“They Knew” is a volume of improbable and seemingly impossible tales of hidden connections in the worlds of politics, government and public affairs.
By Dale Singer
In 2020, Sarah Kendzior’s 9-year-old son asked, “Who is the MyPillow Guy?”
After told he’s “a guy who sells pillows, but who is also working for Donald Trump to violently overthrow the government,” the child was unconvinced. He turned to his father “for a more reasonable explanation, the way he did when I insisted on the existence of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, but my husband shook his head and said, ‘Your mother’s not messing with you, kid.’”
His response?
“‘Oh my God,’ my son said, laughing maniacally. ‘Oh my God, the government, oh my God!’”
That’s the kind of reaction many readers may have if they follow Kendzior down the rabbit hole in “They Knew,” a volume of improbable and seemingly impossible tales of hidden connections in the worlds of politics, government and public affairs — what she terms “a panorama of paranoia.” Her two-word title packs a punch beyond its brevity, throwing a bright light on the book’s subtitle: “How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent.”
What is a conspiracy theory? From the outset, Kendzior takes pains to define what she has studied and written about in depth. A conspiracy theory, she writes, is not a conspiracy, not “an agreement of powerful actors to secretly carry out a plan that protects their own interests, often to the detriment of the public good.”
“When the agendas of elite actors get pushed underground,” she adds, “and you have to dig for them — that is when those agendas are called conspiracies, and facts are called theories, and you are called insane for noticing.”
Theories arise and flourish when true conspiracies provide them the necessary breeding ground.
“Conspiracy theories are the midway point to truth,” Kendzior writes, “the fork in the road between enlightenment and delusion. Conspiracy theories are what you end up with when people bury past sins and build over the graves and one day somebody finds bones in the earth.”
The upshot: “The collapse of democracy, rule of law, and climate at once leaves us with one lesson: The truth may hurt, but the lies will kill you.”