Kerby Anderson

Conspiracies have been around for centuries, but the Internet has made it much easier to promote a conspiracy that has the potential of going viral before rational people can begin to tamp down the hysteria. The older conspiracies were presented and promoted primarily by people who believed the government wasn’t telling the whole truth. The National Treasure series of movies and television shows like The X-Files probably even fed into some of that skepticism. The latest conspiracies are coming from the Left who apparently see Nazi symbols and White Power symbols just about everywhere. Here are two examples. During the confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, attorney Zina Bash was sitting behind him. As a former law clerk for the judge, she was helping steer his nomination to the Supreme Court. Apparently, she has a tendency to rest her fingers on her arm in what could best be described as a “reverse OK sign.” One twitter post complained that she was “flashing a white power sign” because they “want to bring white supremacy to the Supreme Court.” That post alone got more than 15,000 retweets. The Internet uproar forced her husband to publicly defend Zina and point out that she is Jewish, Mexican-American, and the descendant of Holocaust survivors. Another series of examples is the number of times someone on the Left sees Nazi symbols. A comedian asked Twitter user Bill Presson “are u wearing a Nazi outfit?” The profile picture was actually of his father in an Army uniform who was killed in Vietnam. A New Yorker staffer was forced to resign when she accused a veteran who lost his legs in Afghanistan of being a Nazi. She assumed that one of his tattoos was an Iron Cross when it was really the symbol for his platoon. The last few weeks have provided lots of examples of people on the Left believing some bizarre conspiracies.