Ep. 165: Conspiracies, Bias, and the Changing Landscape of Political Debate with David Harsanyi [The Outstanding Podcast]
FLF, LLC
FLF, LLC
4.7 • 957 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2025
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Harsanyi, Senior Editor at The Federalist and author of The Rise of Blueanon, joins Joseph Backholm to explore the growing influence of conspiracy theories in modern politics. He discusses how political debate has shifted from rational discourse to emotionally driven arguments and how declining trust in main media institutions, combined with the fragmentation of media, amplifies misinformation and the creation of new conspiracy theories.
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| 0:00.0 | A lot of people will say, well, I changed my mind, you know, I changed my mind because it's different times. |
| 0:05.0 | You know, this is, you know, things have changed or no, if you have a principle, yeah, you have a principle. |
| 0:11.3 | A principle is not a tether to some moment. |
| 0:15.3 | It's a principle that should work in all moments. |
| 0:17.4 | It's like when people say the constitution's antiquated, well, it doesn't work that way. Those are natural rights that they're, you know, will do process, the right to defend |
| 0:25.0 | yourself, the right to speak out, the right to worship the way you want. Those can't be antiquated. |
| 0:29.3 | If they're antiquated, then you never believed in them in the first place. |
| 0:31.9 | Outstanding is a production of The Washington Stand, where you can find news and commentary from the biblical worldview. |
| 0:42.7 | Welcome to Outstanding, where we have critical conversations about the news of the day and the ideas that shape us. Once again, I'm your host, Joseph Backhol, reminding you of the duty and the joy that |
| 0:48.9 | we have to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Today, we're going to think about why that's a challenge. |
| 0:56.6 | More specifically, we're going to discuss why people believe things that probably aren't true. |
| 1:03.6 | We refer to these sometimes as conspiracy theories, and during the first Trump term, |
| 1:08.6 | there was a lot of attention given to the QAnon phenomenon. |
| 1:12.7 | And people asked, are conservatives conspiracy theorists by nature? My guest today says there's a |
| 1:19.7 | unique left-wing version of conspiracies on the rise as well, which forces us all to consider |
| 1:26.1 | the question, is there something about human nature |
| 1:28.4 | that likes conspiracy theories? David Harsani is a senior editor at the Federalist, a nationally |
| 1:34.1 | syndicated columnist, with a keen eye for dissecting political and cultural narratives of our time. |
| 1:39.3 | He's the author of several thought-provoking books, including the latest, which we're going to |
| 1:43.3 | discuss today, |
| 1:50.2 | The Rise of Blue and On, how Democratic conspiracies and political cults are shaping the future. |
| 1:51.8 | David, thanks for taking some time today. |
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