How did conspiracies get so big in American politics?

Political scientist Scott Tyson studies how conspiracies and radicalization have entered the American mainstream, and what to do about it.

Over the course of the last five years, he noticed a watershed. For starters, the term conspiracy “theory” no longer applied to the convoluted ideas spouted by today’s conspiracist groups such as QAnon, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers, all of whom Tyson calls largely “theoryless.”

For example, Tyson, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Rochester and a game theorist whose research focuses on authoritarian politics, conspiracies, and radicalization, points out that those who believe erroneously that former President Donald Trump’s “victory was stolen,” usually do not believe that votes cast on that same ballot for successful Republican congressional candidates have been tampered with.

“There is no elaborate theory behind the assertion that the last election was rigged. It’s just a bunch of assertions that don’t really fit together in a cohesive story,” says Tyson.

Instead, he prefers the term “conspiracism” to describe what he sees as the current stream of misinformation.

According to Tyson, it’s this growing belief in conspiracist narratives that has led to the increased radicalization of average Americans.

“In order for people to commit violent acts you have to make it seem as if there’s some greater cause,” says Tyson. You have to convince people that the political opposition is “in cahoots as part of some crazy cabal, and that the greater cause is to overturn that cabal,” which justifies extreme actions, including violence and breaking the law.

In a recent study in the American Journal of Political Science, Tyson—together with University of Michigan coauthor Todd Lehmann—looks at two common policy interventions—economic and psychological—designed to counter the growing radicalization among the US population. The duo finds that improving economic conditions reduces both radicalization efforts and dissent. However, the duo also finds that trying to render people psychologically less susceptible to radicalization can backfire and instead increase the efforts by radical leaders to influence and radicalize more followers.

While radical assertions of a “deep state” and “stolen elections” have long bubbled quietly underneath public discourse, Tyson says during the last five years, the ideas have moved into the mainstream discourse. That shift—from fringe to center stage—Tyson argues, happened during the Trump presidency.

The January 6 storming of the US Capitol, Tyson says, was driven by such conspiratorial misinformation, as hundreds of American citizens attacked the seat of American democracy in order to reverse what they were led falsely to believe was an “undemocratic election”—despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Here, Tyson explains his work and how conspiracies have gone mainstream in American politics:

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