In a year when most people wore masks, some chose aluminum chapeaus.
2021 opened with an unprecedented assault on our nation’s Capitol, fueled by the belief that the presidential election was stolen. The Big Lie sparked the insurrection with its harrowing images of the attack on the seat of our nation’s democracy.
While there was nothing funny about Jan. 6, some of the theories were more zany than terrifying.
Conspiracy culture now appears to be as American as baseball, apple pie and school shootings. So let’s give the “winners” their Tin Foil Hat awards and enjoy the show.
WORST CONSPIRACY THEORY: JFK in Dallas 2.0
Convinced Donald Trump would be put back into the White House in 2021, hundreds of people linked to the QAnon conspiracy movement converged in Dallas last month, where they believed former president John F. Kennedy and his son John F. Kennedy Jr. would show up to introduce Trump as America’s Emperor, or something along those lines.
The 35th president was shot dead at Dealey Plaza in 1963, but the Q crowd expected him to return to the scene of the crime.
Neither Kennedy attended the event on account of their both being dead — and JFK Sr. would be 104 even if he were to make his return. Even Trump, who is alive and well in sunny Florida, sat out that freak show hosted in his honor.
BEST CONSPIRACY THEORIST: Tucker Carlson
Fox News star Tucker Carlson made the leap from dishonest quasi-journalist to full-blown windbag in 2021 with his three-part “Patriot Purge” program. It suggested the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol may have been an inside job to entrap the kind of people who watch “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Carlson’s fever dream was so off the wall that “InfoWars” host Alex Jones — fresh off losing multiple lawsuits over false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Connecticut were a ruse — passed the tinfoil crown to his worthy competitor.
“I’ve got to recognize it. I’ve got to give credit,” Jones gushed. “They have surpassed Infowars greatest exploits against tyranny because Tucker is so good at having fun while he exposes the globalists on the left.”
Carlson has also “reported” highly dubious claims about the pandemic, vaccines and what he perceives as threats to the nation’s “heritage and culture.”
WORST CONSPIRACY THEORIST: Emerald Robinson
Newsmax White House Correspondent Emerald Robinson shot her threadbare credibility to hell in November with a tweet mixing medical misinformation and Satan.
“Dear Christians: the vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called LUCIFERASE so that you can be tracked,” Robinson tweeted.
That’s right, Newsmax’s White House correspondent seemingly believes COVID vaccines make people glow in the dark so the devil can spot the inoculated. She further directed the faithful to the book of Revelation.
Robinson’s babble, which is toxic enough to spawn a new coronavirus, even got her taken off the airwaves of a network hardly known for its news standards. Newsmax noted Robinson made her statement on Twitter and not during one of its programs. They reportedly don’t plan to renew her contract in 2022. Twitter kicked her to the curb, too.
BEST MEDICAL CONSPIRACY: Everything about Ivermectin
The controversy over Ivermectin is twofold, as confusion over the deworming medication has been misreported on several fronts.
In August, the FDA issued a warning for U.S. citizens not to consume unprescribed ivermectin — a medication people had been purchasing from feed stores, which can be dangerous in large doses. Meanwhile, right-wing media personalities relentlessly pushed Ivermectin as a cure for COVID, though there’s little indication they intended for their followers to ingest the animal-grade version of the drug.
Many left-leaning outlets and comedians mocked conservative pundits like Joe Rogan for supposedly taking horse pills rather than getting a medically tested COVID vaccination.
Between the confusing reporting on the left, right and in between, millions of people still have misgivings about all-things ivermectin. It’s best to trust Merck, the company that makes the anti-parasite medication, when it says there is “no scientific basis” to believe their product prevents coronavirus, nor is there “meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease.”
There’s also no reason to bet that Rogan, who insists he took the human grade version of the drug, will win next year’s Kentucky Derby. Merck is working on a COVID pill, which some right-wingers have falsely and incorrectly compared to ivermectin. They’re different. But ivermectin clearly works as a steroid for conspiracy theories.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: Mike Lindell
Can a pillow be made of tin foil?
Not only does MyPillow salesman Mike Lindell recite bizarre fairy tales; he essentially co-produces programming that advances false stories by advertising with grifters on social media and cable TV.
It seemed unlikely he’d top his 2020 nuttiness, but Lindell is a conspiracy theory lifer.
