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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Let's bring in David Samuel to the show right now.

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Speaker 2: The editor of Country Highway. It's a magazine styled as

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Speaker 2: a nineteenth century American broadsheet, which he co founded. Raised

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Speaker 2: in Brooklyn, New York, Samuels is a longtime writer for Harper's,

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Speaker 2: The New Yorker in others and is known for his

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Speaker 2: mastery of new old journalism. And we're going to get

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Speaker 2: into some conspiracy stuff tonight. Let's bring him in right now.

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Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, let's get to the latest

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Speaker 2: conspiracy and why it's ripe for him to pick apart

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Speaker 2: as being probably not a morsel of truth in it.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, David, nice to meet you.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me. What a pleasure.

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Speaker 2: A pleasure for me too. So the moment that the

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Speaker 2: fire start in Los Angeles, the first thing I start

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Speaker 2: hearing is that you can see three of them, are

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Speaker 2: two of them starting from a satellite from an aerial

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Speaker 2: view at the exact same time, And people are comparing

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Speaker 2: it to the fires in Hawaii and the high winds

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Speaker 2: and how quickly it's swept through and the biggest one

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Speaker 2: I'm hearing is that the money elites are trying to

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Speaker 2: put together a smart city and therefore the fires were

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Speaker 2: set on purpose. Do you want to talk about that

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Speaker 2: for a second, your thoughts on that one.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I want to say first that you know

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Speaker 3: two things about conspiracy theories. The first one is that

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Speaker 3: this country is founded on a conspiracy theory, which is

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Speaker 3: that King George the third had a plot to deprive

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Speaker 3: American colonists and indeed just starting with them, all Englishmen,

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Speaker 3: of their traditional liberties. And that's why we had the

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Speaker 3: American Revolution was because of this deep dark plot by

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Speaker 3: evil King George the Third and his counselors. Of course,

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Speaker 3: there was no such plot. King George the Third was

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Speaker 3: a you know, maybe better, slightly better than average English king.

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Speaker 3: He had no plans to deprive anybody of their traditional liberties,

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Speaker 3: and indeed he never did.

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Speaker 2: Really, I don't think I knew that. I think that's

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Speaker 2: pretty interesting the.

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Speaker 3: American that's the American revolution. That's why we had a

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Speaker 3: revolution in this country was because of it goes back

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Speaker 3: actually to seventeenth century English Whig political theory, which positive

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Speaker 3: that the king was a sort of monster in waiting,

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Speaker 3: and in the eighteenth century American colonists claimed to believe.

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Speaker 3: Whether they actually did believe it as a matter of

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Speaker 3: some debate, but certainly if you read the pamphlet literature

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Speaker 3: that they tried to convince their fellow soon to be

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Speaker 3: countrymen to rebel against the crown, that's the case they made.

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Speaker 3: We are on the verge of tyranny here, and it's

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Speaker 3: a tyranny coming straight from London, from this evil king

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Speaker 3: and his crazed advisors. And first they're going to deprive

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Speaker 3: us of our liberties. That's why the little things the

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Speaker 3: Crown did mattered so much, which is that they were

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Speaker 3: signs of this much larger tyrannical plot. And Sam Adams

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Speaker 3: and all the Patrick Henry, the pamphleteers of the revolution,

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Speaker 3: you know, hammered away at this point in their pamphilet

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Speaker 3: literature leading up to the revolution, and that was the

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Speaker 3: cause of the revolution. It was fake.

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Speaker 2: Well, there seems like though, there must be a kernel

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Speaker 2: of truth in the emotion behind what fuels a conspiracy

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Speaker 2: to kind of get off the ground. In fact, us

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Speaker 2: talking about it with the crew before the show, and

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Speaker 2: I said, I wonder if this in this day and age.

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Speaker 2: If I just told you I was going to start

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Speaker 2: a conspiracy a theory about something, what would be faster

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Speaker 2: how it takes flight over the internet and starts catching

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Speaker 2: or you debunking it, and it goes to my theory

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Speaker 2: that I've had for a long time. It's a lot

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Speaker 2: easier to convince somebody of something that is ridiculous than

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Speaker 2: it is to tell them that they're being fooled. Do

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Speaker 2: you feel like we're that country.

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Speaker 3: To Yeah, I think everybody is. Nobody likes to admit

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Speaker 3: that they were fooled. You know. I would also say that,

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Speaker 3: you know, my second point about conspiracy series is the

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Speaker 3: more general human point, which is that our brains are

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Speaker 3: pattern finding machines. They are made to find patterns.

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Speaker 2: To connect the dots and.

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Speaker 3: Connect the dots exactly. That's how we understand that, you know,

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Speaker 3: when rain falls from the sky, then plants grow. Right,

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Speaker 3: that's a conspiracy. I mean that we bit of data

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Speaker 3: that we connect to every other bit, right, is a theory.

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Speaker 3: It's part of a you know, the pattern. We're searching

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Speaker 3: for patterns, and the ones that prove to be useful

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Speaker 3: or true, you know, are the things that fuel are

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Speaker 3: you know, first of all our ability to to hunt,

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Speaker 3: to grow crops, to build stuff that doesn't fall down

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Speaker 3: to you know, so so so this is the fundament

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Speaker 3: of our existence. So we do it naturally, and it's

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Speaker 3: the thing that you know, distinguishes us from from uh

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Speaker 3: lower animals, So we'll always do it. And the third

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Speaker 3: thing that I'd say is that the term conspiracy theory

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Speaker 3: has a specific historical origin, which is the Warren Commission report.

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Speaker 2: The Kennedy assassination. Which I was going to bring that

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Speaker 2: to your attention because it seems like, maybe, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: fifteen twenty years ago, you would have thought that just

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Speaker 2: what you heard the Warren Report might have been the thing.

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Speaker 2: But then now it seems like most people believe that

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Speaker 2: the CIA had a part in taking out Kennedy. Is

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Speaker 2: that part of getting conspiracy out of control or do

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Speaker 2: you think we're onto something there.

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Speaker 3: Well, first, the history of the term conspiracy theory, which

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Speaker 3: is embedded in the Warren Commission report, is worth unpacking

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Speaker 3: a bit before we get to the question whether I

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Speaker 3: actually believe the Warren Commissions fair. So, the Warren Commission

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Speaker 3: report positive that a rone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, killed

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Speaker 3: John F. Kennedy. That was known as the rone gunman theory,

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Speaker 3: and the Warren Commission ran into significant levels of resistance

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Speaker 3: to that theory. The CIA came up with the term

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Speaker 3: conspiracy theory to describe in the testimony of CIA officials

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Speaker 3: the alternate theory or theories that a group of people

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Speaker 3: had conspired to kill the president. Right. That was the

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Speaker 3: first use of the term conspiracy theory that I'm familiar

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Speaker 3: with now. Of course, it's very cunning because on one hand,

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Speaker 3: it's just descriptive loan gunman theory versus conspiracy theory. On

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Speaker 3: the other hand, the term conspiracy theory makes it sound

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Speaker 3: like the people are conspiring against you. It makes it

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Speaker 3: sound like something a paranoid person would think, and in

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Speaker 3: that very subtle way makes conspiracy theory gives it that

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Speaker 3: little vibrating edge that you're a lunatic, right if you

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Speaker 3: believe it. But of course, it's no more rational to

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Speaker 3: assume that one person went and killed the president all

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Speaker 3: by themselves than it is to assume that a group

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Speaker 3: of people conspired to kill the president. In fact, you know,

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Speaker 3: that's been the case, certainly was the case of the

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Speaker 3: Lincoln assassination. Right, John Wilke's boost didn't act alone, and

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Speaker 3: in most historical events you don't see one person acting

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Speaker 3: in a vacuum. It would be reasonable to assume they

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Speaker 3: had help of some kind, so that, I guess set

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Speaker 3: up the opposition between official truth and conspiracy series being

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Speaker 3: the opposite of official truth. And it is ironic at

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Speaker 3: this point that you know, sixty years later, I think

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Speaker 3: something like seventy to seventy three percent in the last

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Speaker 3: poll that I saw of people believe in some form

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Speaker 3: of a conspiracy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, then in the moon landing both seem to I

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Speaker 2: feel like the king daddies of the things that we

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Speaker 2: are kind of questioning are the moon landing Kennedy nine

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Speaker 2: to eleven, and probably COVID recently, the big one.

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Speaker 3: The New era. I think of American quote unquote conspiracy

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Speaker 3: theories in that the government is the source of the

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Speaker 3: official truth, and then the thing that disbelieves the government

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Speaker 3: is a conspiracy theory. We sort of see that from

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Speaker 3: the point of view of government. Of course, before that

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Speaker 3: it was common, you know, to imagine the governments lie right.

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Speaker 2: Oh sure, But I'm kind of wondering, since you kind

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Speaker 2: of have your foot deep in the history world, is

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Speaker 2: our country the biggest it not believing what we're told

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Speaker 2: or has that been that way throughout history? In every

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Speaker 2: country feels like the people that are in charge have

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Speaker 2: got an alternative agenda as opposed to the one that

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Speaker 2: they tell you.

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Speaker 3: Well, I would say that what made America unique for

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Speaker 3: a long time is that because we were founded on

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Speaker 3: a conspiracy as a country, right, the revolution based in

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Speaker 3: a conspiracy theory, we set up a form of government

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Speaker 3: that was itself the product of a conspiratorial mindset to

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Speaker 3: guard against any future tyrannical encroachment on our liberties. Right,

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Speaker 3: the Bill of Rights is a unique document. It's a

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Speaker 3: foundational document. It is the product of the American paranoia,

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Speaker 3: suspicion of power and what it intended to do to us,

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Speaker 3: and it you know, people are often shocked to find that,

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Speaker 3: you know, there are no formal guarantees of freedom of

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Speaker 3: speech or seeing of the press. If you go to

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Speaker 3: France or England and the government can, if they wish,

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Speaker 3: just lock you up for things so that they don't like.

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Speaker 3: In fact, that's been a traditional thing that governments do

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Speaker 3: in what we consider to be free democratic countries in

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Speaker 3: Europe and elsewhere. America is unique in that it has

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Speaker 3: these guarantees of individual freedoms that are foundational to how

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Speaker 3: we live. And in that sense, there wasn't really official

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Speaker 3: truth in America in the sense that the government could

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Speaker 3: enforce it or did enforce it until really, I'd say,

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Speaker 3: there's fifties and sixties and the Warrant Commission Report and

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Speaker 3: the birth of the term conspiracy theory, to me is

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Speaker 3: a sort of watershed moment, and there's a reason why

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Speaker 3: sort of every major event since then has attracted a

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Speaker 3: conspiracy theory versus a formal report. There's a nine to

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Speaker 3: eleven report, and then there's the conspiracies around nine to eleven.

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Speaker 3: This is a dynamic that now seems very enshrined in

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Speaker 3: American life since the sixties, and I think it has

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Speaker 3: its origin in this sort of attempt to create official

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Speaker 3: government truth by a federal government that really did threaten

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Speaker 3: the liberties of ordinary citizens and did have the ability

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Speaker 3: to control information on a national scale, which it certainly

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Speaker 3: does now, which was just not, you know, physically or

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Speaker 3: spiritually the case beforehand.

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Speaker 2: So what do you think is so huge now about conspiracy?

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Speaker 2: Because if you go down that YouTube rabbit hole, the

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Speaker 2: pages that are dedicated to here's what I think is

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Speaker 2: going on here, or even you know, talking about they're

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Speaker 2: hiding Egyptian relics that they found inside the Grand Canyon.

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Speaker 2: All those things, like they catch so much, spread so fast,

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Speaker 2: to the point where I have to be honest. From

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Speaker 2: guest hosting the show, there's a lot of things that

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Speaker 2: I never would have thought before. But when people come

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Speaker 2: on the show and they have such convictions and they

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Speaker 2: go boom, boom boom, here are points I think, Okay, well,

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Speaker 2: I feel like we've been lied to recently by people

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Speaker 2: in government. So you know, there's a couple of those

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Speaker 2: that you can just see. So if A equals B,

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Speaker 2: then the rest of it could be true as well.

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Speaker 2: I wonder why it's so popular right now.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'd say there's two reasons. The first first then,

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Speaker 3: and they're tied together. The first is this attempt to

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Speaker 3: establish and mandate official truth, which is sort of took

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Speaker 3: flight with the War and Commission report. And thereafter you

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Speaker 3: have this unceasing attempt by the federal government and its

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Speaker 3: agencies to command right thought to Americans, and inevitably that

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Speaker 3: right thought falls apart because it's a construction of you know,

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Speaker 3: seven people in the world is a big, weird place,

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Speaker 3: and that has eroded public trust and confidence in the

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Speaker 3: stories that were given. And the other thing that happened

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Speaker 3: is that we are living through an enormous technological revolution,

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Speaker 3: and it's enormous revolution in the way information moves and

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Speaker 3: has spread. I don't think there's been anything like it

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Speaker 3: since the invention of the printing press five hundred years ago.

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Speaker 3: And people forget, they think the invention of the printing

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Speaker 3: press was a wonderful landmark in human civilization. In it

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Speaker 3: it was, but it was also the cause of, you know,

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Speaker 3: the enormous religious wars that devastated Europe between Protestantism, a

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Speaker 3: religion that was basically created by the printing press, and

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Speaker 3: the Catholic Church. And the result there was one hundred

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Speaker 3: years war. It killed you know, fifty percent of the

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Speaker 3: people in Central Europe. It was more devastating than either

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Speaker 3: World War One or World War Two by a large factor. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, people imagine that big revolutions and technology and

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Speaker 3: the way information is transmitted are you know, simple good things,

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Speaker 3: and they made in the end be good things, but

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Speaker 3: they're incredibly disruptive things that shake up people's former understanding

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Speaker 3: of the world and introduce the chaos and the room

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Speaker 3: for every other kind of theory. And then human beings

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Speaker 3: work it out, and along the way, social forms get fractured,

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Speaker 3: states disappear, tens of millions of people die like that's

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Speaker 3: human history. That's normal, and we're living for a moment

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Speaker 3: like that.

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Speaker 1: Now, Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight

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