https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opUGimR5nr0

Podcast audio:

In this episode of the Ayn Rand Institute podcast, Ben Bayer and Elan Journo discuss recent conspiracism about Israel’s role in the Iran war.

Facts conspiracists distort

Facts conspiracists evade

The conspiracist mentality     

An anti-conceptual culture

Decades of unprincipled foreign policy

Tribalism and conspiracism

Evading America’s deadly morality

Resources: 

Ayn Rand Lexicon entries on the anti-conceptual mentality, the arbitrary, and tribalism

Ayn Rand, “For the New Intellectual” in For the New Intellectual

This episode was recorded on April 8, 2026

Image credit: STR / AFP / via Getty Images