Is Kennedy a Nazi?
post by Pee Doom (DonyChristie) · 2023-07-31T08:51:44.750Z · LW · GW · 2 commentsThis is a question post.
Contents
Answers 12 ChristianKl 1 Ericf None 2 comments
Warning: partisan politics. Cognitive candy. I don't expect this to be consequentially useful on its own. I'm just really curious about something wild.
The fully expanded, less clickbaity question in more than four words [LW · GW]: Did U.S. presidential primary candidate Robert F. Kennedy post neo-Nazi symbols as a dogwhistle on Twitter?
Here is the tweet motivating my question:
Notice the use of the numbers "14" and "88". If you don't know, the numbers "1488" together are neo-Nazi symbols.
The quote tweet that brought my attention to this. The person said they used to take down a lot of t-shirts (on a t-shirt store site?) that were subtly encoding these numbers, such as in the prices of the shirt, and that this tweet was setting off his alarm bells.
The confluence of coincidences was too much to have a plausible alternative explanation in a Bayesian world. These movements explicitly tell their members to do this shit, find ways to obscure the symbology. We shouldn’t be surprised when they do it.
I am just kind of shocked that this could be the case. Like, what the fuck. He's not even a Republican. We're talking about a Kennedy here! Does society make any sense anymore?
My error bars are high here. I would think it's likely it's a coincidence. But also, I don't know, this seems to me to be at least 10% likely to be true!? RFK has been criticized for making commentary that is considered to be antisemitic as well as being an antivaxxer. He seems to believe his father and uncle were assassinated by the CIA, which, whether or not is true, could certainly lead to anti-establishment views and paranoid epistemology. I take a lot of the claims against him to be clearly politically motivated interpretations of statements of his, and I haven't examined it all that much, but they're still likely some positive evidence that increases the likelihood he would espouse or at least pander to a neo-Nazi view compared to not holding those views.
If it's true it's a dogwhistle, the most likely hypothesis could be that a campaign staffer posted it instead of RFK himself. Apparently a staffer on the DeSantis campaign retweeted a video with Nazi symbology in it before it was taken down and that staffer fired. But this tweet hasn't been taken down, edited, or clarified yet.
I just feel surprised. You can't unsee the possible guileful intentions. It drives up the dopamine in my gossiping ape brain to assess this. But it could very well be a numerical coincidence as well.
We figured out did at least okay on the Amanda Knox case [LW · GW]; can we get to the bottom of this and derive a community estimate of the chance it was intentional? If you have nothing better to do, anyway.
Loads of sub-questions for consideration in producing an estimate: What is the prior probability of someone using these two numbers naturally vs intentionally on Twitter (particularly when a politician running for office)? For that matter, how many two-or-more-co-occurring 2-digit numbers are posted to Twitter each day in total? How many co-occurrences of those two-digit numbers happen by coincidence each day? How many people use it intentionally each day? How many intentional uses are caught? How many people accuse people of intentional use when it was actually coincidence? What is the probability he previously knows the meaning? What is the probability of someone being a neo-Nazi conditional on being an avowed antivaxxer? What other bits of evidence are there about his ideology? How likely is it a closet neo-Nazi or someone who sympathizes with such would take pro-Jewish actions or make pro-Jewish statements? Why has the tweet not been acted on yet? What is the probability a staffer made this tweet? How many politicians hold neo-Nazi sympathies?
Some commentary elsewhere:
Answers
The first step should be to acknowledge that this is a conspiracy theory in the classical sense of the term conspiracy theory. Finding numerical patterns as evidence for Illuminati influence is a classical trope and lines up with it's own kind of paranoid epistemology.
Telling these kinds about conspiracy theory about how the far right operates is common for certain actors on the left. If you want to believe in this numerology-based conspiracy theory, than you should likely first think about how you want to relate in general to numerology-based conspiracy theories as a reference class.
It's possible that some numerology-based conspiracy theories are indeed true but it's easy to come to bad conclusions which conspiracy theory-based thinking. The fact that it's left-wing conspiracy theories doesn't make them more likely.
There are multiple other issues at play here:
(1) The first question is whether or not Kennedy is posting his own Twitter messages. For many presidential candidates that's not the case.
(2) It should be relatively easy to check whether or not the 88 days are indeed the correct number which comes out of the Biden administration or a number that comes out of the Kennedy campaign. If the number comes out of the Biden administration it might also be purposefully picked as a trap.
(3) Kennedy is seeking the Democratic nomination. If he knew the association of the numbers, which lines up with the ascertain that he used them as a dog whistle, it would be a dumb political move as it decreases his support in the demographics that matter for his campaign.
↑ comment by Misaligned-Semi-intelligence (MisalignedIntelligence) · 2023-07-31T17:01:08.772Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I don't think this really maps directly to "numerology based conspiracy". It's not that relevant that the symbology happens to be numbers. To me, this would be a numerology-based conspiracy if 1488 wasn't already an established white supremacist dog-whistle/signal, and the conspiracy theorist invented the connection to explain why those particular numbers were used. But this kind of signalling is effective for the same reason it's dangerous to draw a conclusion based on it alone: there are lots of plausible reasons for 14 and 88 to come up that aren't related to signalling nazi ideology which makes it easy to dismiss as numerology.
I think your reasons for being skeptical are right. And this is the exact type of statement where I would expect this coincidence to pop up. Both are a reasonable number of days for bureaucracy to take, the large discrepancy between them is required for the complaint in the tweet to happen in the first place, and I would expect the number of days to be very specific rather than a round number.
"Person running the twitter account did it without any approval from the campaign" is the most likely explanation to me if it isn't a coincidence. Although Biden admin taking exactly 88 days to get Kennedy to say 88 when complaining is a quality counter-conspiracy.
Replies from: DonyChristie, ChristianKl↑ comment by Pee Doom (DonyChristie) · 2023-07-31T20:19:44.418Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
And this is the exact type of statement where I would expect this coincidence to pop up. Both are a reasonable number of days for bureaucracy to take, the large discrepancy between them is required for the complaint in the tweet to happen in the first place, and I would expect the number of days to be very specific rather than a round number.
I agree with this. Although I will note people are claiming it actually took 56 (IIRC) days for them to get back to him.
↑ comment by ChristianKl · 2023-07-31T21:43:05.537Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
666 for example is a well-established number in the bible as well. Those self-professed Satanists that do exist care about it. It's not conspiracy theorists who made up that 666 has meaning for some people. You do find 666 appearing on T-shirts as well.
↑ comment by Ericf · 2023-07-31T15:33:44.397Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Looking at actual neo natzi and white supremacist pages/formus shows quite extensive usage of 14 & 88 symbology, and explicit explanations of the same, so your first point is factually inaccurate.
The term "conspiracy theory" comes pre-loaded with the connotation of "false" and you cannot use those words to describe a situation where multiple people have actually agreed to do something.
Replies from: jimmy↑ comment by jimmy · 2023-07-31T17:30:00.460Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Setting aside the object level question here, trying to redefine words in order to avoid challenging connotations is a way to go crazy.
If someone is theorizing about a conspiracy, that's a conspiracy theory by plain meaning of the words. If it's also true, then the connotation about conspiracy theories being false is itself at least partly false.
The point is to recognize that it does belong in the same class, and how accurate/strong those connotations are for this particular example of that reference class, and letting connotations shift to match as you defy the connotations where appropriate.
If you try to act like a conspiracy theory "isn't a conspiracy theory" when it's true, then you have to write your bottom line before figuring out whether it's true or not, and that doesn't actually work for coming to correct beliefs.
Replies from: Ericf↑ comment by Ericf · 2023-08-02T00:04:43.032Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Just don't use the term "conspiracy theory" to describe a theory about a conspiracy. Popular culture has driven "false" into the definition of that term, and wishful appeals to bare text doesn't make that connection go away. It hurts that some terms are limited in usability, but the burden of communication falls on the writer.
The innocent explanation is that the SS got back to him just before some sort of 90 day deadline, and he did the math. In which case the tweet could have been made out of ignorance, like flashing an "OK" sign in the "White Power" orientation. It's not easy to keep up with all the dog whistles out there.
Still political malpractice to not track and avoid those signals, though. If you "accidentally" have a rainbow in the background of a campaign photo, that counts as aligning with the LGBTQ+ crowd - same thing with putting "88" in a campaing post & Natzis.
So, the tweet aligns hos campaign with the Natzis, but might have done it accidentally.
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comment by frontier64 · 2023-07-31T18:46:14.581Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I'd like to log my prediction that this post is tongue-in-cheek and you don't think "Is Kennedy a Nazi?" is a sensible response to that tweet.
Replies from: DonyChristie↑ comment by Pee Doom (DonyChristie) · 2023-07-31T20:16:20.418Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I think it's an entirely sensible inference in the world where it is true that it was intentional, albeit a highly reductive description of the actual psychological reality of someone who holds those beliefs enough to output such symbols. In that world, he could also be paying lipservice to pander or be trolling.