column
There is a dark commonality between the two major issues of the past few days, between the Midterm election in the US and the dismissal of President Hans-Georg Maassen: In both cases, conspiracy theories are central. And it's not just a question of speculation, but one has to speak of conspiracy ideologies: the thought buildings of a conspiratorial worldview.
The term conspiracy theory even appears as belittlement, the principle behind it is bigger and more dangerous. A conspiracy theory is supposed to explain a conspiracy. But a conspiracy ideology is a worldview in which all information is sorted in the right way. In extreme cases, the mind is virtually immunized against all disturbing facts.
A survey of the "Washington Post" of 2017 became known. Trump voters were presented with two photos of inaugurations, that of Trump with the characteristic white tents and tarpaulins. And that of Obama four years earlier, on which clearly and at first sight more people were to be seen:
REUTERS
As expected, 40 percent of Trump voters said the photo with the larger crowd belonged to Trump. He had tweeted to have attracted the largest amount. These people are likely to have a certain susceptibility to conspiracy theories, after all, one must consider the reporting of the editorial media for nationwide misleading.
Trump Twitter account trust more than your own eyes
But 15 percent of the Trump voters gave a deeply disturbing answer. They explained that the photo with the white tarpaulins belonged to Trump - but there were more people to be seen than in the other photo. Boom.
This group is likely to have sunk deep into the conspiracy ideology, because they seem to trust the allegations on Trump's Twitter account more than their own eyes.
The assumption that these people are simply ready to fall, is dangerously wrong, and that proves Hans-Georg Maaßen. You can say that much, but a lack of intelligence is definitely not one of them, on the contrary. Maassen has shown with his staggering speech to European intelligence chiefs that he is not just a conspiracy theorist - but conspiracy ideologist.
REUTERS
Hans-Georg Maassen
Otherwise, "left-wing radicalism" in the SPD - the party commuter commuter rate - simply can not recognize. This is no longer a conspiracy theory about Juso-Kevin, who plans the socialist revolution to establish a protomarxist boldness. No, that's ideology.
Maaßens "personal stabbed legend"
This shows Maaßen not only how abstruse far right he stands. He also exemplifies the political function of the conspiracy ideology: the construction of a scapegoat, to which any guilt can be blamed for its own failures and justifies the otherwise unthinkable. Maaßen knits his "personal stabbing legend".
This is all the more dramatic because Maaßen actually had "secrets" in his position, so his followers always have an excellent reason to take his word at face value. If Maassen asserts left-wing extremists in the SPD, one has to examine whether he did not let the party observe that in his conspiracy ideology this would be logical.
If someone with such a worldview was at the head of an intelligence service that was already prone to conspiracy, the entire service must be screened and much more democratically controlled. The conspiratorial worldview is the parallel between Maassen and the American Right.
For a conspiracy ideology is not about what exactly one believes - but about the justification of one's own reaction to it. Conspiracy ideologies do not want explanations for the events and upheavals in this world, that is only an interchangeable means to an end. Conspiracy ideologies determine the actions of their followers in order to legitimize alleged countermeasures, the basis of every victim narrative.
This makes them so dangerous - because in any conspiracy ideology an appeal for activation and mobilization is automatically hidden: Spread me, get active, network, organize, defend yourself! It is no coincidence that Maaßen wants to go into politics; on the contrary, it is the fulfillment of his worldview.
No overly successful links conspiracy
Of course, not all conspiracy ideologies are right. Karl Popper coined the term conspiracy theory in 1948 and saw, for example, in "vulgar Marxism" conspiracy theory elements. And even beyond Western right-left coordinates, there is an enormous conspiratorial belief in the Islamic world.
But let's put it this way: The western hemisphere from the USA to Brazil to Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland does not necessarily suffer from overly successful links conspiracy.
In the Midterm elections in the US, Donald Trump's inaugural, conspiracy-ideological building was critical to the election, even without Trump having to be specific. His supporters used every piece of information fitting into the presented world view. Behind the "caravan" of Latino migrants are democratic financiers to abolish the US, behind the package bombs the Democrats themselves to lure fellow peoples.
At the beginning of 2016, Trump declared that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and would not lose votes. The extremely successful conspiracy ideology of Trump causes that he would probably even be right. Therefore, the conspiracy ideology is the opposite of the rule of law, the opposite of democracy, the opposite of any enlightenment-based social order.
Conspiracy ideologies lead to autocracy, they open the minds for stories of saviors and heroes, in which only a strong man on the sworn enemy power from the inside, outside, top and bottom can win.
Immunized against the exposure
The effect of a conspiracy ideology can often be seen in direct dialogue. If you have a connoisseur-fictitious delusion to have spread fake news, then you answer: That may be wrong, but it could be true. This is the most important sentence of the conspiracy ideology, it marks the immunization against the unmasking, a counter-proof or a counter-argument. This creates a hermetic world view that can still be self-reinforcing because it determines media consumption and perception of the world.
A large proportion of Republican supporters live in a different media reality than the Democrats. In itself, this is neither surprising nor dangerous; political interpretation of news is part of the essence of journalism. But the media reality of Republican voters has almost completely detached itself from actual events. First and foremost, it was Fox News and then, as reinforcement, social media.
Without Facebook, Trump might have won, without Fox News in any case. It can also be explained that the Republicans were able to maintain their Senate majority in the midterms.
Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch as "the biggest cancer of Australian democracy". Murdoch's work in the United States, in my opinion, reaches a similarly anti-democratic, destructive power with Fox News. It is about the presentation of a constructed reality for the audience, in which Trump stands despite lies, malignancies and contempt for democracy as the only reasonable choice.
We see the perfect political instrumentalization of Trump's conspiracy ideology. Trump has not lost, he will never lose, he can not lose. He will at most be the victim of a conspiracy.