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How Conspiracy Theories and Secret Society Fears Have Shaped American History - Mo News Interview

Mo News

@mosheh / tentwentytwo

News, Daily News, News Commentary

4.92K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From the Salem Witch Trials to Qanon, it turns out that conspiracy theories are “as American as apple pie.” We dive into why we believe them, and how they have impacted American history and democracy in a conversation with author and cultural historian Colin Dickey.  His latest book, “Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shape American Democracy,” provides some fascinating historical perspective into how fears of immigrants, other religions, and secret societies have impacted the country’s history over the last few centuries.  Mark Twain once said that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes,” and we learn that from this unique look at the American story.  —- Mosheh Oinounou (@mosheh) is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning journalist. He has 20 years of experience at networks including Fox News, Bloomberg Television and CBS News, where he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and launched the network's 24 hour news channel. He founded the @mosheh Instagram news account in 2020 and the Mo News podcast and newsletter in 2022. Follow Mo News on all platforms: Website: www.mo.news Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mosheh/ Daily Newsletter: https://www.mo.news/newsletter Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@monews Twitter: https://twitter.com/mosheh TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mosheh Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MoshehNews Snapchat: https://t.snapchat.com/pO9xpLY9

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Mo News podcast. We wanted to feature a few of our favorite

0:08.7

conversations from the last year during this holiday week. One of the more interesting

0:13.8

conversations I had this past year was with author Colin Dickie. He has a book out on

0:19.2

conspiracy theories and American history and how conspiracy

0:22.8

theories go back to before the founding of the nation. It didn't start with QAnon, folks. It started

0:28.3

with George Washington, before George Washington. But really what he gets at is that there's been no

0:33.6

part of American history where we haven't believed in some sort of larger conspiracy that

0:38.3

includes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, a fear of immigrants, whether they were Catholic,

0:44.2

Chinese, Italian, Irish, Jewish, and of course through today to immigrants coming in from Latin

0:50.1

America, I think you will find this conversation fascinating, eye-opening. If you're a lover of

0:56.4

American history, you like to get at what makes us tick and why things are the way they are. Definitely

1:02.7

take a listen today to this conversation. Before we get started here today, a reminder to consider

1:07.2

joining Mo News Premium for early access to podcast episodes like this one.

1:12.1

By becoming a member, you get all interviews, extra content, as well as deep dives, your

1:17.1

questions answered on a member's only Instagram account.

1:20.4

It's a way to get that extra content, but also support independent journalism, support

1:24.2

what we're doing here at Mo News to help keep the free daily podcast, free

1:29.1

daily newsletter, and all of the content on the main Instagram feed going and growing every day.

1:34.3

You can get access to Mo News Premium right now over at Mo.com.

1:38.0

Just $7 a month or $70 a year.

1:42.1

That's two free months on the annual package.

1:44.2

We're also offering a 30-day free trial right now, a free month with the code Mo News

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