Andreessen went on Rogan claiming that there was a concerted effort by the Biden administration to debank conservatives using something called the “politically exposed person” category.

To prove it, he links a story showing mostly that Muslims have had problems because post-9/11 regulations put them under suspicion, regulations created primarily during the Bush war on terror days. After January 6, some of the rioters there were also caught up in it.

Also, weirdly, Melania Trump, and she waited for her book to tell us, which I find suspicious. We’re supposed to believe Trump, the guy who can’t let a single insult from a B-list celebrity go unanswered, never bothered mentioning his wife and son being debanked.

There is also stuff on crypto, which is most certainly tied to government regulations. And a few isolated instances of small Christian conservative organization, which it is easy to believe was normal freedom of association stuff. It doesn’t make sense for those to be the targets of an effort coming from the top.

Overall, none of this is evidence of a war on conservatives, much less one spearheaded by the Biden administration. Maybe evidence for a war on crypto, which I don’t know much about. But that’s different.

There are legitimate issues here, but the framing of a left-wing conspiracy targeting conservatives appears not to have much behind it. There shouldn’t be a culture of being able to make widely exaggerated claims and then claiming vindication when you point to something that is not at all what you said.

Maybe there should be a “right to banking.” We can discuss things like this. But it doesn’t help to create yet another right-wing conspiracy theory. There are already enough of them out there.

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Here’s an excerpt from House Judiciary report. PayPal seems like a bad actor. But the report acknowledges that this is a bipartisan concern. Again, no evidence that Biden is running a concerted effort to debank opponents. There’s too much of people taking legitimate concerns and ruining them by tying them to conspiracy theories. This is destroying our capacity to think.

To be fair, something like what Andreessen is alleging did happen during Covid. I support all the lawsuits filed in response and any future investigations. But the conspiracy theory was presented as all encompassing and in the present tense. Saying true things matters.

Here’s the original clip, see first three minutes. Andreessen says that there’s a category called “Politically Exposed Person” where government debanks you only if you’re conservative. This is not close to true. If Marc would issue a correction here it would be admirable.

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