True Crime in the Post-Truth Era

Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. The message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please for the love of everything goodness world, stop. With Mint you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course if you enjoy overpay no judgements but that's weird. Okay, one judgement. Anyway, give it a try at MintMobile.com/switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate for three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. It turns at MintMobile.com. The real cost of a break in isn't your valuables, it's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. Simply safe keeps danger away from your family with three layers of protection. One, smart AI cameras and live U.S. based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Play and starting around a dollar a day. Right now get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplysafe.com/spotify. Outdoor to turns plans start at $49.99 a month, visit simplysafe.com/licenses for alarm license information. Shack here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvano 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shack. Thank you, Mr. Carvano guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shack. Hey, have you always been so big tall and handsome? Not always. I was 6-10 once. Seven days to love it or return it, Mr. Shack. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvano. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven day return policy at Carvano.com. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task. Unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Hines, and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. Does Shopify on your side turn your big business idea into? Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com/specialoffer. When you spend enough time around great companies, you notice that the best ones treat trust as a growth strategy. Not a box to check. Vanta helps companies build and prove trust from day one. Its agentic trust platform connects compliance, risk, and trust at enterprise scale. Vanta delivers a 526% return on investment over three years and pays for itself in just three months. Learn why over 16,000 of the fastest growing companies use Vanta, Advanta.com. The people spreading conspiracy theories seem to want to use conspiracy theories not to explain what seems inexplicable, but almost as a blunt force object to dehumanize your opponents to score political points to discredit or cast something or someone as illegitimate. Welcome to Politicology. I'm Ron Steslow. How does a murder during a robbery gone wrong become an international conspiracy theory? What's it like when your loved one's memory is hijacked by people in service of their political genitals? I'm going to talk about all of these things and more with my guest today, Andy Krull. Andy is an investigative reporter for ProPublica where he covers voting, politics, and threats to democracy. He's the former Washington Bureau chief for Rolling Stone Magazine where he wrote extensively about the Seth Ridge case. He's also written for Mother Jones, National Journal, and the California Sunday Magazine. But most importantly today, he's the author of A Death on W Street, the murder of Seth Ridge and the Age of Conspiracy. Andy, it's a treat to welcome you to Politicology. Thanks for being here. The pleasure is all mine. I've been really looking forward to this. Support for Politicology comes from Quince, which has quickly become my go-to place for the fashion staples I always find myself reaching for first. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials, like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and marina wool, all in timeless versatile styles designed to last. Their Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $60 and they are all the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand but without the luxury price tag. My current favorite is the Mongolian cashmere Johnny Collar Polo Sweater in Navy, which has been perfect for this in-between weather and everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for high quality, not the brand market. Even my highly choosy husband has become a fan because the quality of their products is more like what he's used to finding in European boutiques. I recently ordered him one of their excursion Italian leather sling bags as a gift only to find out he had actually already ordered one so now we match. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to Quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about him, let them know it was politicology. It's the best way to support the show. Port for politicology comes from AG1. October has a way of sneaking up on us. Shorter days, darker mornings, and a routine that suddenly feels off, you're now up before the sun with a full day ahead, and that's when AG1 are in this place. Your body's already working hard to adjust to the season. And the last thing it needs is a nutrient gap making it harder. I'm headed out on a long road trip this month which means my diet is going to be, shall we say, less than optimal. But AG1 next gen has 75 plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, superfoods backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. So wherever we wake up, I know that with one scoop, cold water, every morning, before anything else, my bases are covered. Go to drink AG1.com/ron. And for a limited time, get a free immune support bundle, including a bottle of omega-3 fish oil and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 next gen or AG1 Pro. That's drink AG1.com/ron. When an intruder approaches a home, they expect a camera. What they don't expect. Stop. This is simply safe. Police are on the way. Using smart AI cameras, live US-based agents help deter intruders in under 30 seconds. Just record a break-in, stop it from ever happening. Right now, get 60% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplysafe.com/spotify. 30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan with outdoor protection starting at $49.99 a month. Visit simplysafe.com/licenses for alarm license information. So why don't we start with the beginning here? And I promise we will do this conversation with no spoilers because this is a story you want to be captivated by. So why don't you start by talking about what drew you to the separate story and writing the book in the first place? What first pulled me into this story was a personal connection, which made it different than the usual big project that I would undertake, or that really any journalist would undertake. You are drawn to a subject, you're drawn to a beat, you're drawn to a person in the news, and that wasn't the case with this story, with the Seth Rich story. I live in Washington, D.C. I've been here for more than a decade. I traveled in some of the same social circles as Seth Rich did. We had friends in common. Some of my friends were actually good friends of his, and I even made several lame attempts to play competitive soccer on a rec soccer team that he also played on as one does when one is in their late 20s in Washington, D.C. So there were these personal dots that connected him and me. And then in the summer of 2016, I am traveling for a story far away from Washington, D.C. And my phone lights up and it's a text message from a friend who I hadn't heard from in a little while, so I was a little surprised. And the text message said, "You won't believe this." And it was a link to a story in a local outlet here in D.C. And the story said that Seth had been shot and killed a day earlier at about fourish in the morning on July 10th, 2016. I remember feeling shocked and a bit of confusion. The classic sort of, wait, is this actually happening? How did this happen? I can't believe that this is happening to someone that I kind of know. I remember reading that on my phone, scrolling through it and then kind of tossing the phone on the passenger seat of my crappy rental car. And letting this horrible news kind of wash over me. And returning to D.C. eventually, I thought there would be a funeral, there would be remembrances for him, which there were here in D.C. and also back in his hometown of Omaha. And then his family would be able to take their time in private away from the media, away from the noise, all that and grieve this horrible thing that had happened. The loss of a son, the loss of a brother, no one wants to go through that. And that is not what happened, as I tell in the book. The opposite happens, which is Seth's life and his death become this international media phenomenon. And I followed this phenomenon. on for weeks after it happened, not as a reporter, but as a peer, almost, as someone who was in the same milieu as Seth, socially. And then eventually, I remember sometime in the fall of 2016, a switch flipped in my head. And I had to switch from friend mode, peer mode to journalist mode. I eventually had to understand why is this happening? How did this happen? And that was more than five years ago. And I just went down this path of trying to figure this out, not knowing where it would take me. And it took me to some pretty incredible, unbelievable places, which is really what forms the basis of this book. I want to get to some of those unbelievable places and moments. But first, why don't you tell us a little bit more about Seth Rich for the people who have heard the name, give us a sense of, you know, before he became an international name part of these conspiracy theories, what was his life like? And can you describe the sort of social circle that you're talking about? Yeah, and some of this will definitely sound familiar to you, Ron, as someone who knows this world. But, you know, DC is a magnet for young, ambitious, idealistic, you know, politically motivated young people. You can walk around Capitol Hill in the summer. And you will just see these packs of young people walking the sidewalks going to and from the Capitol, going to the, you know, dingy dive bars. Many of them still wearing their like Capitol Hill lanyards around their necks that they have to use to get into the building. And it's just a type. And Seth was in a lot of ways one of those types. I mean, I would call myself one of those types. I didn't gravitate toward politics. I gravitated to journalism to reporting. Seth was much more in the political mold. But he arrived here for a similar reason, which was he wanted to come to DC and be in the center of the action. He wanted to be where the decisions got made. The politicians came to do their work. The people who elected those politicians, especially, operate out of DC. And he wanted to be in that world. He was an idealistic guy. He was a true believer in the power of the vote. When he was killed, he was working at the Democratic National Committee, which is obviously the central organizing hub for the Democratic Party, just like the RNC is for the Republican Party. He was working on the voter expansion team. And this was really a cause, a line of work that he believed in, like, down to the marrow in his bones. I talked to an old girlfriend of his from college for the book. And she remembered fondly him really urging her to vote. And I believe it was the 2008 election. He knew that she was from a conservative family and would not be voting for a Democrat. We'd not be voting for Barack Obama that year as Seth Wood. But he didn't care. He wanted her to vote no matter who she was voting for because he believed that the country was at its best and that it worked when everyone was voting regardless of their party. So he was this wonderful mix of ambition and idealism and almost like a two earnest to be true belief in how democracy should work. Maybe that's us Midwestern guys. We just have that sort of Midwest, that earnest streak in us that we can't shake. But he really was a bright light who I think was destined for bigger things and that that light was unfortunately extinguished in a really tragic way in 2016. So let's lay out the facts that we know. Can you talk about what the lease and prosecutors know about the night Seth Rich was murdered? And then we'll get into some of the conspiracy theories and what pursuing them was like for you. I call this book a true crime story for the post-truth era, which means that there is a crime at the beginning and the crime is Seth's murder on July 10th, 2016. This is what we know about that murder. He lived in a neighborhood in DC called Bloomingdale. In the summer of 2016, Bloomingdale, which is this small, tree-lined, brick-row house-filled pocket of DC, like a lot of DC caught up in a sort of years-long wave of gentrification and the house was getting more and more expensive and new people moving in. And Bloomingdale was the site of a pretty terrifying series of armed robbery throughout the summer of 2016. I went back and I talked to community leaders, neighbors, former police, and that neighborhood was really living on edge for most of the summer of 2016 because people were getting robbed at gunpoint all summer long. Especially late at night, especially people who were talking or on their phones while they're walking late at night, which everyone listening, please don't do that. I can tell you, please don't do that. The police are under a lot of pressure to try to step up their protection in this neighborhood and try to get this problem under control. And then, as if there was another variable needed in this combustible situation, the whole neighborhood is ripped up because DC is putting this new tunnel system underground in the neighborhood because there's flooding and Bloomingdale all the time. And so there are these tarp-covered fences everywhere. And in fact, this project is still ongoing and you can still see these fences nearby, Cecil neighborhood today, amazingly. So the neighborhood's kind of amazed. The lights that have been put up to try to make it brighter and safer at night are going out as former neighbors at the time told me. And Seth is walking home far too late at night than he should have from a bar. And what the police believe happened is that he was confronted by two people, at least one of whom was armed, that he was talking on the phone at the time, talking to his ex-girlfriend, and that there was potentially a struggle. They tried to rob him. The wristband on his watch was torn. And he was shot several times, and then the people who did that fled the neighborhood. And the police and EMT were quick to the scene. They were there within minutes, found him lying in the street, and took him to a nearby emergency room, but they could not save him. The wounds he sustained from the gunshots were too severe. So that is what the police have told us. And that is what I learned in my own reporting, which involved talking to lots of people familiar with this case, including a former federal prosecutor who worked directly on it. So it fit this pattern of armed robberies in the Bloomingdale neighborhood. But there's just enough uncertainty there. Why was he shot and killed when others weren't? Why wasn't anything stolen from him when others weren't? That question start to spring up within really hours after his death being announced to the public. Their Mongolian cashmere sweaters start at just $60, and they are all the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand, but without the luxury price tag. My current favorite is the Mongolian cashmere Johnny-Color polo sweater in navy, which has been perfect for this in-between weather, and everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. So you're paying for high quality, not the brand markup. I recently ordered him one of their excursion Italian leather sling bags as a gift, only to find out he had actually already ordered one, so now we match. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to Quince.com. Shorter days, darker mornings, and a routine that suddenly feels off. You're now up before the sun with a full day ahead. And that's when AG1 earns its place. The last thing it needs is a nutrient gap, making it harder. I'm headed out on a long road trip this month, which means my diet is going to be, shall we say, less than optimal. But AG1 next gen has 75 plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, superfoods, backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. Go to drinkag1.com/ron. That's drinkag1.com/ron. - You're listening to a quick ad. You know what else is quick? Selling your car on Carvana. Just put in your vehicle information and we'll give you an offer. I'm done. No hassle, no negotiation, no guy from an online listing lowball in you, which means by the time I'm done explaining this, you could have basically done it. Still haven't started? Hey, better late than ever. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. It's early on in the book that you talk about some of the conspiracy theories. Around 9/11 and you make the point that in the past conspiracy theories have been about trying to make sense of difficult events. How have you seen that evolve over the last six to seven years and how would you contrast that with the conspiracy theories you tried to untangle around Seth Rich's murder? - Conspiracy theories have been around for as long as humans have, more or less. There is a huge history of conspiracy theories of every variety in our past, including, and especially in American history, you can go back to the founders before there was a United States of America and the men trying to create a United States of America are promoting conspiracy theories. This inclination to try to apply order to chaos or to see suspicion where maybe there isn't any, it's just baked into us. That was one thing that I-- - It's a human thing. - Yeah, it's a human thing, exactly. And that's one thing that I really came to better understand as I was reporting the book. I think it's just a basic element of human psychology, especially in the face of events or news that just seems to defy common sense or seems just beyond the realm of logic. I talk about the conspiracy theories after the 9/11 attack in the book a lot because they were a massive source of wild and fantastical claims. And there's a whole movement, the 9/11 truth movement, which is where I think where this phrase "truther" really comes from devoted to looking for alternative theories, looking for clues to suggest that 9/11 wasn't what we were all told that it was a terrorist attack. What seems to have changed in the last six or seven years is that conspiracy theories have become weaponized in a way that it didn't seem like they were to the same extent in decades past. Obviously, there were tons of conspiracy theories around the Clintons, there were conspiracy theories around Kennedy, I found some around Nixon, obviously Reagan and others. - Aliens. - Aliens, exactly. I mean, there's a long, long registry of this and there are a lot of really interesting books out there about it as well. And I would add too that no one party or ideology or end of the political spectrum has a monopoly on conspiratorial thinking, you can find it on all ends. But what seems to change in recent years is that these conspiracy theories are much more weaponized by one side to demonize the other. The people spreading conspiracy theories like former President Donald Trump to take one seem to want to use conspiracy theories not to explain what seems inexplicable, but almost as a blunt force object to dehumanize your opponents, to score political points, to discredit or cast something or someone as illegitimate. You look at the conspiracy theories that former President Trump put out there and they're not positing some super elaborate set of connections or networks or an actual conspiracy for why things happen. They just are kind of dehumanizing attacks on people he doesn't like. And this is, I think, a more recent vintage, a newer iteration of the sort of conspiratorial thinking. And it really is a sort of fixture of our politics now in a way that it wasn't in decades past. - I think the understanding of conspiracy theories as a new weapon in an arsenal of information warfare is really useful to think about because it sounds like the way they can be used is to exploit some really natural tendencies human beings have to fill a void of information to the end of maximizing political power or personal advantage as opposed to a meaning-making device, however ill-conceived. Is that what you found? - Yeah, that's absolutely right. I think the specific notion of meaning-making is what people have to understand and what is absent in the more recent vintage, if you will, of conspiracy theories. In the past, I think people were looking to conspiracy theories, were looking to alternative answers out of a sense of feeling disconnected from, either they're elected officials, they're cultural icons, things in the news, you name it. It really was a sense of, I don't know where I fit into this and I don't understand what's going on in my country, but I'm trying to figure it out. And maybe it's led me down this rabbit hole of sorts as opposed to what the official story is or what the vaccine to point to. But now it seems that conspiracy theories are wielded just as much too confused people, too disorient them, too make them feel as if they don't know who's right and who's wrong, who's telling the truth and who is not. When I travel for work, when I meet people on the road, covering campaign events, interviewing people for stories, you name it. I've heard that more and more in the last half decade, a sort of a rhetorical throwing up of the arms and saying, well, they are saying one thing, these other folks are saying something different, these are completely out odds with each other factually. So I don't know what to believe and I'm just gonna sort of tune out or I'm gonna take batters into my own hands in a way that I wouldn't necessarily before or say that voting isn't the answer when I'm stuck in this place where I don't know who's right, who's wrong, what's real, what's not. That to me is very much a more recent phenomenon. And obviously a really dangerous one if we're talking about a functioning democracy. - Can you talk a little bit about how that played out in Seth's story? - What drew me to this story wasn't only the true crime element of it. You have this unsolved murder that lights a fuse on really an unbelievable series of events, but also a feeling that Seth's story, story of his family and what they had to go through and what they did to push back, was part of a larger story, a meta story in the country. And that all of these things that I was trying to make sense of that were kind of floating around in their own disparate way that these conspiracy theories soaking into our politics, the election of Donald Trump, the role of social media in the national debate and the polarization of our politics. All of these things sort of felt wrapped around this specific story about Seth. And so I decided that I could tell two stories at once, the story specifically of Seth and his family and that narrative, but also a narrative of trying to make sense again of how we got to this place where people are just kind of tossing up their hands and saying, I don't know what's real, I don't know what's not, and I don't trust anyone anymore. And then we're in uncharted territory. So all of these things kind of came together as did this incredible cast of characters that's in the book as well. One of the main features of the conspiracy, theorization around Seth's story is Hillary's emails. How do you think the desire to blame the DNC leak on anyone, but Russia played into this? - It was absolutely a big part of it. If we can cast our minds back to the summer of 2016 and that incredibly tumultuous election, which feels like ancient history now, but it wasn't really that long ago. Do you see this issue of emails and leaking? WikiLeaks is obviously in the mix here as well. Julian Assange is kind of sowing doubt and kicking up dirt about it. about the source of these DNC emails that WikiLeaks published. And you really see an early example of this fight for what is actually true here. How serious actually is this Hillary Clinton email issue? As it turns out, not a earth shattering matter of complete national security importance, she probably should have been more careful, but the national security of the country was not at stake here. You have that sort of mixed in as well with these leaked emails that first WikiLeaks publishes from the DNC, then of course from John Podesta. The intelligence community says that we have a pretty strong confidence that the Russian military intelligence agency to GRU was behind this. And obviously that evidence only gets more conclusive the further we go. But there is just an all out, and I'm giving people 2016 PTSD here, but there's just a little bit of that. But there's just an all out campaign to try to muddy the waters around what actually happened in 2016. And this pretty extraordinary act of interference and really a cyber attack by a foreign country on our soil to disrupt that election. And as supporters of the president, in addition to WikiLeaks are mudding the water around this right in the middle of all that is the tragic death of this young man, Seth Rich. And it does capture something about our politics that within a month you have Roger Stone suggesting that the Clintons had had Seth Rich killed. You have all of these different politically-infused conspiracy theories come up about a guy who had been tragically killed by all indications is a just a horrible case of wrong place, wrong time. But that was the political environment in that moment. And really, it feels like we have been in 2016 for the last six years, almost. I know people say that on Twitter, it's like 2016 never ended. But in some ways, it never has. And that is also shown through this book that those warring sides that sort of tribal approach to politics continues on from that election onward. Yeah, well, now 2016, I think of as sort of when truth began to die, really. And we've been swimming in that water ever since. It sounds like the big inflection points in this saga happened when a major public figure leaned into the conspiracy theory, mentioned a sange in Roger Stone. And then there was Alex Jones. And there was Fox News personality Sean Hannity. Can you describe how attention shifted as these figures waited into the conspiracy? As I went back and retraced the Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory, I almost thought of myself as a kind of social media archaeologist in a way. I was going back and unearthing little tweets and videos, television segments. I had my little imaginary brush. And there I am out in the world, the wilds looking for clues and piecing this thing back together. And what I saw was the origin of this conspiracy theory, interestingly enough, seemed to be on the far left. You really first started to see hardcore supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders who was running for president at the time and the Green Party candidate at the time as well, Jill Stein. First point to Seth's murder and say, hmm, this doesn't look right. Something suspicious happened here. And eventually, this conspiracy theory moves to the other side when Roger Stone and Julian Assange have their moment where they promote this. And so while it's organic, it seemed to be very much organic. I don't think that a conspiracy theory of any kind, especially this one, survives the way that it did without these super spreader moments to borrow from our recent pandemic trauma. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, everyone. When I went back and I charted out the trajectory of this Seth Rich conspiracy theory, Julian Assange's interviews in 2016 were one of those super spreader moments. You have other big political figures, Roger Stone's and other one. But no moment came close to matching what happened when Fox News championed this theory about Seth. Wasn't even close. Wasn't anywhere near what Assange had said before it was so much past that. I think Fox's role in this really exemplifies how Fox fits into the bigger picture of American media. These things don't originate with Fox News. Fox News is not the first place you will hear, whether it's something about Seth Rich back in its day or these theories about the great replacement theory or any of the other hard-edged, conspiratorial, big narrative that Fox News puts out there. The election denying comments after the 2020 election is another example. Fox News doesn't start that stuff, but Fox is at the center of that conservative media ecosystem. And there is nothing on the magnitude of when Fox gets a hold of something and blasts it out to the world. That was really true with the Seth Rich story. And the other thing that came out of this book that I realized about Fox is once Fox has taken your story and blasted it to the masses, there's no putting that back in the box. I think the Rich family might have believed for a while after Seth's passing that maybe all of this online noise will die down. Maybe it will go away or it will at least shrink to such a level that we won't notice it anymore and that it won't really be a big deal if we search Seth's name online or his Google footprint, if you will. After Fox though, all of that changed. There was no going back after that. The Google search results for Seth Rich would never be the same. And so I think Fox is this, it's at the top of this pyramid almost in conservative media and once it's gotten there, it's never going away. - Support for Politicology comes from Quince, which has quickly become my go to place for the fashion staples I always find myself reaching for first. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and merino wool, all in timeless versatile styles designed to last. I recently ordered him one of their excursion, Italian leather sling bags as a gift. Only to find out he had actually already ordered one. So, well, now we match. Support for politicology comes from AG1. But AG1 next gen has 75 plus ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, super foods, backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. And for a limited time, get a free immune support bundle, including a bottle of Omega-3 fish oil, and a bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your first subscription order of AG1 next gen or AG1 pro. Unless you have a partner like Shopify, they have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website, to marketing, to selling, and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Hines, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your site, turn your big business idea into-- (bell rings) Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify. can you talk about what you learned about the role of money in conspiracy theories? The conspiracy theory economy might say. Yeah, the conspiracy theory industrial complex, as I've heard it referred to. This is one of those things that, to my mind, makes this moment that we're in so much different from the past when it comes to conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theories. Again, these things have been around forever. They're just part of how our mind works. But if you go back to the pre-internet era, there weren't a lot of tools available to you if you were a conspiracy theorist to beam your theories to the masses. You needed printing press or you needed a pirate radio station. You needed access to some kind of apparatus that would help you get your pamphlets out. You stood in a public square somewhere and hoped that someone would snatch one of those pieces of paper out of your hand. One great example, I remember, was a famous anarchist from the early 20th century in New York City who would go to the top of a really tall apartment building and dump a box of his pamphlets out a window and they would flutter down to the sidewalks of Manhattan. And he would hope people would snatch them out of the air or off the ground and read them. That was mass communicating in the early 20th century. In a lot of ways too, I just think that conspiracy theorists were a guy sitting at a bar with two or three of his friends or co-workers saying, "I don't really think Elvis is dead." Or that moon landing looks fake to me, Stanley Kubrick probably directed that. What's different now is the tools available to you if you're a conspiracy theorist. And of course to anyone else who's trying to put a message out into the world. We're just so much more powerful. Again, if you hit that algorithm just right on Facebook or Twitter, you can reach millions of people in what? An hour, a day, you can use these tools basically for free. Twitter, Facebook, these live streaming apps now, I mean there's all kinds of stuff out there that is these online talk radio equivalents. The tools are many and most of them are so easy to use. And then to add the cherry on top, if you're really, really good, good in quotes at using these tools to spread your conspiracy theories about whatever, people will pay you for it because you can ask them to donate to you or to subscribe. And again, a lot of the things I'm describing are used by millions of people to talk about their hobbies, to talk about sports, talk about news, talk about politics. There's nothing wrong with that. But these tools are also available to people who are going to try to reach millions of Americans out there and say that Seth Rich was basically a traitor to his own country who stole emails from his employer and gave them the WikiLeaks. And they can get rewarded and paid for those messages and that is very different from from the past and opens up a whole big box of difficult questions about what do we do now that you can get that message out to the masses well before you can fact check it. And using this social media and sort of big technology. Yeah, that's right. That's one of the big questions I spoke with a couple of Stanford professors about their new book system error about exactly this problem about algorithms essentially rewarding the most incendiary information that the way these platforms are designed. They hack our attention and then monetize it. And the in particular that the engineers that are right making these decisions, the coders that are making these decisions have really no training or equipment, you know, mental equipment to think about the ethical consequences of the technology choices that they're making. So this really, it really does open up an entire sort of landscape of problems. One of the things that you and I have talked about, I think in the past about one of the most famous conspiracy theories, QAnon is what it says about us as a society, right, that this information spreads so easily. What are sort of propensity to believe the unbelievable says about all kinds of things, for example, the state of mental health care in America. And it's kind of a window into all of these other social ills that we still have festering, right. How are you thinking about the landscape in that way as you're trying to untangle fact from fiction in these conspiracy theories, because as we know, the best lies are the ones that have truth mixed in, right, that you have lies sort of wrapped around a nugget of truth, which is what happened in Seth Rich's case. How are you thinking about that as you as you went on this journey. What I hoped to do with the book, what I hope readers will find in the book, is that those bigger themes, those deeper questions about what is in the air, what is in the ground, what is causing people to believe these things. Or to spread these things. I hope that they will find those ideas sort of embedded throughout the story, that they will in the different characters, in the different flashpoints, understand in a deeper way. All the different factors that I think play into something like, say, Q&A. And I think a few of those factors, just to spell them out quickly, are one, obviously, there is a trust problem in this country. There is a deep, deep decline in trust in media and elected officials. And now we're seeing it in public health institutions in those key institutions and organizations in some ways pillars of our democracy. These are the things that are the basic structure of what makes our country what it is. Of civilization. Of civilization. Exactly. I mean, in another one building on that exact point is, it's not only a loss of trust, but I think it's also a loss of connection. Now that may seem counterintuitive when in the age of Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all of this sort of stuff, we kind of feel more connected than ever. I know what all my former high school classmates have been doing for years and how many kids they have where they want to vacation and all that kind of stuff. Thanks to Facebook and all the other social media platforms. And so we're connected in that very superficial way. It's very flimsy. But I think the yeah, it's flimsy. It's shallow. It is, you know, very surface level. It is not the sort of deeper level of connection that happens between a group of people that allows them to say, have a civil debate about things they don't agree on necessarily or allows them to get together and have a kind of cohesive network, a town, a city, an organization, you name it. Even if they don't agree on every political issue because the political issues don't define them, their connections, their bonds define them. You know, I interviewed people who believe in QAnon, which of course is absolutely bonkers crazy. If you look at QAnon, the notion that a secret pedophile cabal of elites is secretly ruling the world. And only Donald Trump can stop them. I mean, it is, it is absolutely patently absurd. But there are millions of people who genuinely believe it or something like it is real and it explains to them many of the hills of our country. That to me is not only an indication of the diminishment of trust in political elites, media elites, you name it. But I think it is also people seeking some kind of community, some bond with others where they can talk, where they can feel like they're not being judged. It's just sad that it's happening in the context of something as insane as QAnon. But I think it's because not to go full rubber button of bowling alone on you here, but I think it's because all of these other community centric person centric bonds that used to have have, have faded away, have atrophied. And they look for those connections online and it often points them into things like QAnon or something. "Thrich conspiracy theories" or "Pizzagate," you name it. - And we now live in a world where those things can actually be weaponized for the personal political monetary gain of an individual organization that means to do social ill. I wanna personalize this a little bit for our listeners and talk about reputation more broadly, especially for people who have already died. But I wanna know how this reporting shaped how you think about reputation and what our listeners could take away from that lesson. - The epigraph of the book is a line from Othello. And I won't read it here and go full English lip professor. I knew and our listeners. But the takeaway of it is our name and our reputation is the essential thing that we have. You can take away my wealth, you can take away my belongings. But the worst thing you can do is take away my name, my reputation. The story in the book Chronicles, however, just that very thing happening, how Seth's name was four of time taken from him or how people tried to take that name or turn that name into something that it most decidedly was not. Seth's name was turned into hashtags. His name was Seth Rich, I am Seth Rich. It was an alt-right rallying cry on Reddit on election night 2016 where people were saying that Seth was looking down on them from heaven, cheering on Trump's victory. I mean, it had just been turned and transformed and remade into something completely unrecognizable. I've always thought about name and reputation because I'm in journalism. We're in a field, you and I, where our name is on everything. And I'm sure for my own sake that there is some appeal to that, maybe that's in part what drew me to this, was you get to see your byline on a story or now on the cover of a book. But I never contemplated how your name, the thing that is most essential to you could be turned into something so diametrically opposite to what it was until I wrote this book. Now, to not make it fully doom and gloom for our listeners, the final third of the book is all about how Seth's family after going through not just the tragic death of a son and a brother, but also all of this conspiratorial aftermath. They decided finally that they had to fight back, that they had to find some way at the end of the day to restore Seth's name and his reputation, getting back to that idea. In the case of Seth's parents, Joel and Mary, that meant filing a lawsuit in federal court in New York against Fox News. These are two wonderful, unassuming, very not political people, Joel and Mary Rich, people who have had the great privilege to spend a lot of time with in the last few years. They decide that they are going to sue the most powerful media company in America. And that lawsuit ends with them winning a settlement and there's a Fox story that was retracted in the process that said a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't true about Seth. And it really did end with a measure of justice for them. Aaron, Seth's older brother, his only brother, filed a lawsuit of his own against three people who had defamed him just for Aaron trying to defend his brother. And Aaron, too, won an apology and retractions. It wasn't easy for any of them. Swing Fox is not easy. Even if you're dominion voting and you have all of the money in the world to spend on lawyers or whatever, it's not easy. But this was a modest, apolitical Midwestern family. But they did it because I think that at the end of the day getting back to the question that you asked, they realized that there is nothing more fundamental than your name, your reputation is who you are. And they would go to the end of the earth and pretty much did to restore that for Seth. And so at least I think that book, it ends on that note where there is accountability, there is justice, there is some recourse for all of these things that happened. (upbeat music) - Support for Politicology comes from Quince, which has quickly become my go-to place for the fashion staples I always find myself reaching for first. My current favorite is the Mongolian cashmere Johnny-Color polo sweater in Navy, which has been perfect for this in-between weather. And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. I recently ordered him one of their excursion Italian leather sling bags as a gift only to find out he had actually already ordered one. The last thing it needs is a nutrient gap making it harder. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. With Shopify on your site, turn your big business idea into-- [BELL RINGS] Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com/specialoffer. So many more questions I want to ask you about the book, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But they should know there's an audio book. There's an audio version. In case you'd rather listen to it. Andy doesn't narrate it, unfortunately, because your voice is fantastic. Fortunately, very fortunate. [LAUGHTER] Do you want to tell everybody where they can find it? Is there-- would you prefer the buy-to-namazon or somewhere else and anything else you want to leave listeners with before we hop over to Politicogee+? Feel free to buy it on Amazon. The audible version is available there as well. If you want to purchase it from somewhere else, AndyCroll.com, my name, I have links on the front page there. I think our listeners will both find it a book that is a page turner. I mean, I wrote it that way. Yeah, I wanted it to pull you through. Captivating novel. And you will learn so much along the way. Maybe more than you want to. But yeah, it's a riveting read as well. I thank you. I hope that it would feel like the story was pulling you through at the same time, absorbing a few lessons about our politics and that. Yes. And also, I should say, it places you in the information landscape that we're in today. It really carries you through to like you will see it all around you now. And I think it just makes the problem of our information environment all the more real. And in a way, it sort of makes sense of how we got to where we are. That was my goal. So thank you for saying that. I hope that people who read it feel the same way. OK, Andy, we're going to hop over to Politicogee+. And we're going to talk about some recent reporting that you just broke about the largest donation in political history. Before we do that, where can people find you on the internet? I'm on Twitter @AndyCroll, nice and easy. And you can go to my website, AndyCroll.com, lots of updates there as well on the book and all the other journalistic work that I've got cooking up. Thank you to everyone at home and on the go for listening. If you haven't yet, we'd appreciate it. If you could open up the Apple Podcast app and give us a five star rating and review over there. This helps us rise in the rankings so that new people can discover politicalogy organically. If you have questions about anything we've talked about, you can reach us as always at [email protected]. And even when we can't respond, we do read everything you send us, whether it's an episode idea, a guest recommendation, or just a simple note about how the show has impacted you. And we love hearing from you. I'm Ron Steslow. I'll see you in the next episode. Ryan Reynolds here from Mid-Mobile. Please, for the love of everything goodness world, stop. With Mid, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpay no judgments, but that's weird. OK, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mid-mobile.com/switch. Up front payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate for three months only. Then full price plan options available. See full terms at mid-mobile.com. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into? The real cost of a break-in isn't your valuables. It's the feeling that your home stopped being safe. One, smart AI cameras and live US-based agents help stop intruders before they break in. Outdoor to turns plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplysafe.com/licenses for alarm-license information. You're listening to a quick ad. I'm done, no hassle, no negotiation, no guy from an online listing lowballing you. Which means, by the time I'm done explaining this, you could have basically done it. Hey, better late than never. When you spend enough time around great companies, you notice that the best ones treat trust as a growth strategy, not a box to check. It's a gentick trust platform connects compliance, risk, and trust at enterprise scale. Learn why over 16,000 of the fastest growing companies use Vanta at Vanta.com.