Ron Johnson Has Gone Full 9/11 Conspiracy Nut

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Ron Johnson Has Gone Full 9/11 Conspiracy Nut – Detailed Summary

Episode Release Date: April 22, 2025

In this compelling episode of Bulwark Takes, host Sam Stein engages in a robust discussion with co-hosts Sarah Longwell and Will Sommer about the alarming trend of mainstream politicians endorsing conspiracy theories. The central focus is on Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and his recent foray into 9/11 conspiracy narratives, alongside a critical examination of Sen. Mike Lee's similar trajectory. The conversation delves into the broader implications of these developments for American politics and the dissemination of truth in the digital age.

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1. Ron Johnson's Embrace of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

The episode opens with Sam Stein highlighting Senator Ron Johnson's unexpected appearance on Benny Johnson's show, where Johnson ventured into 9/11 conspiracy theories. Stein expresses surprise at the minimal backlash Johnson faced, noting, “I couldn’t believe it” [00:00].

Key Points:

• Johnson questioned whether 9/11 was an "inside job" or a government-planned event.
• The lack of significant reaction from the public and media is abnormal, considering the gravity of such claims when made by a respected senator.

Notable Quote:

“He’s one of a hundred respected members of the upper chamber just dabbling in 911 conspiracy theories... I couldn’t believe it.” — Sam Stein [00:00]

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2. The Shift in Political Landscape Regarding Conspiracy Theories

Will Sommer contextualizes Johnson’s actions within the evolving political environment, especially post-Trump. He draws parallels to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s propagation of outlandish theories, attributing the normalization of conspiracy rhetoric to Trump's influence.

Key Points:

• Pre-Trump, conspiracy theories were fringe and limited to specific groups.
• Trump’s presidency legitimized and emboldened conspiracy discourse within the Republican Party.
• The era has shifted from viewing conspiracy theorists as isolated to recognizing their integration into mainstream politics.

Notable Quote:

“What it shows us is that this strain lived inside of them and they now just get to let their freak flag fly because it’s cool now.” — Will Sommer [02:16]

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3. Mike Lee’s Transformation into a Conspiracy Theorist

The conversation transitions to Senator Mike Lee, once respected for his thoughtful conservatism. Sommer remarks on Lee’s drastic change, illustrating how even esteemed politicians can succumb to conspiracy thinking when provided the right platform.

Key Points:

• Mike Lee’s public persona has shifted from a serious conservative to a promoter of various conspiracy theories.
• Lee’s active online presence, including provocative tweets, exemplifies this transformation.
• The ease with which credible figures can disseminate conspiratorial ideas contributes to their spread.

Notable Quote:

“Mike Lee was a super interesting, thoughtful conservative who has now shaved his head and is going on every conspiracy theory in town.” — Will Sommer [02:35]

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4. The Role of Alex Jones and "Loose Change" in Propagating Conspiracy Theories

Sarah Longwell introduces the influence of media personalities like Alex Jones and documentaries such as Loose Change in fueling 9/11 conspiracy beliefs. She underscores how these narratives gained traction and infiltrated mainstream discourse.

Key Points:

• Loose Change played a significant role in popularizing 9/11 conspiracy theories.
• Alex Jones has been instrumental in legitimizing and spreading these theories to a broader audience.
• The merging of extremist rhetoric from both the left and the right has blurred traditional political lines regarding conspiracy endorsement.

Notable Quote:

“So it’s an Alex Jones documentary about 911 being an inside job. And so that is sort of broadly like one of the main...” — Sarah Longwell [05:22]

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5. The Influence of Social Media and the Internet on Conspiracy Theory Spread

Sam Stein and Will Sommer discuss the impact of algorithm-driven platforms in creating echo chambers that facilitate the growth and reinforcement of conspiracy theories among both the general populace and influential figures.

Key Points:

• The internet’s algorithmic nature perpetuates exposure to similar beliefs, deepening conspiracy adherence.
• Politicians with pre-existing leanings towards skepticism find fertile ground online to amplify their conspiratorial views.
• The accessibility of information (and misinformation) online lowers the barriers for conspiracy theories to take root in public discourse.

Notable Quote:

“A lot of the conspirasies... are their, they landmark, where truth simply cannot be known.” — Will Sommer [08:11]

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6. The Psychology and Sociology Behind Conspiracy Belief

The hosts explore the underlying reasons why individuals, including those in positions of power, gravitate towards conspiracy theories. They touch upon the need for certainty, the influence of charismatic leaders, and the role of group identity in sustaining these beliefs.

Key Points:

• Conspiracy theories offer simplistic explanations for complex events, providing a semblance of control.
• The desire to belong to an informed in-group drives the adoption and spread of conspiratorial thinking.
• Authoritarian tendencies are supported by creating environments where truth is obscured, making conspiratorial narratives more appealing.

Notable Quote:

“This strain lived inside of them and they now just get to let their freak flag fly because it’s cool now.” — Will Sommer [02:16]

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7. The Challenges in Countering Conspiracy Theories Within the Political Sphere

Sam Stein raises a critical question about the feasibility of reversing the influence of entrenched conspiracy theories, especially when propagated by trusted authorities like senators and even the president.

Key Points:

• Influential figures endorsing conspiracy theories significantly undermine public trust in factual information.
• Traditional methods of debunking are often ineffective against deeply ingrained conspiracy beliefs.
• The intertwining of political agendas with conspiratorial narratives complicates efforts to address misinformation.

Notable Quote:

“It's hard to pull people back from the abyss when it's the president.” — Sam Stein [12:13]

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8. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In concluding the episode, the hosts acknowledge the pervasive nature of conspiracy theories in contemporary politics and the daunting task of mitigating their impact. They emphasize the importance of vigilance and continued monitoring to understand and address the evolving landscape of misinformation.

Key Points:

• The normalization of conspiracy theories within political discourse necessitates proactive strategies to uphold truth and accountability.
• Engaging with and understanding the factors that drive conspiracy belief is crucial for formulating effective countermeasures.
• The episode serves as a call to awareness about the dangers posed by mainstream political endorsement of unfounded theories.

Notable Quote:

“It's very endemic. I mean, Sam, when you were like, do you see this more in voters? ... if they're the ones who are telling you to believe this, or at least to question the world around you.” — Sam Stein [12:28]

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Final Remarks: Bulwark Takes offers a nuanced and insightful examination of the troubling trend of conspiracy theories infiltrating mainstream politics. By dissecting the roles of specific politicians and the broader societal shifts that facilitate such developments, the hosts provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the challenges posed by misinformation in today's political climate.

Transcript

[Sam Stein]

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. I am joined by our fearless publisher, Sarah Longwell and our less than fearless newsletter writer, Will Sommer. We are going to be talking about Ron John, 911 conspiracies, maybe a little bit of Mike Lee if we can get into it, and conspiracies around Trump's attempted assassination and Butler. Before we do that, subscribe to the feed. We appreciate the subscriptions. All right, let me set the stage and then I'm going to kick it around. Ron John, senator from Wisconsin was on Benny Johnson's show yesterday, I believe. And I don't know how the topic turned to 9 11, but eventually it did. And whether or not 911 was an inside job or a government planned. And here's what Ranjan had to all right, so there you have it. Senior senator from Wisconsin, I guess we can say, you know, he's one of a hundred respected member of the upper chamber just dabbling in 911 conspiracy theories. I guess what stuck out to me, Sarah, was that how little reaction there was to it. Like in normal times I think people would have been freaking out that this guy is embracing the this was a controlled demolition idea. But this is a senator. I couldn't believe it.

[Will Sommer]

Not only is he a senator, but he has the unique distinction of being a pre Trump senator. It is one thing right post Trump you get Marjorie Taylor Greene with the Jewish space lasers and like conspiracy theories are now because Donald Trump, it's the.

[Sam Stein]

PT versus the poster. Okay?

[Will Sommer]

That's right. No, I, I think this is important because it, what it shows us is something important which is that this strain, it like lived inside of them and they now they just get to let their freak flag fly because it's cool now, right? Like based Mike Lee. It's so funny about Mike Lee. I used to be Mike Lee, like for the Supreme Court. Mike Lee was a super interesting, thoughtful conservative who has now shaved his head and his game for every conspiracy theory in town. And it makes sense, right? Like Donald Trump is a conspiracy theorist in chief who, who launched his political career with the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was a Kenyan Muslim socialist and not born in the United States of America. And so post Trump, the fact that he has attracted tons of conspiracy theorists makes some sense. It's funny though that actually the conspiracies, like it's the conspiracies we, we friends we made along the way.

[Sam Stein]

To me it's like a lot of that's true but so much of it is just that Everything we now consume is gravitated to algorithmic websites. And like people just get. I guess what's just what distinguishes this means that I used to assume that people who got sucked into these Internet rabbit holes were not serious lawmakers or elected members of the Senate. But in fact it's true that a lot of them are, or at least a good sizable portion of them are. So yeah, Mike Lee seems to be perpetually online and I guess the reference here is that his most recent tweet suggests that there's some maybe planning that happened behind the Butler assassination attempt will give us the epidemiology here of these conspiracies. Like what, what is the. How did these things form? Where do they fester online?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I mean in the case of 9 11, as you said, Sam, this used to be a, this was like a red line that people in public life couldn't cross. I mean, I think there have been CNN comments.

[Sam Stein]

It was liberal. It was liberals who espoused it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, exactly. I mean it was sort of like, you know, Ron Paul types on the right and then sort of like extreme liberals on the left. And now, you know, I mean it started with someone like Alex Jones. The Loose change documentary was really big, but that was like, you know, stuff. You hear the documentary Loose Change that was kind of like the.

[Sam Stein]

Sarah know this one? Do you know this one?

[Will Sommer]

The frogs are gay. Well, that's returning the frogs gay. It's not that one.

[Sam Stein]

I mean the gay frog one.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, well maybe you guys shouldn't check it out because you might get red pilled on this because if you're not. But, but this is the. Yeah, this is the. Anyway, this is the big loose or the big.

[Sam Stein]

What is the loose change document?

[Will Sommer]

Is it stuff that falls out of your pockets or are we changing things loosely like the gender of frogs? What are you talking about?

[Sarah Longwell]

So, so yeah, so it's an Alex Jones documentary about 911 being an inside job. And so that is sort of broadly. That was kind of like one of the main.

[Sam Stein]

And let me guess, let me guess. He thinks it's an inside job.

[Sarah Longwell]

He does. He does, yes.

[Sam Stein]

I was shocked. Yeah.

[Will Sommer]

Not Alex Jones, not.

[Sam Stein]

Oh my heart. How did it gain foothold in the white. Just because Alex Jones.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, you know, I, I think we see with Trump and you know, with Trump getting into birtherism, you know, long ago and all this stuff, I mean just a lot more of this stuff under the Obama presidency I think became increasingly respectable and then particularly once Republicans kind of dish George W. Bush, then you could say, you know, well, yeah, 911 was an inside job. I mean you have Ron Johnson here just dropping like, you know, how was Building 7 demolished? Or like, you know, planes can't make that big of an explosion. I mean he's apparently pretty deep into it.

[Will Sommer]

Hold on a second. So you just said something really important that makes a ton of sense, which is the abandonment of George W. Bush now because on one hand you could talk about the political realignment of all the cranks now, anti vaxxers, whatever, they've all moved into the Republican Party. But this idea of the subsequent nature of what happened post 9 11, which was Iraq and Afghanistan, which have just been so widely discredited on the right as a political move and the way that George W. Bush is now, he is not simply like not revered, he is loathed on the right. He's a pariah. And so actually it does make sense that blaming George W. Bush is part of this natural evolution slash devolution for the Republican Party away from that era's politics.

[Sam Stein]

So I just want to make sure I'm unpacking this right under this conspiracy George Bush either.

[Sarah Longwell]

And also, let's keep in mind Israel, you know, looms large here as well.

[Will Sommer]

Obviously, naturally, did they do 911?

[Sam Stein]

The Jews are responsible for everything. S. Let's just. My people are very talented, but under this idea, it's they, they wanted allowed or facilitated the destruction of the World Trade center towers because they needed a, some sort of rationalization or justification for launching a massive war in the Middle east that would enrich the military industrial complex of which they were major members. That's the basic conspiracy, right?

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right.

[Sam Stein]

Okay. Does it run into any problems with Trump's closeness to the Saudis?

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, you know, that's an interesting one. I, I don't think it does because they don't really exist in the world of reality. And so the like you, you have a lot of these things where it's like, well, how is John Donald Trump the big anti human trafficking crusader if he was pals with Jeffrey Epstein and they say while he was going undercover? And you know, in the same way, I think it may be that Trump is going undercover in the Saudi royal family.

[Sam Stein]

Sarah, you do all these focus groups, so I'm kind of curious, do you see a lot of this stuff among people? Has it like grown over time where you see this type of thing?

[Will Sommer]

Yeah, I mean this is, it is a big long conversation about how authoritarians succeed. And part of it is by creating an Environment in which truth simply cannot be known. Which is an interesting thing when you. When I think about what it meant to be a young conservative, because a big animating factor of being a conservative in the early 2000s was actually specifically that truth could be known and that right and wrong were real concepts and that it was the left who said that, you know, everything was morally relativistic, and that was something that conservatives rebelled against. And so today, though, the rise of social media conspiracies, everything else. I hear this all the time in the focus groups where people just say, I don't know what to believe. Which is why more and more what you get are people believe sort of the smartest person about politics in their orbit, and oftentimes those people can be down rabbit holes or like. And conspiracy theories can stand in for intelligence in a lot of ways. It's like, look how tapped in I am to this. No, I see the real thing happening here, but everything from the deep state to, I don't know, like, I mean, do they think that Pearl harbor was an inside job? Because, like, it's the same rationale, like, are we retconning everything now into this?

[Sarah Longwell]

You know, it doesn't come up a lot, but I do think it's pretty much assumed that FDR knew that Pearl harbor was going to happen, you know, among these conspiracy theorists, and just let it happen because, you know, increasingly we're seeing, like, Hitler become kind of rehabilitated or like, you know, Churchill was such a bully to Hitler, this kind of stuff. And so that's kind of part of the larger new take on World War II.

[Will Sommer]

Churchill, that Hitler bully.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. This might not be the. This might be too big a question to tackle in this type of form, but, like, how do you get people out of the rabbit hole? Right. Like, I know that, and I know that there's been some documentaries about family members who've, like, confronted their conspiracy idol relatives and tried to pull them back from the abyss. And I. Is there like a. A method for getting people out of this rabbit hole? And. And are we just. Or are we just too far gone when you have u. S. Senators who now become, you know, the leading purveyors of this stuff?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. So, I mean, this might be a useful segment for Ron Johnson's family. The. Yeah, I mean, the answer is that there's really no, like, one method. The best thing I've seen, especially from talking to families with people members in QAnon, is just trying to, like, get them obsessed with something else. And so maybe it's like sports, getting them outside, maybe even a video game. Just like there's kind of this, like, intensity that comes with a devotion to a conspiracy theory. And if you could just kind of like get them offline, which is often easy. Easier said than done.

[Sam Stein]

Well, yeah, and that's what stands out for me is like, how much Mike Lee is online. Like, his Twitter habits are really almost scary.

[Sarah Longwell]

I was just reminded again today that his screen name is Based Mike Lee, which.

[Sam Stein]

So stupid.

[Will Sommer]

You know, I saw a tweet one time or a quotation of some kind that said, like, I think I may have said this to Will recently on a podcast that, you know, the Internet did to our parents what they said video games were going to do to us. Like, the way that they were so worried about our generation. And we talked about like, you needed to label things with explicit things like rap. Musically, we were all going to lose our minds. But actually it is our. And like Ron Johnson is like peak boomer in this regard. Like, and you could totally see how Mike Lee as a pre Trump politician was like, predisposed to some of this. But then the Internet gave him the algorithmic hole that he needed to go down to say, well, I hadn't thought about Building 7 because how if you knocked down two other buildings that are massive with planes, why, and a third one collapsed three days later, that seems very suspicious. And actually, no, it seems like two big buildings had planes rammed into them, which by the way, you can see, but not just by people who were there who were in the building. It is observable in every video you watch from the day. But, like, they are not going back and trying to like, reconstitute reality. And it's tough to like, but this is, this is now. It is very endemic. I mean, Sam, when you were like, do you see this more in voters? I don't know, you may have heard about that little theory that the 2020 election was stolen, that the ghost of Hugo Chavez was chang votes in the voting machines.

[Sam Stein]

I mean, well, that's, that's the thing. It's like. And then we have Trump who like, comes up with these insane theories about the Italians and like, you know, and Hugo Chavez and it's like, oh, yeah, but he's the president. And like, of course, this is what I'm getting is like, it's hard to pull people back from the abyss when it's the president.

[Will Sommer]

Yes.

[Sam Stein]

And senators who are the ones who are spreading this stuff because they are in reality trusted, authoritative figures. And if, you know they're the ones who are telling you to believe this, or at least to question the world around you. Then why wouldn't you? You right? I mean, it's just that it's hard to. It's hard to see how we break out of this. Either way, we'll keep monitoring it. Sarah will appreciate it. Thank you so much for your expertise on this. Will you watch Alex Jones so we don't have to?

[Will Sommer]

Not my expertise. I'm just here to punt.

[Sam Stein]

You're here to give us the good stuff. Will's here to educate us. All right. Subscribe to the feed. Thanks for watching. Take care.