Politics
Opinion: Want to convince a conspiracy theory believer they're wrong? Don't start with the truth
Not long ago, a millennial father of two in the Midwest whom I interviewed was convinced that many of our elected leaders like to feast on the flesh of children. He feared that the world was at the mercy of a depraved club of the richest and most powerful among us, one armed with space lasers and clones.
Most shocking to those who knew him weren’t the conspiracy theories themselves. It was that he had come to believe them. Nearing 40 years old, he was a college-educated, upstanding guy with friends, a family and an established career. How, they wondered, had this perfectly sane person gone crazy?
It’s a question more and more Americans are asking about their own loved ones. As disinformation permeates our culture, the road to QAnon-type territory is getting shorter. Healthy skepticism easily gives way to undue suspicion. The dizzying public reaction to Donald Trump’s near-assassination was a perfect illustration: Observers across the political spectrum raced to fill the information void with baseless assertions that have gained momentum despite mounting evidence to the contrary, revealing a nation increasingly at odds with reality.
The statistics are as stunning as the falsehoods. Millions of people now believe that the government, media and financial worlds are “controlled by Satan-worshiping pedophiles,” according to recent polling. These aren’t loosely held views. While reporting for my book “The Quiet Damage,” I talked to people all over the country who had tried until they were blue in the face to make the conspiracy theorists in their lives accept the truth.
But the truth is almost beside the point.
It seems entirely sensible to fight fiction with fact. In spite of passionately professed allegiances to “the truth,” however, ardent conspiracy theory adopters seldom have a desire to be accurately informed. Belief in the unbelievable, in many cases, stems from desperation to meet fundamental human needs, such as feeling valued and having a purpose. Over the last three years, while interviewing hundreds of disinformation-splintered families, it has become clear to me that facts alone can’t fix this. The solution begins with treating conspiracy theory obsession not as a sickness but as a symptom.
For the Midwestern father, the trouble began after an injury largely robbed him of his mobility — and, in turn, much of his life’s meaning. Once an active family man, he was suddenly stuck in a chair. His wife took up solo hobbies and completed the housework alone; his children played with friends instead of with their dad. If he couldn’t fulfill his role as a husband and father in the ways he always had, who was he?
In the QAnon quagmire, which he eventually stumbled into online, he was a patriot helping to bring “deep state” corruption to light. One of the good guys fighting the good fight. Someone who mattered again. During his gradual journey from QAnon-curious to feverishly embracing the most crackpot claims, his critical thinking skills didn’t mysteriously vanish — they were overpowered.
Human needs are just that: needs. Our innate need for things such as meaning and belonging is superseded only by what the body requires for subsistence, and not by any thirst for accuracy or truth. When these needs go unmet, we can become desperate to satisfy them by whatever means necessary. And the conditions that leave people deprived of what they need and susceptible to irrational conspiracy theories are common — and commonly overlooked.
In movements such as QAnon, the lonely find belonging, the aimless find direction and the angry find validation. Consider baby boomers, who share an alarming amount of fake news online. Many people believe that some mix of cognitive aging, poor digital literacy and too much Fox News is to blame. But this overlooks a bigger issue. Conspiracy-theory-entranced seniors have described to me how, before adopting a QAnon-like brand of what some called “activism,” they felt as if society no longer valued or had use for them. Facing what experts have identified as an “epidemic of loneliness,” they yearned for purpose, community and fulfillment.
By their nature, conspiracy theories provide all of the above. They give supporters an enemy to oppose and a cause to rally around. It’s not difficult to see how churning out Facebook posts (errantly) warning about killer COVID vaccines could have felt like a gratifying self-appointed job in retirement. Or how latching onto delusions that offer convenient answers and clear villains in times of debilitating uncertainty can restore feelings of agency and security.
There’s no singular mold of conspiracy theorists or set of circumstances that shapes them. In my research, I’ve encountered people of all generations, classes, races and political leanings. All had their own reasons for believing and their own needs to satisfy. A political psychology study published on factors that predispose people to conspiracy theories shows that those less capable of “bouncing back” from hardship are more susceptible, suggesting that espousing these views can be a crutch. At the deepest level, then, it doesn’t necessarily matter to believers whether Taylor Swift is truly a psy-op or chemtrails are poisoning the skies. What matters is how clinging to such convictions serves the believers’ underlying needs.
In the end, it wasn’t the truth that saved the Midwestern father, though he has come to see it clearly again. After badly damaging his life at rock bottom of the rabbit hole, he carved a long, sometimes bizarre and profoundly difficult path toward recovering his sense of purpose as a parent and partner. Only then did the ludicrous lies he’d been so consumed by lose their hold over him. He no longer needed them.
Success stories like this will remain rare if we don’t shift our approach to this crisis. We’re living in a moment where a slew of critical stressors, including an unprecedented election season and an artificial intelligence boom, are fueling a tsunami of disinformation and leaving many of us mentally and emotionally compromised. As more Americans turn to conspiracy theories to cope, we must remind ourselves that we can’t do away with delusions that meet people’s fundamental needs by simply debunking them. We need to focus on the cause, not the symptom — to look past the lunacy and probe the roots of our collective vulnerability — because none of us is as immune as we would like to think.
Jesselyn Cook is a reporter and journalism lecturer. Her new book is “The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family.”
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He wasn’t on the ballot, but President Donald Trump was a winner in Louisiana’s GOP Senate runoff election.
That’s because Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow defeated state Treasurer John Fleming to capture the Republican nomination, The Associated Press reported on Saturday.
Six weeks after denying Trump-targeted GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy a third six-year term in the Senate, a majority of Republican voters in the solidly red Gulf Coast state backed Letlow. Her victory in the runoff is seen as another victory for Trump as he works to fill the halls of Congress with loyal lawmakers for his final two years in the White House. And it’s another sign of the power of a Trump endorsement in Republican primaries.
Five years after he voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, Cassidy was sent packing.
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Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana fist bumps a supporter during a campaign stop at a gun retailer and firing range in Baton Rouge on May 15, 2026, the eve of the state’s Senate primary. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)
Trump reacted to Letlow’s victory in a Truth Social post, calling Saturday’s result “great news.”
“Julia Letlow WON in Louisiana, beating conclusively a very strong and smart opponent,” Trump wrote. “Congratulations to Julia. She will be a truly GREAT Senator!”
Letlow, who was backed by Trump even before she entered the race in January, finished first in the primary, double digits ahead of Fleming, with Cassidy in third place. Since no candidate cracked 50% of the vote, Letlow and Fleming advanced to the runoff for the Republican nomination and Cassidy became the first elected Republican senator to lose renomination since Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana in 2012.
Trump, celebrating Cassidy’s defeat, said on social media that “it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!”
Cassidy, in a speech to supporters after conceding, took a jab at Trump, saying, “When you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to. But you don’t pout, you don’t whine. You don’t claim the election was stolen… You don’t manufacture some excuse.”
President Donald Trump stands with Rep. Julia Letlow during the Congressional Ball at the White House Grand Foyer in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 11, 2025. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Letlow, who was backed by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a top Trump ally, won her congressional seat in 2021, after her husband, Luke Letlow, died five days before being sworn into the U.S. House after his 2020 election victory for the seat she now holds. She highlighted her support from Trump throughout her Senate campaign.
Fleming, who spent eight years in Congress before serving as a White House deputy chief of staff during Trump’s first term, argued he was the most conservative candidate in the GOP Senate primary.
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Letlow will be considered the clear frontrunner in the midterm election against either farmer Jamie Davis or Navy veteran Gary Crockett, who are facing off in the Democratic Party runoff.
The brute force of the president’s endorsement power has been on display in GOP primaries over the past two months, with his candidates ousting incumbents he targeted in showdowns in Indiana, Kentucky and Texas, as well as the Louisiana primary.
But Trump’s endorsement streak in statewide and congressional Republican primaries was snapped three weeks ago when his last-minute endorsement of Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa in the race to succeed retiring GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds wasn’t enough to propel the three-term congressman to victory.
Feenstra was narrowly edged by Zach Lahn, a businessman, farmer and former political strategist who was backed by the political wings of MAHA — the acronym for the Make America Healthy Again movement aligned with Trump’s Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and Turning Point USA, the powerful conservative organization co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk.
Zach Lahn raises his fist in celebration after defeating his primary opponent in Iowa’s GOP gubernatorial race on Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (Zach Lahn for Governor via Facebook)
The president rebounded three weeks ago in South Carolina, as Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette finished first in the GOP gubernatorial primary and longtime Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham won a majority of the vote in the Republican Senate primary, and avoided a runoff.
Graham, who was endorsed by Trump, was facing primary challenges from five candidates, including conservative businessman Mark Lynch, who took aim at the senator over his support for the war in Iran. Lynch was backed by some MAGA leaders who have been critical of the president.
Two weeks ago, Trump-backed candidates won two of the three top races in Georgia and Alabama, with the one setback coming against a billionaire businessman who shelled out over $100 million of his own money to boost his campaign.
Rep. Barry Moore, a House Freedom Caucus member and longtime Trump supporter who was endorsed by the president, comfortably defeated rival Jared Hudson, a former Navy SEAL sniper who was supported by some top names on the right, in solidly red Alabama’s GOP Senate runoff.
In battleground Georgia’s Republican Senate runoff, an 11th-hour endorsement by Trump helped boost Rep. Mike Collins, a MAGA champion, to victory over former college football coach Derek Dooley, who was backed by popular conservative Gov. Brian Kemp.
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Collins will face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in the general election in a race that’s among a handful that will likely decide if the GOP holds its slim majority in the chamber in the midterms.
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But in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial runoff, the candidate Trump backed, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who was also endorsed by Kemp this past weekend, was defeated by billionaire businessman Rick Jackson, who ran as an outsider.
On Tuesday, Trump-backed first-time candidate Anthony Constantino, a businessman and former boxer, defeated Robert Smullen, a retired Marine Corps colonel and New York Assembly member who had the backing of the state party, in the upstate New York race to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Meanwhile, in South Carolina’s Republican gubernatorial runoff, Trump couldn’t lose.
That’s because, besides backing Evette, he also gave a last-minute endorsement to state Attorney General Alan Wilson, who ended up winning the showdown in a landslide.
WASHINGTON — Asylum seekers may be turned away without a hearing at the southern border, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a historic retreat from the promise of relief for those who say they are fleeing persecution.
The justices split over whether this was a simple dispute over legal wording or a moral question involving desperate families.
Siding with the Trump administration, the court’s conservatives said the Refugee Act of 1980 offers a right to seek asylum to migrants who “arrive in the United States” but not those who are turned back when they approach a border crossing or a port of entry.
“This case presents a straightforward question” that turns on the word “in,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “In ordinary speech, no one would say that a person ‘arrives in’ a place — for example, a house, a city, or a country — before the person enters that place.”
The liberal dissenters agreed with immigration rights lawyers who saw this as a nonsensical reading of the law.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the asylum law arose from the “international moral reckoning that followed the Holocaust and World War II.”
She cited the infamous voyage of the MS St. Louis in 1939. More than 900 Jewish refugees attempted to flee persecution in Nazi Germany by setting sail aboard the ship, which was turned away from Cuba and the United States.
Most of the passengers were returned to Europe, and several hundred died in the Holocaust, she said.
“Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980 because it did not want this country to repeat the mistakes of its past. Yet if the refugees on the M.S. St. Louis were to walk up to a port of entry on our southern border today, the majority’s interpretation would allow immigration officers to refuse even to consider their asylum applications by physically blocking them from stepping foot onto U.S. soil,” Sotomayor wrote.
Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.
The decision upholds a turn-back policy that began in 2016 as an emergency response to a surge of Haitian immigrants at the San Ysidro border crossing.
The Department of Homeland Security said these asylum seekers must wait on the Mexican side of the border until they could return for a scheduled interview. The policy was extended to other border crossings, but it was challenged as illegal in federal court in San Diego.
Last year, a divided 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those restrictions were illegal if they prevented migrants from applying for asylum.
“To ‘arrive’ means ‘to reach a destination,’” wrote Judge Michelle Friedland. “A person who presents herself to an official at the border has ‘arrived.’”
She said the “government’s reading would reflect a radical reconstruction of the right to apply for asylum because it would give the executive branch vast discretion to prevent people from applying by blocking them at the border.”
The 2-1 decision upheld a federal judge’s ruling in San Diego for migrants who had filed a class-action suit and said they were wrongly denied an asylum hearing.
But Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer urged the Supreme Court to review and reverse the appellate ruling, noting 15 judges of the 9th Circuit joined dissents that called the decision “radical” and “clearly wrong.”
The administration argued federal immigration law “does not grant aliens throughout the world a right to enter the United States so that they can seek asylum.”
From abroad, they may “seek admission as refugees,” Sauer said, but the government may enforce its laws by “blocking illegal immigrants from stepping on U.S. soil.”
Defenders of the asylum system denounced the decision.
“We believe that today’s ruling violates international law, as well as the express intent of Congress,” said Erika Pinheiro, executive director of the migrant support organization Al Otro Lado, which led the legal fight. “For decades, the United States has allowed individuals and families who are fleeing persecution, torture and death to ask for protection at U.S. borders.”
“Cruelty is not a substitute for real solutions. Blocking people from seeking asylum at official ports of entry will do nothing to fix our broken immigration system,” said Rebecca Cassler, senior litigation attorney at the American Immigration Council. “It only makes things more chaotic and dangerous for vulnerable families.”
The Federation for American Immigration Reform applauded the decision.
“Our immigration laws are written to be pro-enforcement, not anti-enforcement,” said Christopher J. Hajec, deputy general counsel of FAIR. “Because of this, courts that hamstring enforcement are often forced to violate basic logic, as the 9th Circuit did here. We are pleased the Supreme Court saw that the lower court’s reading would make immigration law incoherent, and reversed.”
Politics
Jeffries welcomes Democratic Socialists into the fold as critics warn party is revealing ‘exactly who it is’
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries publicly embraced a new crop of congressional nominees Saturday, including three Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates whose primary victories have fueled fresh debate over the Democratic Party’s leftward shift ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The powerful New York lawmaker’s post highlights the challenge facing the top House Democrat as he works to unite his party ahead of the general election. If Democrats take back the House in November, Jeffries is expected to become the next speaker. That means he’ll likely be leading a Democratic caucus with more self-described Democratic Socialists than ever before. So far, more than a dozen Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates have won or advanced in primaries across the country this election cycle.
In a post on X, Jeffries wrote, “Congratulations to our Democratic nominees,” before listing the party’s congressional candidates from across New York. Among those recognized were Brad Lander, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, all of whom are affiliated with or backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and secured victories in closely watched Democratic primaries last week.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has called Trump official Bill Pulte a “malignant clown.” (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg)
“From public servants to union organizers to community activists, the path is different but the work is the same,” Jeffries wrote. “We must decisively address the affordability crisis and crush far-right extremism!”
RISING SOCIALIST STARS ON TRACK TO CONGRESS: WHO ARE DARIALIZA AVILA CHEVALIER, BRAD LANDER AND CLAIRE VALDEZ?
Lander, Chevalier and Valdez all received backing from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose endorsements helped cement the growing influence of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing in New York politics. Lander and Chevalier defeated Jeffries-endorsed incumbents Reps. Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat in their respective Democratic primaries. Jeffries did not endorse in the race won by Claire Valdez, which was an open seat.
Now, as Democrats turn their attention to the general election, he appears to be rallying behind the party’s nominees as they try to win back the House in November.
The socialist candidates have also faced scrutiny over resurfaced social media posts, support for defunding the police and anti-Israel rhetoric, positions that have put them at odds with many in the Democratic Party.
Socialist New York congressional nominees Darializa Avila Chevalier (L), Claire Valdez (C) and Brad Lander. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images; Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images; Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Chevalier has faced scrutiny over resurfaced social media posts, including one in which she called to “literally abolish the border.”
She has also faced renewed scrutiny over past social media posts targeting leading Democrats, including calling former President Joe Biden a “war criminal,” attacking former Vice President Kamala Harris and rebuking Sen. Bernie Sanders over Israel.
Like Chevalier, Valdez and Lander, who is Jewish, share her sentiment that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
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Jeffries’ decision to publicly congratulate the three nominees quickly drew criticism.
The Republican Jewish Coalition blasted Jeffries’ congratulatory message, warning Jewish voters that these candidates are not the Democrat “fringe” but the new faces of the party.
“To Jewish Democrats: your party is telling you EXACTLY who it is,” the Coalition wrote. “These future members of Congress, who @hakeemjeffries is welcoming with open arms, want to: Abolish prisons and borders. Defund the police. Downplay 9/11,” rattling off other serious controversies stemming from the candidates.
Jamie Metzl, a former National Security Council and State Department official and lifelong Democrat, blasted Jeffries for congratulating the nominees.
New York City Mayor Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a news conference Thursday in Manhattan. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
“When I first read this post, I assumed it was from a spoof account. I am deeply concerned that it appears to be all too real,” Metzl wrote. “To welcome these nominees without acknowledging and criticizing their self-declared sympathies for U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, their calls to abolish the police, their stated desire to dismantle Western civilization, and their blatant anti-Americanism is to sacrifice the core principles of the Democratic Party.”
Metzl accused Jeffries of putting his bid to become House speaker ahead of the Democratic Party’s principles.
“I understand your ambition to become Speaker should Democrats retake the House, but you should not sacrifice the principles of our party to advance your own political aspirations,” Metzl wrote.
Democratic leadership has been in the hot seat this week facing questions from the media about how to reconcile support for the New York slate of socialist candidates, particularly after Valdez’s supporters were seen shouting “you’re next” at a television screen showing Jeffries on Tuesday night.
“They’re gonna eat you next Congressman – and replace you with one of their own,” conservative commentator Meghan McCain posted on X.
“This is funny,” conservative commentator Robby Starbuck posted on X. “Hakeem still doesn’t realize that the communists are going to eat him alive. Clearly not a student of history. Bless his heart.”
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In a CNN appearance on Friday, Jeffries said, “I think that what happens in a handful of primaries in one of the bluest cities in the country is not in any way indicative of what needs to happen in November, where we need to reelect every single frontline Member, common sense Democrats, authentically committed to making life better for the American people, opposing these extreme Republicans who have been nothing but a reckless rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s agenda.”
“And at the same period of time, make sure that we flip red seats blue, including in New York-17, where we have a combat veteran, incredibly patriotic American Cait Conley, who came out of a primary on Tuesday as well and is an incredibly strong candidate. She will defeat Mike Lawler in New York in November.”
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