Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power
by Anna Merlan
View on GoodreadsA reporter's immersive tour of contemporary American conspiracy subcultures — anti-vaxxers, Sandy Hook truthers, Pizzagate, UFOs, sovereign citizens — written before QAnon went fully mainstream but in time to see it forming.
Core ideas
- Conspiracy belief is less a cognitive failure than a social and emotional adaptation — communities of meaning that offer agency in environments that feel out of control.
- The conspiracies that get traction in any era track real institutional failures (financial crisis, opioid epidemic, vaccine injuries that did occur) before metastasizing into the unfalsifiable.
- Treating believers as stupid is the most reliable way to entrench them; the conversion engine is community and care, not refutation.
Published2019
Pages288
ISBN9781250159052
ReadJul 2022
