My Theory theory

When did conspiracy theories become so dominant in American political thought?

Whatever happened to reality? Whatever happened to the truth we saw before our very eyes?

I mean, right this minute, I'm trying to process the concept of the Great Replacement Theory, a white nationalist (read: supremacist) idea birthed decades ago in France, of all places. This theory more or less claims white people are being replaced in our politics – and society – by non-European immigrants.

This is almost laughable if it wasn't so perverted, considering that the "discovery" of this continent was made by white Europeans who almost immediately replaced the indigenous population with themselves. It was such an effective replacement policy that today, indigenous people make up only 2 percent of the total U.S. population. And it wasn't theory. It was practice. It might stand as the largest replacement of all.

Polling shows at least half of the Republican Party has accepted this concept of replacement. Holy crap. Maybe it's because current demographic studies are showing the population is becoming less white. My question is, so what? What are they afraid of?

Then there's critical race theory, which more or less states that any number of U.S. social institutions have racism embedded within their structure, such as the criminal justice system, the education system and the healthcare system, to name a few.

You only have to look at Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, in the U.S. Constitution to find the Three-fifths Compromise of 1787. This is the infamous clause that counted three-fifths of a state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purpose of apportioning members to the House of Representatives. Slaves, of course, could not vote, multiplying the irony. The clause was eventually nullified by the 14th Amendment, but the three-fifths text remains in the Constitution to this day – just as a visual reminder to our original sin. Embedded racism, indeed.

White nationalists apparently cannot come to grips with the history that people of a color other than themselves (white grievance) have been discriminated against and that CRT should not be taught in public schools. Incredibly, this argument has filtered down into community public school systems to the point where it has disrupted school board meetings.

Well, CRT is not taught in public school systems. It began decades ago as a graduate course at Harvard. It has somehow become a white nationalist talking point, based on a convoluted history that CRT is now being taught to children. It's not, but even if that were true, so what?

Other theories abound: The moon landing was staged in a Hollywood studio; the Earth is flat and the moon isn't real (thus Hollywood, I guess); Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone – or he didn't; 5G causes cancer; and Muhammad Ali decked Sonny Liston with a phantom punch in 1965. The list is endless.

I'm waiting for the baby formula shortage theory. You know, the one where 192 Republican House members vote against funding $28 million to the Food and Drug Administration to inspect foreign manufacture of formulas and to prevent future supply chain shortages. Wait. Am I getting this right? As Republicans, we're gung ho to ban abortions, but we don't want to feed the babies that are subsequently born into forced motherhood?

My theory is that conspiracy theories exist not so much to present an alternative view as it is to present an alternative political agenda, then throw it against a wall to see what sticks.

These days, it seems, too much is sticking even in the face of facts and logic.

We actually might need more CTT (critical thinking theory) which, sadly, seems to suggest critical thinking is, indeed, mostly theory after all.