Theoretically True

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is . . . people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer exists”—Hannah Arendt

The Rant¹ holds that any good conspiracy theory has only one purpose: To aid the powerful (that foster and encourage them) in keeping the powerless (a large group of which cling to such theories) angry at all the wrong people at all times.

As a nation of immigrants, conspiracies in America centered on the constant danger of the Other. Native peoples had to be demonized to make the theft of land and resources more palatable. In the South, where enslaved Blacks often outnumbered Whites in their community, a constant din of rumors predicting an impending insurrection by Blacks, ready to murder their owners as they slept, allowed Whites to believe in their own benevolence and sacrifice in keeping other people as property. Jim Crow laws in the South perpetuated this inequality for a century after the Civil War by rich Whites convincing poor ones that they could take solace in their superiority to Blacks, a race constantly plotting to desecrate their women and rise to a social position above theirs. The eruption of violence and lynching at the slightest perceived hint of Black disrespect served as a constant reminder at how assailed Whites convinced themselves they were. In reality, poor Whites remained as trapped in the stifling economic system that kept everyone but the rich elite bound to the sharecropping model that benefited no one doing the actual labor.

As early as the 2nd Century, conspiracies began circulating that Jews abducted Christian children to use their blood in mysterious rituals and in the making of matzah during Passover. In 1144, a child was found murdered in Norwich, England, and the entire Jewish community accused of committing the crime. This launched centuries of blood libel persecution,² including the burning of entire Jewish communities at the stake.³ The Nazis constantly invoked blood libel in their propaganda efforts, and cases of blood libel still surface to this day. All this hysteria conveniently masked the corruption and failings of the Church and local government officials that stoked it.

The blood libel initiated a series of conspiracies that involved sinister rituals (almost always satanic) and the abduction of children to use in their dark arts that are still present today. Increasingly, the abduction of children started to include accusations of sexual abuse and vast networks to traffic these children before they were murdered. The Rant distinctly remembers in the 80s adults at our church nervously discussing cattle mutilations linked to satanic rituals around our town. These rituals were then linked to Black Sabbath⁴ and Judas Priest⁵ in a breathtaking feat of faulty cause and effect. The Rant wanted to suggest that leaving us and a majority of our friends unsupervised from after school until bedtime had a much profounder negative impact than “Crazy Train” ever did. But we were just a surly teenager then. Thankfully, most of us became Helicopter Parents, eliminating all childhood problems and trauma forever.

Our church’s livestock anxiety fit into a rising pattern of conspiracy theories that became known as the Satanic Panic in the 80s and early 90s.⁶ Spurred by a book called Michelle Remembers, states and communities around the country began claiming children everywhere were being tooken, abused and murdered by a vast network of satanic cults that used daycares and other institutions to fill the insatiable demand for their depraved rituals. An entire economy grew up around the panic, with conferences for law enforcement, well-funded task forces, therapists claiming they could unlock your child’s “repressed” memories, endless lawsuits, and never ending talk-show and investigative television programs. People went to jail, lives were ruined, and then the entire panic collapsed when careful analysis could produce no proof⁷ and repressed memory therapy was discredited.

Catholic and Protestant institutions went all in for the Panic. Training was provided to spot satanic activity in your neighborhood and Sunday School (The pentagrams! Look for the pentagrams!), unlicensed therapists taught church staff how to uncover repressed memories, and there was an endless stream of information about satanic-adjacent activities that would lead your child to a coven near you. This included watching the Smurfs and playing Dungeons and Dragons. If The Rant could only repress those memories.

Churches were more than happy to direct their congregations’ anger toward the illusion of the Devil directing secret meetings in the woods to hide the true horror of the time: the sexual abuse of children happening within their own walls while the most powerful leaders of the church carefully and systematically covered it up. The callous and efficient effort to erase all traces of these crimes, including indulging people’s fears of satanic activity, remain more monstrous than any fabricated child sacrifice.

If all this sounds familiar, it’s because Pizzagate⁸ and QAnon are the direct heirs of the Satanic Panic. There are corners of the internet that would have you believe around 80% of children have been or will soon be abducted.

And then, for reasons The Rant could never understand, the right wing hysteria machine began encouraging an obsession with the Jeffrey Epstein case. Epstein had been laundering money and trafficking underage girls for the elite for decades. So instead of misdirecting people’s anger toward a chimera that could never be unearthed, they stoked anger toward the powerful that had actually been committing crimes under the cover of their privilege. Crimes with paper trails, witnesses, bank transactions, and travel logs. Shady perpetrators now had actual faces and victims suddenly had names and tragic stories that could be corroborated.

When everything becomes a game, opening a door to reality can never be shut. Perhaps the arrogance of the powerful that used conspiracies to keep the powerless frothing in anger over everything but them decided any salacious story was a good salacious story. But now those that have always screamed of cover-ups and protecting the elites (at least the ones they despised) are the ones accused of keeping the truth under wraps. Suddenly the distinction between fact and fiction has become a yawning chasm threatening to swallow them up.

If you believe Trump’s rage at not being able to shut down the Epstein conspiracy is merely his usual childish petulance, The Rant would suggest you are missing the genuine fear that vibrates under the surface. The people that have always paid handsomely to exercise their every decadent whim know their names appear in that mountain of evidence and includes the powerful all along the political spectrum. They are not going to stand for it. Someone will have to be sacrificed, since the death of Epstein was not enough to appease the powerless.

And once again fiction will become fact. Those that forever abuse their power will conjure a new phantom for the powerless to howl at while they quietly go about their own dark, but very real, arts and boast of their virtue in only wanting to protect us.

1. The Rant has other fish to fry this week, but we would like to use this note to inform the people and cats in Fancy Feast commercials: Get a room already! Your food/interspecies fetishes give us the creeps. Are cats actually directing these commercials? Be just like them.
2. For variety, during times of Plague outbreaks, Jews would also be persecuted for poisoning wells. Conspiratorial bigots like to keep it fresh.
3. In 1475, the Jewish community of Trent was burned at the stake for the alleged abduction and murder of a 2-year old boy named Simon
4. If there was any justice in this world, Ozzy’s cause of death would have been listed as “Rock and Roll Lifestyle, living decades beyond normal life expectancy for such a condition”
5. The Rant found Ozzy to be a satanic teddy bear compared to Priest front man Rob Halford, who scared the bejeezus out of us
6. For all the lurid and gory details, including children being sacrificed and eaten, watch the excellent documentary Satan Wants You. The Rant also wants to send a shout out to the Missouri Legislative Library for their fantastic overview of the phenomenon (by Nathan Elwood) and the Missouri government’s response to it. Given the current political climate, that this site is even allowed to exist fills us with wonder.
7. As an example, several “experts” claimed 50,000 children a year were being murdered in these rituals. The only problem: that was over twice the number of all murders in the United States. The idea that much carnage could be hidden proved ludicrous.
8. The constant presence of pizza delivery personnel in these conspiracies is perhaps their most bizarre aspect. The Rant’s favorite: in the 80s, a woman claimed their satanic cult ordered a pie during their rituals so they could abduct, grill, and eat him. She didn’t specify if they used him as a topping or side dish.