Culture war

On the trail of a conspiracy theory

by Ben Geman

If you've followed the coverage of white supremacist Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr.'s recent shooting rampage in Los Angeles, you've probably heard the name Chip Berlet. He's a senior analyst with Somerville's Political Research Associates, an organization that monitors right-wing movements and helps the public understand what's behind them.

Berlet's recent study "Clinton, Conspiracism, and the Continuing Culture War: What Is Past Is Prologue" examines a side of the American right that he says is separate from but acts in concert with the fringe that harbors hatemongers such as Furrow. In fact, he believes, disparate branches of the conservative movement have seen their separate concerns converge around the goal of defeating "liberal secularist humanism." While there's no direct link between what motivates the right-wing attacks on Clinton and the LA violence, says Berlet, there is a common set of scapegoating views -- what he calls "producerism," the idea that a "heroic middle class" is under siege from government above and "parasites" below.

Berlet's new study looks at the think tanks, individuals, and publications that have helped fuel attacks on Bill Clinton -- and looks ahead to their next campaigns. The impeachment scandal has receded, he concludes, but the movement that helped feed it hasn't.

Q: Would you say the anti-Clinton groups you wrote about subscribe to the producerism model?

A: Oh, sure -- many of the organizations and individuals who targeted Clinton believed in that conspiracy, and they only settled for Lewinsky as the way to get this wholly evil and demonic force out of the White House. And if that paradigm and these groups existed before the impeachment process and they continue to exist afterward, then the impeachment process is just the latest battle in the continuing culture war.

Q: But things like the Lewinsky scandal would be news even without right-wing organizations drumming up these attacks, wouldn't they?

A: What I'm arguing is that these are movements that have stepped way outside the bounds of legitimate discourse. In other words, is it completely legitimate to suggest that the president shouldn't be having an affair in the Oval Office? It's legitimate criticism. [But] I don't think President Clinton ran an assassination plot in Arkansas. I don't think President Clinton is in league with Satan. I don't think President Clinton is part of a vast liberal secular-humanist conspiracy that uses the public schools to brainwash our children. And yet, if you look at the narrative, the stories that are being told among many of these groups that provided the basis of support for the Lewinsky investigation, that is what they're talking about.

Q: To what degree have these organizations been able to inject their ideas into mainstream discourse?

A: People in more-mainstream organizations, such as the Republican Party, tolerate and even encourage these sectors to engage in apocalyptic conspiracy theories and demonization and scapegoating, because it has political value to them.

Q: But look at the Iowa straw poll. You have Bush, who did very well, and then you've got some of those candidates much further to the right, who didn't do nearly as well. And I think you can really make the case that George W. Bush is much closer ideologically to Al Gore and Bill Bradley.

A: Sure, and I think you could also argue that in the current political climate, Richard Nixon would be a liberal to the left of Clinton. You can argue, and many people do, that Gore and Bush are ideologically quite similar, but they are standing on a stage that has been yanked to the right.