Trick or Treat? Spooky Trump or Visionless Harris?

AND A lizard person’s guide to US election conspiracy theories

Trick or Treat, my dear Mega Orderers.

After some general musings and a pod episode I offer an article on conspiracy theories in part (for everyone) and (in full for paid subscribers)

This Halloween things are feeling very Spooky, very spooky to me indeed. Harris has made her closing argument to the nation without clarifying in a way the American people can understand ‘what she stands for’ and what ‘her big vision is’. She has had months to differentiate herself from Biden on Gaza and the economy and has failed to do so.

She succeeded in falling 1000% into the Hillary trap of running a continuity campaign focused on competence and technocracy and pivoting towards the centre. We already know that that doesn’t work. Why even try? Better to make up unimplementable plans to create green jobs and digitize and give stimulus and end wars… but she didn’t do that…. Three days ago she was ahead in PA polling now she is even behind in the PA polling. It is clear not only from the betting markets but from all the pollsters and analysts and pundits and psephologists that she is an underdog. I make it only 54/46… but still I would say it is truly too late for an October surprise (both literally and metaphorically)… so she goes into the election as a solid dog. Even the disgusting comments that Trump surrogates have made about Latinos and Puerto Ricans are unlikely to constitute an real needle mover of the kind that would constitute said October surprise. And the dems have failed to effectively capitalize on the various own goals that Trump has thrown up there. They have played the game ‘hillary-style’ sticking to safe defensive middle-of-the-road tried-and-true tactics. But the key thing is the lack of differentiate from Biden we know that the world over people are in anti-incumbent cycle and all they want to do is ‘throw the bastards out’… they don’t want policies. so she needed to situate herself within that wave… but the blob is apparently unable to change the course of the ship of state… nor is it able to propose mega-ordering. None of this is to say that Trump won’t be a horrific disaster. He will be. He will ruin the economy by deregulating finance, allow existential risk by not regulating AI, allow the despoiling of the climate to proceed without collective action on solutions, let Ukraine be defeated, actually help China by his stupid tariffs, hurt world peace by giving Israel a free hand in the Middle East, and crush US domestic productivity if he actually deports the illegal aliens we need to run our economy. And yes of course Harris will be fine. But she just hasn’t made a good case for herself (or proposed really long term mega ordering solutions) it is so sad.

It is enough to make anyone want to head for the hills as the apocalypse comes and the Disorder deepens… so that is what I did.

That is Mount Blanc.. (in fact it is a fairly good view of its so-called Miage face)

These are the Alps on the Italian Side.

So yes despite my seclusion in Coastal Malta with various natives and holiday makers (NONE OF WHOM TALK ABOUT THE ELECTION AND I KID YOU NOT MANY DO NOT KNOW WHEN IT IS HAPPENING)

I remain as terrified as they come as I pen this last substack before election day.

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To celebrate this terrifying Halloween, I went on the Keen On show hosted by friend of the Disorder Pod, Andrew Keen, to talk about America’s spooky election and the crazy conspiracy theories that are floating around this election cycle. What does it really mean when people say the 2020 election was stolen or that Bill Gates implants people with microchips via their Covid Vaccines?

Conspiracy theories are not only, not new, they are a core part of how campaigns of social change are articulated. The more radical the change – the French Revolution, the rise of Hitler, or Trump’s election—the more paramount the need for conspiracy theories to motivate the required action need to bring it about. Given his recent study of the phenomenon, Jason articulates his view that the conspiratorial rhetoric around this election embodies a new ‘us vs. them’ turn in American political life. He urges Andrew and listeners to Read beneath the surface! And Unpack the True hidden meaning of the conspiracy!

Pointing to his New European Article (published this week), Jason concludes: Conspiracy theories are a socially acceptable way of articulating a Politics of Ressentiment – of pitting groups against each other. Just like Brexit, Trump has signalled that he will ‘take back control’ from the minorities, Jews, uppity feminists, transgender activists, immigrants, urban lawyers, and all the other groups you hate and feel have too much power. Spooky indeed!

(Listen here)

Revisit last week’s Disorder episode 76, ‘The System is Rigged: Conspiracy theories and the revenge of the losers’ with Joe Uscinski here: 

Check out Andrew Keen’s Substack here:

Listen to Andrew podcast on Spotify here:

Or most importantly read my New European Article here: https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/a-lizard-persons-guide-to-us-election-conspiracy-theories/

(the teaser is below but to read the whole thing you either need to join the paid substack (by preference), use a free preview, or substack’s offer of a free month, or join the New European (not a bad idea either esp if you are a Remain inclined Brit as it is the best publication form that perspective in the UK)

A lizard person’s guide to US election conspiracy theories

If you’re wondering how a person like Trump might win, just look at what some of his supporters believe

Jason Pack

On behalf of the lizard people who rule the multiverse, I have travelled between dimensions to deliver to you a multi-layered message prior to the 2024 US presidential election:

1) Be warned! There is an all-powerful elite who meet in secret and control your Earth

As an Oxbridge-educated, left-of-centre, anti-Brexit, yet pro-market capitalism podcaster, who just so happens to live in north London and support Nato, I am a part of that elite, and hence, I am secretly a lizard. However, despite our global elite establishment being all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, and highly self-interested, we are still very very stupid. 

Despite lots of secret conspiratorial planning, we frequently choose decisions that backfire or are of no use to our interests (like the Iraq war, letting China into the WTO, or faking the pandemic to use the vaccine jabs to implant microchips into people seeking to monitor them, which we could have done much more effectively via their smartphones). It is our stupidity at being an all-powerful, all-conspiratorial elite, which is also why over the last two centuries, the composition of the global elite has shifted from being largely European aristocrats to then being American politicians and business tycoons to now comprising East Asian industrialists and Middle Eastern oil potentates. 

Do not be fooled by the details and any seeming inconsistencies. There has always been a conspiratorial elite pulling the strings behind seemingly confusing events like Covid, Brexit, and why the England men’s football team has not won a major final since 1966.

2) Believe! This elite of lizard people has always existed

Conspiracy theories are not only not new, they are a core part of how campaigns of social change are articulated. The more radical the change – the French Revolution, the rise of Hitler, or Trump’s election – the more paramount the need for conspiracy theories to motivate the required action needed to bring it about. As such, conspiracy theories are in fact as old as humanity and they certainly predate both monotheism and writing.

We the lizard people would like to give you an insight into how we work and why we formulate conspiracy theories. We do it because it is these “memeable” theories that allow us to control the Earth.

I’d like to help you Earthlings unpick the multilayered meaning of the most prevalent conspiracy theories that we have injected over the last decade or so to manipulate your Anglo-American politics. You know, our lizardy myths like: the 2020 election was stolen, the immigrants are taking your jobs, the Great Replacement theory, the deep state, George Soros runs the world, and Bill Gates implants people with microchips.

3) Honour tradition by blaming “the Jews”! It usually makes the conspiracy theory more viral!

We the lizard people are most accustomed to our acolytes calling the hidden elite “the Jews”. Over the centuries we have learned that antisemitism seems a good anchor for the spreading of a successful conspiracy theory. It has also proven very flexible and listeners are not worried about potential illogicalities or inconsistencies.

“The Jews use x to control the world” is a time-honoured formulation. So defer to tradition! Use this formula! 

But also: Be creative! X can be capitalism, communism, imperialism, the bubonic plague, Covid, migration flows, Zionism, kompromat from Jeffrey Epstein’s paedophilia ring, or even something very silly like chewing gum. It doesn’t need to make sense to work. Do not be fooled by the fact that, despite running the world for centuries according to the most successful conspiracy theories, “the Jews” were seemingly powerless to prevent much of their population from being massacred. 

Use of “the Jews” helps the listener suspend disbelief and logic and accept the conspiracy theory more easily. This appears to work because many people are irrationally terrified, jealous and resentful of Jews.

4) Conspiracy theories don’t have to make sense – just appeal to “out” groups

As Joe Uscinski, author of Conspiracy Theories: A Primer and recent guest on my Disorder podcast has pointed out via extensive surveys, conspiracy theories express a coherent worldview and plan of action for those who perceive themselves without economic or political power. Seen in this light conspiracy theories are calls to action by the powerless to “take back control” from the powerful. 

Whether they rely on pure fantasy (Jewish space lasers) or possible (an elite sex trafficking ring is running American politicians) is not actually that important – it is the implicit call to action by pointing out an injustice or unfairness that we the listeners must seek to be correct. It is for this reason that they appeal to groups who perceive themselves as not able to access traditional levers of economic or political power. 

Hence, to understand how conspiracy theories work, we the lizard people ask you to grasp that beliefs encourage actions. Hence, it is critical that you believe this all-powerful and all-conspiratorial establishment elite exists and that you will risk everything to heroically fight it. 

It does not matter if you call this elite “the WHO”, as Peter Lynch did, or “DAVOS” as Nigel Farage’s Reform campaign manager in Clacton-on-Sea did in late June when I spoke to him, or if you call it “the establishment”, or the time-tested “the Jews”. 

For the rest of the article pls subscribe to the pay version of the substack… There is some good satire on the other side of this paywall, that I can promise.