How smart people fall for conspiracy theories

Who falls into the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and how can you reach them? That’s the topic of a three-episode season of CNN’s new narrative podcast series “The Account.” Donie O’Sullivan covers politics and technology for CNN and that intersection frequently leads him to stories about how misinformation spreads online. What I found most compelling about this new series is the idea that it’s frequently very smart people who fall for crazy-seeming conspiracy theories. I talked to O’Sullivan about the podcast, how to have empathy for people who fall down rabbit holes and how conspiracy theories are influencing people at the top of government. Our conversation, edited for length, is below. What is this about? Wolf: This is a multi-part podcast about how people, including yourself, can fall for misinformation. What made you decide to pursue this? O’Sullivan: We do a lot of these stories on conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists, and I can’t tell you how many hundreds, thousands of messages I’ve got from viewers saying, “I have a loved one – friend, brother, sister, mom, dad – who is sort of falling down this rabbit hole, and I have no idea what to do.” I never really had much of a solution for them. What I wanted to do with this was to try to come up with something that could help. Psychologists and people who’ve gotten out of conspiracy theory rabbit holes themselves – they all talk about how empathy plays such an important role. That way, when someone is ready to or wants to come out of it, that they know they have a loved one to come back to and that they can come out of the rabbit hole with dignity and not be told they’re stupid, etc. Smart people may believe outlandish things Wolf: In fact, some of the experts tell you people who can fall into conspiracy theories are frequently pretty smart people. Explain that. O’Sullivan: I think we have this idea – and in some ways it might be comforting to think –that it’s only quote-unquote “crazy” people that can find themselves in this situation. But it really isn’t, and I know that from meeting many people over the years. These are your moms and dads, brothers, sisters. A lot of times, it is people who have had some life event, a big change in their life, or a trauma, and whatever has happened, they are searching for meaning, purpose, answers; searching for community. That is why 2020, with the lockdowns and the uncertainty about COVID and all of us just isolating and spending more time just with our screens, we saw conspiracy theories really flourish. Wolf: It was like a collective life event. O’Sullivan: Conspiracy theories can offer very easy answers to very difficult questions. The edge of a rabbit hole Wolf: You talk about yourself kind of teetering on the edge of rabbit holes. Was there a particular thing that you found yourself talking yourself out of? O’Sullivan: Oh God, that’s tricky. Less than me flirting with conspiracy theories and more that I can fall in a rabbit hole in my own mind – of depression and anxiety and believing irrational thoughts about myself that many people who struggle with depression would recognize… believing I’m a terrible person, or dwelling on things, beating yourself up irrationally. The strange comfort of conspiracy theories Wolf: I thought that was an interesting moment where you and one of the experts wonder if there’s a sort of comfort in an evil conspiracy – because it places order on things, whereas reality, which can be very random, can make anyone feel powerless. O’Sullivan: I think we want to find order, right? We want to think there’s a reason why things are happening, and at least someone is in charge, even if that someone is evil. I think it’s hard for us as human beings to really believe that things are random. Going back to Covid. One of the big Covid conspiracy theories was that this was a man-made virus that was deliberately spread, right? There’s somebody controlling it. It’s not random. It’s not an accident. I think Covid is also a lesson for all of us, too, that just because people who normally are repeating conspiracy theories say something doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Looking at the Covid lab leak theory and the discourse around that, it’s obviously changed a lot over the years. So this stuff, it’s really, really tricky. If you’re just a regular person, you’re up against it, right? It’s a multimillion if not multibillion-dollar industry, disinformation, right? There’s just so many people online, grifting and making a lot of money out of spreading misinformation. There’s people thriving in this uncertainty and relying on it. The business of pushing conspiracy theories Wolf: That’s almost a conspiracy theory in itself, the idea that misinformation is this organized business. O’Sullivan: That’s something I’ve been tracking for years. You only have to look at what Alex Jones’ enterprise was valued at during the Sandy Hook parents trial a year or two ago. There’s a lot of money in this. There’s a lot of money in selling fear. If you listen to a lot of the you know, quote, unquote, “independent, alternative” podcasts. They are telling you the world’s about to end and telling you about all these evil forces, and then they’re selling you doomsday type products that will help quell the fears that they are stoking, whether that be freeze-dried food or emergency kits. There’s an enormous grift in this. What about the conspiracy theorists at the top of government? Wolf: The entire time I was listening to this, I was thinking about Elon Musk, for instance, who pushes a version of replacement theory that fuels things he’s doing to cut the US government. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. actively believes that Anthony Fauci was involved in a conspiracy around coronavirus vaccines. Kennedy wrote a book about it. Conspiracy theories are arguably pushing national policy at this point. How do you apply empathy to a policy that you disagree with, that’s being fueled by something that you know is factually inaccurate? O’Sullivan: It sort of feels like we’re through the looking glass in that way. Conspiracy theories are informing decisions, seemingly at the highest level of government. We even saw Trump talking about the photoshopped image on a man’s hands. For years, editors would always annoyingly ask me, as I’m doing these stories, “Can we put something in at the end that’s maybe a solution that could help people?” And I was always very much of the opinion that, one, I don’t have a solution because there’s no easy solutions here. And two, it’s not really my job, or the job of a journalist, to come up with solutions. I view my job as reporting on the phenomenon of misinformation, how people consume it and why they believe it. So with that in mind, what we’re putting forth in this series is not going to work for everybody. It might be helpful. But I think what we are trying to do is at least provoke people into thinking about, “Okay, what is it that people are getting out of these conspiracy theories, or what are they lacking in their life that has led them down this path?” But to the other question – there’s a lot of conspiracy theories that are antisemitic or are targeting migrants or are homophobic. If you’re part of those communities, I mean, how could you even imagine being empathetic to somebody who believes something that threatens your whole existence? I don’t want this to come off as a preachy type thing, telling people, “Oh, have empathy.” The series is about how you could have conversations at a family level and try to get in the headspace of a loved one who’s gone down a rabbit hole.