A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Conspiracies have been a force in American politics for a long time now. NPR's Embedded has a new series out looking at the way they've divided one family. Last year, reporter Zach Mack's father revealed a list of 10 predictions that he thought would happen in 2024, ranging from politicians, such as former President Barack Obama, going to prison for treason, to the entire country going under martial law. And then, he challenged his son to a bet. He wagered a lot of money that his predictions would all happen within the year. Here's Zach.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
ZACH MACK: And if you are wrong...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: ...Then you're $10,000 richer. I think that once you see that I haven't been duped by AI and social media, I think you will gain a lot more respect for who I am and how I've come to believe.
MARTÍNEZ: The series is called Alternate Realities, and it follows Zach's year-long journey as he tried to bring his father back from the conspiracy rabbit hole. Now, because their story is so personal, Zach's parents have asked us not to use their names. And Zach refers to them simply as Mom and Dad in the podcast.
Zach, so, this bet, 10,000 bucks that these predictions would happen all within a year, strikes, I think a lot of people, as pretty unusual. What was that like for you?
MACK: Yeah. It was very surprising. First thing you should know is my dad and I are not big gamblers, nor are we rich. But I sort of immediately saw the bet as an opportunity, because, like, instead of just having these circular arguments like we had been doing for years, now we sort of were able to put his beliefs to the test. And we knew that in a year, we would be able to tell who was right and who was wrong. And that was very appealing to me. I was pretty sure that he was going to lose. So I felt pretty good going into the bet and was hopeful that when this all shook out and he had lost, that maybe he would be a little more open to reality. And we could pull him out of the rabbit hole a little bit.
MARTÍNEZ: These predictions painted a really dark portrait of the direction this country was going in. I mean, where was he getting all this stuff from?
MACK: Yeah. I think a lot of these ideas have just been floating around the right-wing conspiracy sphere for a long time. But my father, specifically, he's deeply religious, very Christian. And he has come to believe in something called the prophetic word, which is that God still speaks through intermediaries, that God still speaks through prophets. And he has been watching all these people online who claim to be prophets, who claim that God is speaking through them, and they're making these bold proclamations and predictions about the future. And he's watching them for several hours a week, and that's where he's getting a lot of this stuff.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Now, your mom and sister are also very present in this series. And a lot of what they and your father share is incredibly vulnerable. The series really provides a very intimate portrait of the impact that misinformation can have on a family. So what was the making of this documentary like for you and actually, for them?
MACK: It was, like, incredibly difficult. I'm not used to reporting on myself or my own family. I think really the thing that helped get me through it is that I had the full support of the family, that my mom, my sister and my father, they were all participating and support of the project and open to the idea of being involved. So that helped a lot, but generally, this has been quite difficult. My mom still lives with my father, and it's been really hard as she's seen him start to, you know, hoard survivalist supplies in preparation for, like, the grid going down and trying to put some of their money into things like precious metals without telling her. It's been quite hard for her.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I want a date, and then when that date happens, the precious metal gets returned to cash. The flats of water go back to Costco. You do something else with the two generators we now have, and you move on.
MACK: We were all hopeful that at the end of this bet, when he saw that he was wrong, that he would come back to reality a little bit and we'd sort of get to be a family again.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, all year long, you interviewed your dad. What's the most important thing that you learned about talking to people who have gotten swept up in these kind of conspiracy theories?
MACK: Yeah. I talked to a lot of clinicians and conspiracy experts about this. A lot of the research is still out and very much varies person to person. I know from my father and I, what was really helpful was just being more empathetic and more curious about why these beliefs were enticing to him. I don't think just berating him with facts, that wasn't working. We were having these circular arguments. So once I really tried to understand him, I thought we were able to have much better conversations. And, ultimately, I wasn't really able to change his mind, but we were able to get a lot closer through the course of making this show. And the unfortunate reality is just that it is extremely difficult to pull people away from these ideas once they've taken hold.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, that's reporter Zach Mack. You can hear the entire story about what happened to Zach and his family in his new series called Alternate Realities on NPR's Embedded podcast. All the episodes are out now. Zach, thanks a lot.
MACK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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