which he talks about the feelings he had at the moment when they detonated the first test bomb out on the desert. And he wondered if he was going to be in the process of being Ra, the destroyer of worlds. Well, I did actually see the Barbie movie last night. I'm not going to say a single word because I don't know spoilers, but I'll be curious to hear your takes on it after you see it. I have faith, Ron, that you're actually going to watch the Barbie movie after all.

It's so unfair. All right. That's a wrap for us today. Shannon Bond, as always, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Our executive producer is Mathoni Mottori. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our producers are Elena Moore and Casey Morrell.

Thanks to Christian of Calamore and Lexi Schapitel. Research and fact checking by our intern, Lee Walden. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Ron Elvin, editor correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Sending Shannon a picture of my basil right now.