Why Tucker Carlson loves UFOs: Jason Colavito on the hidden links between conspiracy theories

[marmar]

Why Tucker Carlson loves UFOs: Jason Colavito on the hidden links between conspiracy theories
There's immense overlap, Colavito says, between QAnon believers, UFO enthusiasts and Donald Trump's superfans

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
PUBLISHED JUNE 21, 2021 6:00AM


(Salon) The American people live in the same country. That does not mean they share a common reality. This inability to agree upon basic empirical facts and the nature of the truth is undermining the country's democracy.

Moreover, a type of collective malignant narcissism, in which entire communities of people believe that their opinions supersede empirical reality and scientific fact, is undermining America's present and future prosperity, stability and freedom, not to mention the basic health of our society.

....(snip)....

Jason Colavito is a professional skeptic, researcher and author whose essays have been featured at The New Republic and Slate. He has also appeared on the History Channel and the American Heroes Channel. Colavito is the author of several books, including "The Mound Builder Myth," "Jason and the Argonauts Through the Ages" and the forthcoming "The Legends of the Pyramids: Myths and Misconceptions about Ancient Egypt."

In this conversation, Colavito places these "new" conspiracy theories about QAnon and the Big Lie about the 2020 election — as well as the decades-long popular obsession with UFOs — in a larger context of fear and anxiety about social change in America, arguing that a particular version of insecure white masculinity (and white supremacy more generally) is central to many of today's most widely believed conspiracy theories.

....(snip)....

QAnon, the "Deep State," Donald Trump's Big Lie and and now a report by the U.S. government on UFOs. How do you explain this confluence of events?

First, it's important to understand that all these conspiracy theories are interrelated. It's not like QAnon is completely separate from UFOs and that is completely separate from a conspiracy about Jewish bankers taking over the world — as Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested, by using "Jewish space lasers." These conspiracies are all connected by this idea of rejected knowledge — that there is a secret body of knowledge that can tell a person how the world really works, and is being hidden away from the public by elites.

People who believe in conspiracy theories are searching for a means to understand a complex and changing world in a simple way, one that flatters their own particular prejudices, particular beliefs and feelings that they should be the ones at the center of the historical narrative. ................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/21/why-tucker-carlson-loves-ufos-jason-colavito-on-the-hidden-links-between-conspiracy-theories/

[grumpyduck]

1. I don't believe it.

I think Fucker is just a TV "personality" who has found a niche feeding bullshit to a segment of the population that wants an excuse to be pissed off. He and his writers and producers probably sit there laughing all the way to the bank cominng up with this shit.

[Chainfire]

2. You summed up my feelings exactly

These people could not be as ignorant as they appear; but they expect that their audience is.

[cbabe]

3. You are correct

he doesn't believe it, grumpyduck.

But the harm done by media brainwashing is enormous regardless.

I wish the Salon reporter deVega would report on CoastToCoastAm, the overnight radio show with the huge audience. It went from bigfoot and UFO entertainment to hardcore qanon, etc.

The host George Noory calls Alec Jones and Roger Stone friends of the program. My pillowguy is a main advertiser.

I've been waiting for years for radio stations and other media outlets to take this on this toxic stuff.