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Theories of conspiracy are booming in America, from the oval office to the swamps of Internet fever. They include the viral notion that the 88-year-old liberal billionaire George Soros, an American Holocaust survivor of Hungarian origin, finances the migrant caravan slowly moving from Central America to the United States .
This is not true, but it has apparently fueled a deadly rage in recent days.
Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man who authorities accused of sending more than a dozen bombs to people and organizations criticized by President Trump, seemed obsessed with Soros, citing him dozens of times on one of his Twitter accounts. Authorities say that he sent one of his bombs to Soros.
Robert D. Bowers, accused of killing 11 people on Saturday in a Pittsburgh synagogue, has also republished several viral comments on a social media account since the deactivation of the migrant caravan. An article described the "third world caravan" as a group of "invader" approaches.
Bowers directly published a comment referring to the "overwhelming Jewish problem". He referred to the fact that the United States had a "Jewish infestation" and republished the anti-Semitic comment from another user: "Jews are waging a propaganda war against Western civilization and it's so effective that we are heading towards a certain extinction in the next 200 years and that we are not even aware of it. "
The Soros / Caravan theory dates back to the end of March, when a wave of migrants was heading north, according to a full blog post on Jonathan Albright's Jonathan Medium, director of the Tow's Digital Center's Digital Forensics Initiative. digital journalism from Columbia University. A non-factual article in Twitter said: "A caravan of 1,500 families of Central American migrants crossing Mexico to reach the US border has been organized by Soros groups to create more divisions."
Rumors have circulated about closed Facebook groups and various right-wing websites, as well as leftist websites seeking to demystify them. They have resurfaced in recent weeks when a new caravan has begun to attract the attention of conservatives. President Trump warned without proof that people from the Middle East were part of the Central Americans. Matt Gaetz (R), Florida Congressman, posted a video on Twitter from someone who reportedly handed money to migrants to "storm the US border," and he asked, "Soros?
Lou Dobbs, host of a show on Fox Business, tweeted Oct. 23: "Do you think the radical left is collaborating with socialists and leftists from Central and South America to organize and support the migrant caravan? "
As Albright has said, "There is no obstacle to rumors, misinformation and memes. It's "Rumors Without Borders".
The Soros-caravan conspiracy theory combines anti-Semitism, fear of immigrants and the spectrum of powerful foreign agents controlling major world events in pursuit of a hidden agenda. And that seems to have had real consequences on Saturday for Jews attending offices,including a baby baptism ceremony, in their synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
Anti-Semitism has deep roots in American culture, dating back to the colonial era and particularly flourishing at the end of the 19th century when Jewish immigrants began arriving in large numbers.
WhenIn 1919, car magnate Henry Ford took control of his local newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, and published anti-Semitic articles in a book called The International Jew. The newspaper translates and publishes "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". an anti-Semitic hoax originally written in Russian and supposed to describe a Jewish conspiracycontrol the world.
Ford has spread its antisemitic theories by sending newspapers to its car dealerships across the country. The effort of Ford and prominent antisemitic preachers such as Father Coughlin sparked a latent anti-Jewish fervor, and a pro-Nazi rally in 1939 at Madison Square Garden in New York drew an enthusiastic crowd of 20,000 people during which the leader of the US-American Bund Fritz Kuhn decried the "Jewish-controlled press" and called for "White, Gentile-led US".
In the 21st century, the Internet and social media have allowed paranoia and rabies to spread virally and have allowed hateful ideologues and racists to meet and assert themselves for their toxic beliefs. They find a common goal in defining and demonizing their perceived enemies.
"Jews are just the usual suspects," said Bob Goldberg, a professor at the University of Utah and author of "Enemies in: Conspiracy Culture in Modern America". The standardization of conspiracy theories can have deadly consequences "in a country armed to the teeth," he said.
"The essence of anti-Semitism lies in some sort of conspiracy theory," said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism. "Conspiracies that were marginal, almost laughable, are now an integral part of the public debate."
Conspiracy theories can reassure people: they impose a kind of order on a chaotic world. TheyTell people that there is a reason why things are going that way. And the bad people are to blame.
"With conspiracy theories, there is a kind of common belief that there is a group of actors, usually more powerful than ordinary citizens, who engage in unknown, generally harmful, black box activities", said Christina Farhart, assistant professor of political science in Carleton. University.
One of the most conspicuous conspiracy theories of the 21st century comes from the "truths". They claim that September 11, 2001 was a domestic job known to the highest level of the US government. A common variant is that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by explosives and not by planes. The truths are an ideological mix, including many members of the political left, although the most famous of them is Alex Jones, the right provocateur who promoted a litany of false-flag conspiracy theories. .
The most politically important conspiracy theory may be that of "births". They believe that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States (he was born in Hawaii). Some claim that he is a Muslim (he is a Christian). The theory feeds the scenario of the "Manchu candidate", according to which Obama was secretly an agent of a foreign power.
Donald Trump was the most prominent person of the BIRther conspiracy theory at the beginning of this decade.
Trump has promoted many conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific ideas that have a conspiratorial element, including false claims that the science of climate change is a Chinese hoax and that vaccines are causing autism .
"I do not know if the whole country is going wild. Part of the problem lies in the fact that a president defends conspiracy theories and that he has formed a coalition of conspiracy-minded Republicans to support him, "said Joseph Uscinski, a professor of political science at the University of California. University of Miami and co-author of "Theories of American Conspiracy." "
"During the election campaign, he constantly launched conspiracy theories – that it's about the bakeries business or Ted Cruz's father, having killed JFK," Uscinski said. "If you put Donald Trump's campaign in context, he was talking all the time about trade and immigrant deals, because it's something that Americans historically theorize about conspiracy. "
The Trump conspiracy has not diminished since taking office. But he has moved away from one term, "deep state", which has a disturbing hue. Trump recently declared to Hill that he did not like the term "because it sounds so conspiratorial, and believe it or not, I'm really not a conspirator."
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