Are there any major left-wing conspiracy theories in the USA?

Question

Related: Why does it seem like US conspiracy theorists are overwhelmingly Republican-oriented?

The question above explores potential reasons why belief in conspiracy theories is more common among the US right wing than the left wing.

Several right wing conspiracy theories have become household names - QAnon is apparently still a thing and Obama-Birtherism is still not that far behind in the rear-view mirror.

Are there any notable conspiracy theories in the USA that are, or until recently have been, supported predominantly by left-wing voters or politicians? By left-wing, I am especially referring to the mainstream US Democratic Party but other left-wingers or far-left politicians such as Communists may also be included.

For example, if there is a left-wing conspiracy theory that says that Mitt Romney is actually an Egyptian sleeper agent hired by Scottish-Rite Freemasons to privatize Medicare and get laws passed requiring all public school teachers to be card-carrying members of the KKK, that would count.

In response to a comment by DoctorDestructo, if a conspiracy theory is predominantly believed by left-wing voters, then that can count as a left-wing conspiracy even if the subject matter of the conspiracy is not clearly partisan.

As for definitions, I am treating this as a "good subjective" question in the best tradition of Stack Exchange. For example, apply whichever definition of "conspiracy theory" and "left-wing" you feel to be most appropriate based on your experience and knowledge.

Answer 1

Yes, there are plenty of conspiracy theories that are primarily supported by left-wing voters and politicians. Here are a few examples (not meant to be an exhaustive list):

• Conspiracy theories about HIV/AIDS are popular in many left-leaning demographics in the US, especially black and Hispanic Americans. According to one survey, "approximately 55% of Latinos and 50% of African Americans reported believing that the government secretly had an HIV vaccine." Furthermore, as of 2006, around a fifth of white Americans and over a quarter of African-Americans believed that "AIDS is an agent of genocide created by the US government to kill off minority populations."

  There are legitimate reasons that many black people distrust the US medical establishment, but this still counts as a conspiracy theory.

• As of 2007, about 35% of Democrats reported believing that George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance.

• Conspiracy theories about election fraud are widespread among members of both major US political parties. A 2018 poll found that as many as 66% of Democrats believed that "Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected president." Likewise, in 2013, about 37% of surveyed Democrats said they believed that "President Bush's supporters committed significant voter fraud in order to win Ohio in 2004."

• Conspiracy theories about GMO's (genetically modified organisms) began as mostly a left-wing phenomenon. However, the gap has narrowed over the years. For example, US Democrats and Republicans are now almost equally likely to believe that GM foods are unsafe.

• For many years, a reasonably popular left-wing conspiracy theory claimed that the US and its allies were spying on ordinary citizens' private communications on an unimaginable, global scale. Not all conspiracy theories turn out to be false.

Answer 2

If you consider environmentalism and green politics left wing (and generally most people consider even the less radical politics solidly left wing), then you can find plenty of conspiracies around chemophobia, radiophobia and similar "unnatural" human activities that corporations and/or the government are hiding the true and catastrophic effects of. Nuclear power, food additives, biocides and so on, and while some conspiracies may have merit, many are either considered baseless or greatly exaggerated. Sure, this does show up on the right from time to time as well, but I'd argue it is still mostly the domain of the green left.

Answer 3

Reaching back a few years, around the start of the Second Iraq War it was a commonplace on the left that the war was about obtaining oil, rather than the stated purposes of fighting terrorism or securing weapons of mass destruction. In retrospect, obtaining oil was either not a war aim, or was at least not carried out in the end.

Answer 4

Although you asked about the USA specifically, there is often two-way political traffic between USA and the UK, so the example of antisemitism in the UK Labour Party might be relevant:

Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party

You can find several articles linking these views to the US left wing too:

The rise of antisemitism on the Left and in America - opinion

While antisemitic views exist across the political spectrum, some of the actual conspiracy theories (as opposed to plain hate) have chains of thought linking back to left-wing topics.

Pro-Palestine => Israel does fascist things to Palestine => Israel is run by Jews => Jews are fascists

Anti-capitalist => Bankers secretly run the world => Financiers are Jewish => Jews are responsible for capitalism

I must stress that many on the right also arrive at the “Jews are bad” conclusion, but through different conspiracy theories (given that the right is predominantly pro-Israel and pro-capitalist).

Answer 5

There are plenty of examples of left-wing conspiracy theories. Two of the most prevalent ones in society today are:

• Systematic police racism. Many people on the left believe that cops are specifically targeting minority groups in the US when it comes to use of force/policing in general. This is despite there being no evidence that police use more force in encounters with minorities.
• A common conspiracy theory on the left and right is that corporations hold undue sway over a politician's political choices, despite there being evidence that lobbying is not nearly as effective as people believe.

Answer 6

According to a 2022 article by Enders, A., Farhart, C., Miller, J. et al. Are Republicans and Conservatives More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories? here are the top conspiracies most likely to be believed by Liberals/Democrats rather than Conservatives/Republicans in the US. Note that the list of "conspiracies" was chosen by the authors of the article, rather myself personally. The descriptions were taken from the supplementary PDF as the article itself only contains the abbreviated name of each conspiracy.

1. President Trump covered up the extent of his COVID-19 infection
2. Republicans won the presidential elections in 2016, 2004, and 2000 by stealing them
3. Donald Trump has made a secret deal with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, such that if Putin helps Trump become president, the Trump Administration will enact policies very favorable to Russia
4. Russia has compromising information about Donald Trump and has used Trump as a foreign asset
5. President Trump faked COVID-19 in order to help his chances at reelection
6. Hillary Clinton wasn't diagnosed with pneumonia, rather she was poisoned by the Russian government because they didn't want her to be elected President of the United States
7. The Bush administration faked employment statistics in 2007 to obscure the seriousness of the financial crisis and to protect the U.S. banking industry and Republicans running for re-election in 2008
8. There was a conspiracy to stop the U.S. Post Office from processing mail-in ballots
9. The Reagan campaign made a deal with the Iranians to hold the American hostages in Iran until after the 1980 presidential election
10. The billionaire Koch brothers are behind a hidden plot to destabilize the American government and put the world under their control

Answer 7

As other answers have noted, yes. However, they manifest in very different ways.

While right-wing conspiracy theories tend to serve a political goal for the right wing (bringing their politicians into office/power), left-wing conspiracy theories are less strategically focused and tend to serve nearly the opposite purpose, delegitimizing associated left-wing groups and issues and creating divisions/strife between groups that believe the conspiracy theories and ones that don't, and ultimately end up benefiting the right wing. Some of them (particularly ones related to alternative health, vaccination, etc.) have even morphed into overtly right-wing phenomena in recent years. To my knowledge (please comment if you know of any) there are no recent examples of left-leaning candidates riding to office on use of conspiracy theories to appeal to their base, but countless examples of right-wing ones doing so.

Some specific examples that divide and weaken left:

• Globalism (coded anti-Semitism) conspiracy theories.

• "[Left/anti-authoritarian hero] was wrongly accused of rape/sexual assault/harassment to bring them down" conspiracy theories (Al Franken, Julian Assange, etc.)

• Biotech & GMO conspiracy theories

Answer 8

Kayfabe

Numerous pundits and reporters have written articles about "political kayfabe" - the use of artificial conflict (as done in pro wrestling) to drive publicity and enflame the loyalty of the voter base.

Some leftists (specifically, to the left of the Democrats) take this view all the way to its conclusion: the entire divide between the Democratic and Republican parties is kayfabe, and both are actually working together on behalf of their billionaire owners. There are no good guys or bad guys in the duopoly, just actors playing "faces" and "heels" who divide the country into opposing camps and pit them against each other.

Some people with other political views have a similar belief (usually omitting the plutocrats behind the throne), but it's more prominent on the left. Gore Vidal said "There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat". Both Eugene Debs and Noam Chomsky also said nearly the same.

Answer 9

I would argue that the left-wing favorite of the day, Critical Race Theory, is a giant conspiracy theory: it claims that an entire race conspired to oppress another race.

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Edit: some commenters mentioned that CRT doesn't claim the above and that it's not a conspiracy theory. So let me add some references.

1. Sometimes the entire white race is assumed to be racist, as in the "be less white" employee training at Coca-Cola. This is not an isolated incident; the notion that all white people are racist, whether consciously or not, is implied in employee training.

2. From wikipedia: "Law professors Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry argue that critical race theory lacks supporting evidence, relies on an implausible belief that reality is socially constructed, rejects evidence in favor of storytelling..." Aren't relying on storytelling and lacking supporting evidence signs of conspiracy theory?

3. Numerous CRT claims of "systemic racism" are based on cherry picking disparities of outcome. The stories go more or less like this: "there is a disparity in X (maybe income, maybe education, etc) that favors W over B; we therefore assume that the disparity is due to systemic racism." The contrary evidence is deliberately ignored. The evidence such as success of other races that were also mistreated, disparities that favor B over W in other areas, specific studies that (unintentionally) proved that there are reasons apart from the racism of the past that explain disparities - all that is ignored. Basically the whole CRT starts with conclusion and brings cherry-picked evidence to support it, rather than starting with evidence and arriving to whatever conclusion it may lead to. Isn't such approach a tell-tale of a conspiracy theory?