The ‘Signalgate' theories may be entertaining, but they're probably not correct

Los Angeles Times

27-03-2025

The venerable logical principle known as Occam's razor, attributed to the 14th century English philosopher and theologian William of Ockham, asserts that when confronted with multiple possible explanations for a causal phenomenon, the simplest explanation is — absent persuasive evidence to the contrary — usually correct.
Although hardly foolproof or comprehensive, Occam's razor has the benefit of simply making a lot of sense. The problem is that Occam's razor, as a general signpost to help make sense of the many things happening all around us, falls out of favor in an era when institutional trust is in free-fall. And so it is today: From organized religion to the military to the media to Wall Street to public health authorities to Congress and the Supreme Court, public polling across recent decades typically shows a very negative trendline when it comes to Americans' trust in virtually all of our major institutions.
To be sure, much of this collapse in public trust has been self-inflicted.
The Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, which first came to light more than two decades ago, undermined public trust in institutional religion in general. Many legacy media brands have largely abandoned objectivity or political neutrality, acting instead as culture-warring crusaders. Wall Street did itself no favors with the 2008 global financial crisis — as well as the subsequent Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout. Public health officials utterly botched aspects of their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, from lockdown rules to the virus' origins. Congress often seems incapable of doing anything other than hurl petty invectives across the aisle. And the Supreme Court is led by a chief justice who ironically exalts his tribunal's 'institutional integrity' so much that he ends up delegitimizing it.
We live in a decidedly populist age, and much of our underlying angst is justified — indeed, it is sometimes righteous. Public authorities have routinely dropped the ball and made egregiously bad decisions. Media bias is very real — and so is congressional incompetence. Oftentimes, the American ruling class — as the late, great intellectual Angelo Codevilla famously described it in a 2010 essay — really does prioritize its own parochial interests over the supreme imperative of the common good.
But there is a profound danger, always bubbling just below the surface, of anti-institutional sentiment going too far. Institutional dysfunction trains us to find or dream up arcane and irrational explanations for what we see in the world. At some point, Occam's razor gets turned on its head: The simplest or most logical explanation cannot possibly be true because that's what the powers that be want you to believe! Alternative explanations, often wildly elaborate and bearing little to no basis in factual reality, are proposed — sometimes in a circuitous manner, done in the ostensible name of 'just asking questions.'
We saw this familiar script play out in the major domestic story of the past week: the 'Signalgate' group chat texting scandal that has taken the nation by storm.
On Monday, the editor of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, reported that he had inexplicably been added to a high-level group chat earlier this month on the encrypted commercial messaging app Signal. The chat, comprising top-ranking Trump administration officials such as Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and national security advisor Michael Waltz, debated and discussed plans for U.S. strikes on the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen (which have since come to fruition). They all seemed oblivious to Goldberg's presence.
There are numerous glaring questions that must be asked from this most embarrassing error, perhaps chief among them: How in the world did Jeffrey Goldberg, who did more than any other journalist in America to sell Barack Obama's Iran nuclear deal one decade ago, get added to this chat?
Waltz organized the Signal chat, and many have been calling for his head all week. Waltz, a four-time Bronze Star recipient who became the first Army Special Forces soldier ever elected to Congress, tends — like President Trump himself — to be more aggressive when it comes to confronting the terrorist Iranian regime and its sprawling web of regional proxies. Accordingly, there are actors on the left and the Tucker Carlson-aligned right who want to sideline Waltz. Some of these propagandists have thus speculated that perhaps Waltz intentionally leaked to Goldberg — or perhaps that Waltz served as a Goldberg source inside the Trump administration.
But these ideologically driven explanations for 'Signalgate' are implausible. The simplest explanation, per Occam's razor, is that someone in Waltz's office messed up — badly — by adding the wrong person styled 'JG' into a group chat. To borrow another logical principle, Hanlon's razor: Don't ascribe to malice that which can be otherwise explained by rank incompetence. And so it is here as well. In this instance, the offender should be fired posthaste, the administration should vow to do better — like not letting life-or-death military intel fall into unknown hands. And that ought to be the end of the matter.
Many of the leading institutions in American public life do deserve our skepticism. Quite a few even deserve our outright scorn. But we cannot let that sad state of affairs melt our minds, either. Go outside, touch some grass, and remember that oftentimes the exciting 'alternative' explanation should be rejected for the simpler and more straightforward one.
Josh Hammer's latest book is 'Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.' This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer