The credibility problem hiding in plain sight
What happens when legitimate grievances are left unaddressed and conspiracy-minded commentators rush in to fill the vacuum.
One of the most dangerous developments in politics right now is that some of the most irresponsible voices in media are getting very good at identifying real problems.
At first glance, that might not sound dangerous at all.
If people are talking about economic anxiety, institutional failures, corporate power, or elite hypocrisy, aren’t those conversations worth having? Of course they are.
The problem is not the observation. The problem is what comes next.
Most people are not persuaded by arguments that are obviously disconnected from reality. If someone tells you that purple lizards secretly control the economy, you don’t spend much time considering it. You move on.
But if someone accurately identifies something that is genuinely frustrating people, suddenly you are listening. Maybe they point to stagnant wages, corporate consolidation, a healthcare system that is failing too many people, or a growing sense that institutions are not working as they should.
Now they have your attention.
And that attention creates an opening.
The populist trap
I have talked many times before about what I consider the trap of populist rhetoric.
Populism is not a policy agenda. It is a style of communication.
That is why very different political movements can sound remarkably similar at first.
The rhetoric often starts in familiar territory. The middle class is struggling. Corporations have accumulated too much power. Economic opportunities seem increasingly out of reach for many people.
A lot of that is true.
The problem is that two people can begin with the same diagnosis and end up in radically different places.
One person might conclude that we need stronger labor protections, more housing, better healthcare access, stronger antitrust enforcement, and tax reforms that better reflect economic reality.
Another person starts with the same frustration and somehow arrives at immigrants, universities, transgender people, journalists, or ethnic minorities as the culprit.
That is where the road splits.
The Tucker Carlson formula
Tucker Carlson is one of the clearest examples of why this trend matters.
Part of what makes Tucker more influential today than many of the traditional right-wing commentators who came before him is that he has become much better at identifying real points of public frustration. Years ago, much of his commentary was more straightforward partisan and culture-war content. More recently, however, he has increasingly focused on issues that resonate far beyond the conservative movement.
He talks about stagnant wages, opioid addiction, corporate greed, the concentration of wealth, and the growing disconnect between ordinary people and powerful institutions.
People hear that and think, finally, someone is talking about the problems I actually see around me.
And to be fair, some of those observations are correct. Many Americans do feel economically insecure. Many communities have been left behind. Trust in institutions has declined dramatically over the last several decades. These are real issues deserving of serious discussion.
The problem is that identifying a problem is not the same thing as understanding it.
Once the audience has been brought in, the conversation often takes a very different turn. Instead of focusing on labor rights, healthcare access, housing affordability, antitrust enforcement, or tax policy, the explanation shifts toward cultural grievance and scapegoating. The frustrations may be real, but the causes and solutions become detached from reality.
And Tucker is hardly alone.
Nick Fuentes uses a similar approach with young men who feel isolated, economically insecure, and disconnected from institutions they no longer trust. Alex Jones built an entire media empire by taking legitimate concerns about institutional failures and turning them into all-encompassing conspiracy theories. Joe Rogan sometimes starts with valid criticisms of media failures or corporate misconduct, only to drift into a worldview where institutional trust has eroded so completely that almost any theory begins to feel plausible.
What all of these examples have in common is that they begin with something true. That truth creates credibility. And credibility makes people more receptive to conclusions that would otherwise sound absurd.
Why this works
What makes this dynamic so effective is that emotional validation comes before the conclusion. Once someone feels understood, they become more open to accepting explanations they might otherwise reject. That does not make them irrational. It makes them human. People are naturally more receptive to information from someone they believe understands their experiences and frustrations.
That is why so many conspiracy movements begin with something that is at least partially true.
Governments sometimes lie.
Corporations sometimes conceal information.
Media organizations sometimes get things wrong.
Institutions sometimes fail.
All of that is true.
The problem is that acknowledging those realities can become the first step toward a much more extreme worldview. It becomes easy to move from “institutions sometimes fail” to “institutions can never be trusted.” It becomes easy to move from healthy skepticism to reflexive cynicism.
That is where figures like Alex Jones built their audiences. The starting point was often a legitimate concern about transparency or accountability. The destination was a worldview in which every tragedy was a conspiracy and every institution was part of a coordinated plot.
The starting point may be grounded in reality.
The destination is not.
The vacuum
The final piece of this puzzle is the one that concerns me most.
When traditional politicians, media organizations, and public institutions refuse to seriously engage with economic pain, institutional distrust, and public frustration, they create a vacuum.
And someone is always waiting to fill it.
That does not mean every grievance is justified. It does not mean every criticism of institutions is accurate. But many people genuinely feel that something is not working. There is a growing sense of disconnection from the political system, a belief that powerful interests play by a different set of rules, and a perception that those in charge are either unwilling or unable to confront obvious problems.
If credible voices are unwilling to engage with those concerns, less credible voices will.
That is how conspiracy theorists gain influence. It is how demagogues build audiences and how people who monetize anger become trusted sources of information.
The irony is that many of these movements grow not because they are especially good at identifying solutions, but because they are often the only ones willing to spend time talking about the frustrations people are already experiencing.
The challenge, then, is not simply identifying what is broken.
The challenge is recognizing the difference between someone who identifies a real problem and someone who actually understands it. Because identifying a genuine frustration can create enormous credibility, even when the answers that follow are completely detached from reality.
Understanding that process is the first step toward dealing with it.
Tell me your thoughts: Have you found yourself recently agreeing with commentators or public figures who, maybe a few years ago, you would have immediately dismissed? If so, what changed?
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My immediate thoughts are, there's a level above these two directions towards solutions, in which people aren't speaking about the economy. and, what the heck, as an environmental science educator, there's a level above the economy-- the ecology which we almost never talk about properly -- and upon which all life on earth hangs in the balance.
Those who purport to believe in labor, housing, heathcare, human rights, bodily autonomy, and economic support for other people, rarely talk about where those funds will emerge from.
Occasionally they might mention that wars are expensive, the f@#$ing ballroom and other vanity projects are expensive (how many people could eat or get medical care, or be housed with the money tied up in lawsuits and paint around the kennedy center name battle?), but they don't necessarily mention how to reroute those funds, the political processes that need to be engaged to change those priorities, and what if any personal sacrifices might be necessary to create those shifts. (in the Haymarket protests for example, people died and were deported, to achieve the 8 hour workday and breaks we've been unable to retain against all of the union busting, union corruption and violence directed at workers' rights movements.)
Those who believe whole swathes of society are scapegoatable, believe they can retrieve extra funding from uh I don't know, I guess deporting, murdering, or otherwise stripping those other people of any chance to live or live well, and then taking the extra for themselves.
Again, the plan for how the theft and redistribution to the selfish people this appeals to -- from the other probably very hardworking populations -- is not outlined in the political rhetoric. How would that economic redistribution look? Who would enact it? Do these people just expect a violent colonial type settlement, in which they are handed the properties of the people they don't consider also human? Do they have stockpiles of weapons to defend that theft, to do the murdering themselves? Or do they hope it will just be done quietly where they can't see it, and they'll just be oops the beneficiaries of unintentional genocide?
I might know less about what this population is expecting or isn't asking, but I know that the plans to scapegoat might be intentionally vague on the part of the pundits who propose it, because -- and here's sort of the anchor to these thoughts for me -- I don't think those pundits stand to gain from disrupting the difficulties at hand, but just from sparking outrage so they can profit off of the frustrations of the people who can't survive. Which, if we're honest is the same situation for the pundits on the other side?
If people are really hoping to spark change, they would have to be offering more than talking points about what the needed changes are, and asking more questions about how an average person in the U.S. around their impossible work/life schedule has some time and effort to help organize and build movements to address their own concerns -- which if we'rebeing thoughtful about it, are not all of the same concerns. A farming community does not have the same concerns as a community built around a college, or a town with a chemical production facility. These communities might have overlapping, contradictory, or compatible concerns, but they aren't all the same, as is often implied by our dehumanizing political systems which attempt to flatten all of our identities and concerns into homogenized states.
The fact that voting rights are being taken away, and it isn't a bigger deal, seems to me to be happening in part because communities are so fractured and fearful, and don't know how to advocate for our rights other than through representatives. it seems pretty likely as well that some of the people who are going to be disenfranchised as voters are people on the right who hope to disenfranchise others, and will only find themselves less able to speak up for their own needs.
This is so long and rambling, but I believe that my main concern is how people became so passive and easy to manipulate and how to change that state for individuals and communities so that talking points are less of a big deal than community care.
This kind of rhetoric could easily lead some people, down exactly the same rabbit hole that trump took maga down