“It’s time to confront conspiracy theories? We’ve always been out of time for that.” — Otto Blaast

In Social Epistemology we find an essay by philosopher Steve Clarke, “Is There a New Conspiracism?”^[1] He argues Muirhead and Rosenblum’s A Lot of People are Saying appears to be an exercise in the fallacy of effigy, or in the American idiom, the fallacy of straw-person—a “scare-crow”. Clarke’s essay begins: … [please read below the rest of the article].

Image credit: Tim Evanson via Flickr / Creative Commons

Muirhead and Rosenblum have misconstrued their chief examples of new conspiracism and mischaracterized classic conspiracism. The non-existence of a new conspiracism matters. If those studying contemporary conspiracism suppose that many of the objects of their study are theory-free then they are liable to fail to examine the theories that actually are driving contemporary conspiracism. Also, if they suppose that they are confronting an entirely new phenomenon then they are in danger of failing to learn lessons from the rich history of conspiracy theorizing.^[2]

The blinding effect of A Lot of People are Saying is concerning. And, I suspect, Muirhead and Rosenblum’s intention. Which constitutes a conspiracy, even in this case, welcome as a morality tale. In what follows I will amplify Clarke’s points and present a somewhat different argumentation for them. We will review the standard forms of censorial hierarchical our society drifts towards and the reasons these are epistemically crippling. Clarke’s piece is a foot in the door for a larger discussion. Let’s help create that discussion. We will review preliminary material in the history of the debate over conspiracy theory and then focus on the recent social-psychological book Clarke critiques, A Lot of People are Saying.

While the term “conspiracism” is suspect, as it connotes a peculiar mentality, not a general rational ability that we actually witness in conspiracy reasoning. Clarke tolerates this unfortunate, pejorative term. But his general critique is well taken. Muirhead and Rosenblum are trying to restart what Lakatos would term a degenerating research program. But they are not doing this with ad hoc hypothetical add-ons, but political rhetoric. Clarke’s thesis is simple; there is no new conspiracism. He argues in several cases that evidential claims, even if misplaced, motivate the instances of public concern about organized government and corporate deception. I would add, the idea there a new conspiracism constitutes instead a new attempt at inducing political panic, at least within a dwindling faction within their profession. So I would add Muirhead and Rosenblum’s text is an act of “preaching to the choir” in a now, fortunately for democracy, nearly empty Church.

As we will see, perhaps a parallel religious metaphor would be they seek a rival of pathologizing. There is a great deal of government funding to be found there.

Clarke’s essay concludes:

There is no new conspiracism. All of Muirhead and Rosenblum’s (2019) examples of conspiracy without theory turn out, on close examination, to be underwritten by theories [emphasis added]. All of the techniques that they regard as distinctive of new conspiracism turn out to have been used by classic conspiracists in the past. It is important that we understand contemporary conspiracy theories, because, inter alia, they are an ongoing threat to democracy. In order to understand contemporary conspiracy theories, we need to appreciate that these are examples of a longstanding phenomenon with a rich history that we can learn from. The supposition that we are dealing with a new phenomenon can lead us to ignore history. The supposition that we are dealing with conspiracies without theories can lead us to fail to examine the actual theories that underwrite those conspiracies.^[3]

This appears correct. So what is a “theory” in this context? It is a generalizable pattern of explanation. Rather like that of an investigative detective. Recall the triangle of crime: Motive, ability and opportunity are the generalizable features. When applied to the observable or easily, uncontroversial inferable facts, that identify who committed an established crime; say a murder. Then the exclusion of one or more of these fundamental human factors of action while reviewing multiple suspects. A subset, often a number of cooperating individuals, is then identified. Hence a conspiracy. The method is sound and entirely ordinary and universal. In fact, people who depart from it invite the accusation of insanity. This is the method of conspiracy theory be it in a legal action or much larger societal concerns. The requirements of the “triangle of crime” constitutes theory.

In the realm of social epistemology those who still wish to pathologize rational questions by the public, an authoritarian dismissal is again showcased in Muirhead and Rosenblum’s A Lot of People are Saying (PAS). It is the idea that concerns about intentional, organized corporate and governmental deceptions have, instead of advancing in insight and sophistication have epistemically degenerated to an irrational abandonment of even the need for evidence and logic. They have become mindless habits. This is false, but it is the “New Conspiracism” thesis. It appears to be implausible, it is even backward. I would suggest we are facing an unfortunate, new, and seemingly absurd, last gasp of the pathologizing approach. The last gasp of the increasingly obsolete pathologizing movement in the social sciences concerning public suspicions of conspiracy within government and the corporate world. That may be too optimistic, of course. Yet the retreat from the pathologizing movement in social psychology and allied fields has been extensive in the last decade and this retreat should be welcome in any democracy that aspires to remain a functional, informed and rational one.

Pathologizing

The pathologizing movement is characterized by two assumptions.

(1) That belief or suspicion of conspiracy is a defect in human cognition, and/or;

(2) it is an immoral, anti-social act, leading to, among other things, a tendency to conspire.

The current and historically established error of the first assumption is clear to anyone literate in recent and past events. The self-defeating nature of the second assumption in the context of democracy, and its irony, is also clear in a society where organized deception, secret-keeping and a governmental structure founded on suspicion of government power, including corporate power, is the norm and properly so. No surprise, governments and corporations don’t wish to be evidentially interrogated by the citizens they exist among. We need to keep in mind there is a defuse academic industry, government funded, that has as its goal of contriving a disparaging view of its own citizens when they fail to trust their government and its foundation, corporations. A Lot of People are Saying appears to be a textbook case of this failed project. We are now to believe people are suspicious of their governments for no actual reason at all. Mindless zombies in the hands of conspiracy theory addiction. Clarke is right to have intelligent disdain for such a clumsy and irresponsible maneuver. A maneuver that arguably, may even border the paranoid. Consider this passage by Muirhead and Rosenblum:

The new conspiracism’s targets are not arbitrary. They are democracy’s critical foundations. The targets are key institutions and apples terminological foundations as well, meaning ways of knowing that make democratic government and politics possible. Grasping the danger also entails explaining how the process of delegitimizing these foundations actually work.^[4]

So there are intentional, organized “targetings” here. That appears to be itself a conspiracy theory. We’ve seen this rhetorical language in pathologizing literature before. Recall the Le Monde declaration by Karen Douglas, et al., where they advocate conspiring against student’s minds without explaining what exactly their manipulations were intended to ablate,

Let’s Fight Conspiracy Theories Effectively

The Ministry of Education must test its pedagogical tools against conspiracy culture. The wrong cure might only serve to spread the disease. Conspiracy theories are on many people’s minds and are the object of all kinds of initiatives, sometimes local, sometimes more ambitious. The French government is among them, evidenced by the collaboration between the Ministry of Education and France Télévisions to produce and diffuse a ‘video-kit’, available to all in the teaching profession (https ://vimeo.com/151519913). They also explore suitable responses to the worrying spread of these ‘theories’ by proposing, here and there, an intellectual defense or critical response. Ultimately, these associations come together to fight against this particular form of contemporary misinformation known as ‘conspiracism’.^[5]

So there is little new in the manner of Muirhead and Rosenblum’s A Lot of People are Saying. Having read the book, the Le Monde declaration seems like an abstract for Muirhead and Rosenblum’s text. This is helpful, as criticism of the Le Monde declaration was extensive, influential and successful.^[6]

To understand the quality of the pathologizing movement and why it must descend into overt political rhetoric, let’s turn to the widely circulated but equally questionable study by Viren Swami, et al. The study purports to show “conspiracy theorists” have significantly reduced rational ability. Let’s look at the study.

In a 2014 study by Viren Swami et al.—“Analytic Thinking Reduces Belief in Conspiracy Theories”—the researchers sample people for their willingness to doubt official narratives with a test that mentions a number of conspiratorial possibilities and asks participants to rate them on a Likert scale. The participants also take a “test of analytical thinking” known as the REI. What is the REI?^[7] It is an inventory of self-ascribed attitudes and our beliefs about how we compare to others. It is not a test of any actual analytical ability, and certainly not in the context of reasoning about the probability certain conspiratorial activities are occurring or not. As a proxy for that skill, it is seemingly irrelevant. The REI offers claims like:

• I am much better at figuring things out logically than most people.
• I usually have clear, explainable reasons for my decisions.
• I don’t think it is a good idea to rely on one’s intuition for important decisions.
• Thinking is not my idea of an enjoyable activity.
• I have no problem thinking things through carefully.
• When it comes to trusting people, I can usually rely on my gut feelings.

And so on. Yet, remarkably, it is used as a proxy for analytical reasoning skills, and those applied to conspiracy theory judgement. It is a self-perception and personal projection style test. As it happens, people inclined to suspect conspiracy theories score slightly lower on the REI than people who tend to reject conspiracy theories outright, without hesitation. From this Swami et al. conclude that conspiracy theorists have less analytical ability than those who are less inclined to suspect conspiratorial possibilities. The soundness of this inference deserves little comment. Because, perhaps, they are humbler and more self-aware? More honest? Why don’t you ask them?

Yet we see Swami et al.’s study still uncritically raised as a “finding” flag, that conspiracy theorists have reduced analytical skills. When a brief acquaintance with them will convincingly show typically the opposite. Swami et al. conclude, on the basis of this manner of research, that, “Our results highlight the potential utility of supporting attempts to promote analytic thinking as a means of countering the widespread acceptance of conspiracy theories.” ^[8]

I think not. If the State wants to reduce the public proclamation of conspiracy theory, instead it must use either punitive measures (as we see in some countries) or find some manner in which to mentally cripple the cognitive ability of the young; the older, being beyond reach. This a fundamentally anti-democratic movement within the social sciences. We can review the fallacious inferential maneuvers within the pathologizing literature at much greater length, but space constrains. It is my displeasure to suggest that the flawed Swami et al. study remains popular in the pathologizing social science community, it’s citations and is characteristic of a larger body of easily disputed social science literature.

That said, following the Le Monde declaration, A Lot of People are Saying seems a supersized editorial piece with little empirical content. For instance, Muirhead and Rosenblum introduce a new scientific, social-psychological concept, “spew”:

Our initial look at the new conspiracism from a perch high off the ground is a start … The new conspiracism spew [emphasis added] attacks Presley not only long held grievances but also in numeral others if they arise and revealing in the outrage of their claims generate but while it may seem when toxic and diffuse, the new conspiracism consistently circles around identifiable set of targets political parties and knowledge producing institutions. What makes the attacks on these elements of democracy so dangerous? The answer is that parties and elections, on one hand, and the administrator state depend on expert knowledge, on the other hand are two foundations of democratic government. Neither democratic politics nor governing can be carried out without them as a practical operational matter, both are essential they are also foundational in another sense they provide wind grounds of democratic legitimacy as philosopher Pierre Rosanvallon puts it, “There is an inescapable dualism to democracy it has to arrange for periodic choice among significantly different individuals and programs, and it must have stablished institutions with rise above those differences to promote the general interest.^[9]

While they mention in oblique fashion a philosopher, the book reflects no awareness of the actual epistemic philosophical literature on conspiracy theory. The book is absent any of the complex and extensive epistemic philosophic debate and discussion that has its roots more than 20 years old. This omission is not merely academically incompetent; it cripples the subsequent text. The result is an obsolete, epistemically elitist, establishmentarian and even self-contradictory position.^[10] But we encounter none of this debate in the text. Clarke’s attention to this text and his critiques are well placed. We have those who would argue, on the basis of what appears to be a vast if diffuse conspiracy theory against the state, that the state should take conspiratorial action against conspiracy theorizing. The ironic character of A Lot of People are Saying is striking.

The point of conspiracy explanations is to hold government accountable. Not to destroy it. The salvation of the state, as well as corporate affiliations, rests with watchfulness of people. That is the premise of Democratic systems. To see people who have concerns about government and corporate conspiracy is misguided. It is, as Juha Riakka terms it, Conspiracy Theory Phobia.^[11] The “phobia” in A Lot of People are Saying also seems somewhat contrived. Yet we see in the above passage it still persists within a small group within the social sciences. Fortunately, for the most part the pathologizing project has receded under pressure of critics.

Competent conspiracy theorizing is a complex, difficult task requiring not just an ability to come to grips with the evidence by the theorist, but to present to help others and them understand the case for the correctness of a conspiracy theory. Without these steps, the conspiracy theory, as David Hume might put it, falls still borne from the press. That is, dead. So the concept of a “evidence-free” New Conspiracism appears to be a non-starter. It falls still borne. Clarke explains this well. Without evidence, no conspiratorial accusation will even be seriously entertained. Such is the competition of ideas, in general. Muirhead and Rosenblum’s thesis is a non-starter.

As idealistic and beguiling as this may seem, it is historically amnesiac. To be fair to Douglas, she has moved, as I see it, to a more nuanced, restrained skepticism of conspiracy theorizing. Rather as I have a slightly less enthusiastic view of conspiracy theory than I once did. We appear to be on some sort of metaphorical, Hobbesian common ground at this time. So let’s recall recent history, for instance the Iraq War.

In the background, we must recognize that our epistemic and political strategies to protect an intelligent and communitive polis must always evolve with the censors and their thought elimination campaigns, largely emanating from a small but influential faction within social psychology and other allied, governmentally funded programs.^[12] So Clarke’s critique of the New Conspiracism is a welcome one. Clarke’s point is that the New Conspiracism view is empirically false and easily and dangerously abused by the very people whom the authors claim do not exist. This image comes to mind: The pathologizers, alone, chasing their own tails. The debate about the rationality of conspiracy theory is largely resolved. They are frequently rational. So they invent a new category of conspiracy theorizing, one that by definition is reasonless conspiracy theory. A sort of mindless habit, like smoking cigarettes or a meth addiction. This perspective is a resort to ad hominem but it is worth a careful and cautious look. It dehumanizes, because the pathologizing approach denies rational status to the majority of humans, who are, properly, conspiracy theorists. Does this actually, unlike simple addictions, happen with any significant frequency? Clarke is, as most informed people should be, suspicious.

Clarke points out that A Lot of People are Saying has some limited popularity; 157 citations. While I don’t know the content of each of these citations, and I suspect, including Clarke’s, some are critical, it is a surprising number given how little actual science is to be found in the book. So we should attend to this and respond if our commitments include maintaining a functional representative democracy, instead of undermining it by pathologizing most of its citizens as enemies of the state, as we see in Douglas et al., “Understanding Conspiracy Theories”.^[13] A UK government funded paper, One does not bite the hand that feeds.

In keeping with his contributions to the literature, Clarke’s core argument, as I understand it, is both insightful and characteristically straightforward.: Counter example after counter example, all refuting the core examples presented by Muirhead and Rosenblum. There is little to disagree with here. The limitation of scope might catch our attention though. I believe Clarke’s points take us beyond the immediate context. I think he should follow his feet forward. For instance, there is a tendency, epistemically misguided we might suspect, in many commonwealth countries towards an epistemic sort of submission to the state. Consider Australia’s censorial and easily abused “hate speech” laws. Or those of the UK or NZ. I find them, on careful examination, to be inscrutable. Nearer to where I live, we see a similar pattern in Canada. But this is a parochial distraction by a US citizen. To the point: There is a Social Epistemic silencing progression, and Clarke’s critique is welcome. Those who suggest there are intentionally organized corporate and governmental abuses are not irrational. And the idea we would attempt to identify these is laudable. Let’s look at some cases that support Clarke’s concern. Rational conspiracy concerns are legion, so the choice here is random.

Consider the Operation Northwoods document. I have met few self-described “conspiracy theorists” unaware of this document, even if they are teenagers. ^{Operation Northwoods} was a collection of schemes suggested by the Pentagon. Pentagon officials presented these to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962, setting out a number of “false flag” plans that could be blamed on the Cuban Communists in order to justify a war and invasion against them. Then President John F. Kennedy rejected the concept and had the military Chief of Staff removed.^[14] One of these involved the idea that a U.S. Navy ship could be blown up in Guantanamo Bay, deliberately. Clearly a reference to the press headlines of 1898 Maine explosion, earlier period, the phrase, “A ‘Remember the Maine’ incident” is found in the document.

A “Remember the Maine” incident could be arranged in several forms:

a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.

b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago would add credibility especially to those people that might have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to “evacuate” remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.^[15]

Some quick background: The USS Maine exploded in the Havana harbor in 1898.  It was used as a reason for the Spanish-American war that vanquished Spain from the North and South American Continents. However, the best explanation for this explosion appears to be internal to the operation of the Maine, not a Spanish mine attack.^[16]

We might term the neglect of this pattern of political abuses and those who encourage it the “United States of Amnesia”. This applies to the cognitive decline in many Western Democracies. There is also the illusion of mystery-redemption, where “that was then, this is now” mentality, where the inference is that the past patterns of act do not repeat into the future. Some professional Historians have sometimes argued that history does not repeat itself. The dispute is only over the minutiae of details. One way of putting this is that while History doesn’t precisely repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. What’s important is Muirhead and Rosenblum’s thesis has no significant empirical support. Having read A Lot of People are Saying, it’s clear it is a long editorial by people still mislead by their establishmentarian attachments and an obsolete elitist perspective that is anti-democratic.

A habit of vigilance, a measure of suspicion, is proper to any democracy. This is not a blind skepticism, but a stance of caution driven by historically literacy, current evidence and logical inference. As we see in the revelation a prestigious public source of information, The National Geographic Society easily abused Public Trust. We need to remind ourselves that the background issues have already largely been resolved in epistemology more than a decade ago. We face a difficult question. If our dominant Media corporations can move Egyptian Pyramids around^[17], or in another case, repopulate downtown Manhattan with image manipulation, and defend their actions in doing so, what can’t they do? What will they not do? These questions raise powerful and difficult epistemic issues in any democracy based on the premise of an informed public. That well know question requires theory.

In the background there is thinly veiled fear: Among academics there is a general mood of elitism, an almost super-human sense of superiority and as a consequence, intellectual separatism, one I do not find well-supported in my friendships and broader encounters with non-academics.

The people’s concerns should be ours. Clever pseudo-scientific and pseudo-philosophic evasions, like those we find in Muirhead and Rosenblum should be critiqued with patience. But just the same, critiqued. Clarke does a fine job of this. Clarke mentions this example of the Muirhead and Rosenblum pathologizing project of “no theory”,

Donald Trump has declared various U.S.A. elections to have been ‘rigged’, including, most recently, the 2020 U.S.A. Federal election. Why explanations for allegedly rigging elections Trump has participated in are readily apparent – to try to prevent Trump from winning those elections and/or to try to enable a rival candidate to win. How explanation will vary from election to election and some of these explanations will be more complete than others. Trump and his close followers have provided reasonably precise details of how, they believe, the 2020 election was rigged. They have asserted that Dominion vote counting machines were manipulated to flip millions of votes from Trump to Biden, that dead people voted in Michigan and Pennsylvania, that Republican poll watchers were prevented from monitoring vote counting in Democrat controlled cities, and that signature verification machines were manipulated in Nevada (McEvoy 2020). By combining these and other assertions Trump and his followers have provided quite a detailed theory explaining how and why the 2020 election was allegedly rigged. It is not a convincing explanation, but this is because it lacks substantiating evidence, and not because it lacks theoretical underpinnings.^[18]

Clarke seems correct. There was some election fraud in the US 2020 presidential that is well established, but this residue of concern is normal to any democracy in the midst of politically charged national elections, and a stance of distrust, a background theory of the prospect of abuse of any electoral process is unmistakable, rather we think it is properly applied in the 2020 election or not. The issue is if the evidence in this case shows it was substantial. But there is definitely the following well known theory:

Election fraud will occur if elections are not carefully monitored by the opposing parties because the political party affiliation of election workers, bribery, extortion and threats by the various political parties, aimed at election workers can distort results by falsely multiplying votes for some candidates or eliminating the record of votes for some candidates, or both, such as “vote flipping”.

It is hard to claim: (1) this is not a background theory, (2) is not true, and (3) it is not widely known to most all participants in voting, including critics of election results. This theory is universal among rational people, the vast majority of our population. As Clarke points out, the question then turns to how much evidence can be produced to show this theory applies to this instance of an election. Muirhead and Rosenblum’s A Lot of People are Saying is an attempt to reboot a failed research program, the pathologizing approach. Its central thesis, that conspiracy theorists are no longer motivated by theory, is clearly false. Clarke shows this.

Instead of pathologizing intelligent people as irrational—that is, dehumanizing them as “theory-less”, that is, unintelligent or otherwise mentally impaired—I think we should listen and support them. They protect our democracies with reasonable doubts about and suspicions concerning power in our hierarchical information society. So does Steve Clarke.

Social epistemology is social knowledge and judgement. And the social is typically rational. Observe our collective achievement of representational democracy as a global role model and a technological society unfathomable 300 years ago; a blink of the eye in a species apparently ~600,000 years old.^[19] We have to, for all our minor irritations and our dangerous excesses—like nuclear weapons—respect the fact we have achieved something near miraculous. And we did it with collective rationality and a penchant for rational, logical, evidential caution and suspicion. A penchant for selectivity. Without these emerging collective habits, including rational conspiracy theory, a rational and evidenced-based concern about organized deception, and a horizontal, not hierarchical information system, we would have stayed in the caves and functional democracy would be far out to sea, beyond our horizon. People talk. We need to. Imagine what we could accomplish together? That is the vision of democracy.

Acknowledgements

Steve Clarke for providing his latest essay, James Collier for editing and his discernment, Nydia Guzman for assistance in research, Brian Martin for his insights, and as always, Otto Blaast.

^[1] Clarke Steve. 2022. “Is There a New Conspiracism?” social Epistemology 1-14. doi: 10.1080/
02691728.2022.2057369. Hereafter, referred to as NC.

^[2] Clarke, 2.

^[3] Clarke, 11.

^[4] PAS, 81.

^[5] Le Monde, 6 June 2016, 29.

^[6] See SERRC (Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective), James Collier, editor, under Dentith and Basham. The discussion is interesting. In her defense, Douglas concedes that there are deep tensions in her pathologizing position (personal correspondence), but this is natural to any intelligent position. The difference is, our perspective protects functional representational democracies against hierarchical abuse of information access, her position appears to diminish this.

^[7] A typical version of the REI is found at http://www.mike-stalkfleet.com/downloads/REI.pdf.

^[8] Swami, Viren et al. 2014.  “Analytic Thinking Reduces Belief in Conspiracy Theories.” Cognition 133 (3): 572-585.

^[9] PAS, 81-2.

^[10] The political bias in the text, while not in itself objectionable, becomes problematic. Leftist conspiracy theories are as commonplace as those of what we call the right. I apologize for using these reductive, political simplicities, but they are frequent in public discussion.

^[11] Riakka, Juha and Lee Basham. 2018, “Conspiracy Theory Phobia.” In Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them edited by Joseph E. Uscinski, 178-86.Oxford University Press.

^[12] Douglas, Karen, et al. 2019. “Understanding Conspiracy Theories.” Political Psychology 40: 4-35. The paper, which attempts to dismiss people with concerns about government deception, was funded by the UK government via CREST, the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats. Having meet Douglas and had productive conversations with her and discovered we love the same movies, I believe she is entirely sincere; yet, again, one does not bite the hand that feeds. It should not even occur to us.

^[13] Douglas, Karen, et al. 2019. “Understanding Conspiracy Theories.” Political Psychology 40: 4-35.

^[14] This been alleged to have set the first stage a plan for Kennedy’s assignation but is that speculative.

^[15] See https://publicintelligence.net/operation-northwoods/. Retrieved July, 2017.

^[16] See http://www.nhgallery.org/uss-maine/. Retrieved June, 2021.

^[17] National Geographic. See http://www.alteredimagesbdc.org/national-geographic/. Retrieved June, 2021. See also Ritchen, Fred. 1984. “Photography’s New Bag of Tricks.” New York Times Magazine. November 4. Section 6: 43. See also https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/04/magazine/photography-s-new-bag-of-tricks.html. Retrieved May, 2021.

^[18] NC, 5.

^[19] See the accessible discussion provided by the Smithsonian Institute https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/essential-timeline-understanding-evolution-homo-sapiens-180976807/. Retrieved March, 2022.

Categories: Books and Book Reviews, Critical Replies

Tags: A Lot of People are Saying, conspiracism, conspiracy theory, Lee Basham, Nancy L. Rosenblum, new conspiracism, remember the Maine, Russell Muirhead, Spanish-American war, Steve Clarke