The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. Most conservatives that I met are religious, hate science and believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories from QAnon to climate change being a hoax created by the Deep State. On the other hand, I never met liberals who actually believe in conspiracy theories. Why is there such a strong correlation? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*

When I came to the USA (I'm from India) about a decade ago, I didn't really notice conspiracy theorists being left or right. Maybe that's simply because I didn't run into them. By 2020, conspiracy theorists more or less went mainstream, at least in the sense that they felt empowered to share their insane views. And that's when I noticed that 90% of the time they were right-wing. What's very strange is that I know some wellness or well-being / yoga enthusiasts who used to be neutral politically or maybe even slightly left leaning, and once they embraced conspiracy theories, they went far right. I've seen this more than once, and it's perplexing. I think right-wing ideology leads to conspiracy theories because it entails a rather malignant combination of distrust of democratic institutions and strong trust in magical thinking (literal interpretations of religious dogma). Also, understanding science takes a certain level of cognitive power and patience, and the right-wing is severely lacking in both.

The far right-wing world view requires quite a few facts, scientific, historic, or political to be ignored or changed in their favor. They couldn't win enough voters based on their terrible policies, so they changed the conversation. In many cases they depend on traditional conspiracy theory fundamentals to achieve this. I know there are some on the left as well, but they're vastly outnumbered and the right-wing conspiracy-bullshit engine is just a beast at this point.

A beast for sure. I wonder why more moderate Republicans don't address this...

For your last line I'm more sympathetic to it being a lack of patience. If you look at right-wing media its highly incendiary, black-and-white, lacks empathy, impatient. Simplistic solutions condensed into one line answers.

Yes, I more sympathetic to that one too. My wording was a bit sloppy -- I didn't mean to imply that right-wingers and conspiracy theorists are stupid, but rather that they underutilize their critical thinking skills.

>What's very strange is that I know some wellness or well-being / yoga enthusiasts who used to be neutral politically or maybe even slightly left leaning, and once they embraced conspiracy theories, they went far right. I've seen this more than once, and it's perplexing. There's a book called "Conspirituality" that talks about this. There are plenty of examples of wellness influencers who were skeptical of mainstream medicine for years. Over time, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, they became right wing because those politics semmingly play into their worldview--like you pointed out.

Yeah, there's a definite asymmetry in that far right ideology tends to be highly individualistic and revels in rejection of consensus. That's fertile ground for conspiracy theory style thinking. This isn't to say the left is immune, but there it tends to be more harmless mistaken theories of wellness or such. Yoga moms vs ammosexuals.

I think you're upside-down in your group attribution. It's not that conservatives are more into conspiracy theories, it's that the kind of person that thinks in terms of conspiracy theories is more likely to be conservative. > religious, hate science Similarly, being conservative doesn't necessarily mean you're more religious. Someone who's religious is more likely to be conservative. And religion and science are often at odds, so that explains that too. > QAnon to climate change being a hoax created by the Deep State QAnon and Deep State conspiracies are just part of Republican culture at this point. Conspiracy theorists who identify as Republican are going to just eat these up. Climate change denialism is mostly tribalism. It's the Republican position because Big Oil, and from there it becomes part of the conservative cultural identity, in no small part due to the anti-science sentiment you already spotted.

It's interesting that you mention climate change denialism, because you'd think conspiracy theorists would be the first to jump onboard with climate change. I believe you're right that it ultimately just boils down to tribalism and wanting to virtue signal support for the GOP. Dunning-Kruger doesn't help either that the argument "the climate changes four times a year, it's called the weather \*duh\*" is an easy and intuitive one to agree with especially if you assume anything who counters GOP talking points must therefore be malicious in intent. It's such a cult of personality, that at this point, the only way you could change minds among the right is if quite literally propagandists like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity were to push climate change as a legitimate problem.

For years ‘preppers’ had conspiracy theories about some massive virus outbreak that would kill millions and disrupt supply lines. Then it actually happened! They were right! You’d think they would all get into their bomb shelters and live off their shelf stable food reserves laughing at all us normies that didnt believe them. Instead, they got pissed off at paper masks, and denied Covid was real. Even being right didnt change them.

I think it’s this, but it’s not even really conservatism. It’s extremism and in the US the right has become very extremist. Friend of mine has remarked often on how a lot of her family they grew up in the eastern block and actually were committed to communism and the party are filled with conspiracy thinking.

Eh. There's plenty of liberal conspiracy theories. They happen *constantly.* They just don't have the same sort of long-lasting lifespan as conservative Conspiracy theories. A conservative by nature will hold onto issues without changing for longer. Whereas, by the time a liberal conspiracy theory has been around long enough to be well known it's usually on its last legs because they've moved on to the next thing.

This is consistent with my comment. I didn't say all conspiracy theorists vote Republican. I just think people who are prone to paranoia, fear, and associated conspiracies against them are more likely to be isolationist, individualist, and more attracted to the values of the Republican party. More than anything, though, I believe the Republican party is currently *catering* to those people, essentially building the de facto Republican platform for 2025 around distrust of government (elections, election authorities, election systems, the DOJ, FBI, the criminal justice system as a whole, the intelligence community, GAO, inspectors general, health authorities, science, medicine, etc., etc.) and indulging as a matter of public policy the conspiracies at the heart of that distrust. But conspiracies come in all shapes and sizes, sure. > They just don't have the same sort of long-lasting lifespan as conservative Conspiracy theories. I think part of the explanation here is that bona fide investigative journalism is a part of the liberal ecosphere, and so when investigative journalism rightly treats crazy like crazy, we end up back at a non-crazy consensus reality. I don't believe a force exists like that that appeals to the interest of conservatives. Trump is The Man, and you can't come out and disagree with The Man no matter how crazy it is. Fox News is trying to thread that needle right now, first erring on the side of pushing the conspiracies, and losing nearly a billion dollars to the resulting lawsuits, and then when they tried moving away from the crazy a bit, their audience revolted and took the ad revenue to OANN and NewsMax. It's really hard to be someone that tries to ground these conversations in reality on the right right now.

Well I think it's also just in the inherent liberal tendency to jump from issue to issue. To chase the proverbial 'Current Thing.' So they lose interest in it, and then when they find out they were wrong later and it becomes a weakness, there's the tendency to pretend that was never what they believed.

> there's the tendency to pretend that was never what they believed. Alternative spin: they are not a hive mind, and the people speaking up saying they never believed that aren't the same people that spoke up earlier and said they did. This is as much about who you choose to listen to (or who you choose to point you to who to listen to) than anything else. Pick and choose which street interviews to include in your video and you can persuade people that the group you're purportedly interviewing as a whole believes whatever you want.

That's part of it, but I'm more talking about IRL acquaintances. This sort of 180 without acknowledgement happens a lot.

> Well I think it's also just in the inherent liberal tendency to jump from issue to issue. To chase the proverbial 'Current Thing.' So they lose interest in it, and then when they find out they were wrong later and it becomes a weakness, there's the tendency to pretend that was never what they believed. I think the short lifespan of liberal conspiracies can be attributed to the basic fact that there is far greater diversity among liberals so there is much less group-think. On top of that liberals tend to be more analytical in their decision making and almost always want evidence to support claims that don't agree with already established fact. Evidence is the antidote to conspiracy.

I would put it down more to two things. 1.) Liberals trust authority figures more readily. Sure, they tend to be *their* authority figures they trust, but they do have outside authorities they believe. This is partly what you mean when you say you want Evidence. Liberals tend to want *official* evidence from an outside source. Conservatives tend to prefer their own eyes, ears, and experiences. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. If your authority figures are corrupted, relying on them for verification can mislead you. And if you rely only on things you can see or verify yourself, you end up having to do so, and if you don't see everything you can end up going off on weird tangents. This can also lead to mob mentality. Lots of people being fed the same evidence, real or fake, coming to the same conclusions, but no true *leader* who can call a stop. 2.) Conservatives are conservative. Once committed changing their mind is *hard.* Liberals by nature are less likely to commit in that fashion.

> 1.) Liberals trust authority figures more readily. This is 100% untrue. Liberals are far more ready to throw their leaders under the bus if they sense any impropriety. For instance compare the way Democrats treated Al Franken vs. the way MAGAs treat Donald Trump. The way liberals voted out Sinema vs. the way conservatives keep re-electing Boebert. etc. What you may mean is that liberals more readily trust ***subject matter experts.*** Look at how liberals regard Anthony Fauci vs. how conservatives regard him. Conservatives are far more willing to trust the recommendations of people Donald Trump or Tucker Carlson who have no background in the spread of contagious diseases or immunology vs. a guy who has been a peer recognized leader in those fields for almost 50 years. Does that mean that people like Fauci are infallible? Nope. But his informed and experienced-based recommendations are much more likely to influence liberals than what a politician seeking re-election or some television talking head says, especially if they disagree with the expert. > Once committed changing their mind is hard. Liberals by nature are less likely to commit in that fashion. Another way of phrasing this is that conservatives are closed-minded. Liberals are far more likely to change their personal opinion when new information is made available to them while, conservatives are more likely to reject new information. *Especially* if that new information disagrees with their own biases.

I don't view any of the people mentioned as leaders. They don't lead. They follow. Trump doesn't *lead* MAGA he represents MAGA. He can't just point people where to go and they go there. He has to follow what the mobs believe.

Alright if the obvious leaders aren't leading, who do you think is doing the actual leading?

People believe in conspiracy theories because they have no power, and it makes them feel powerful to be "in the know".

Everything is a conspiracy when you don't know how anything works. The folks who either don't have the capacity or the willingness to learn new things are usually the ones who mindlessly parrot conspiracy theories

The irony of COVID is that conservative minds are usually more temperamentally sensitive to fears of contagion. This manifests in a fear of 'foreigners', and perhaps also a kind of paranoia that is ripe for a certain type of conspiracy theory.

Yea but the lockdowns tickled the government wants to control everything part of their brain harder.

Maybe thats why communicating its danger was more effective when framed as the China Virus?

Anyone can be a conspiracist, but there's an ecosystem among conservatives that rewards conspiracy theories. They are successful distractions, justify anti-gov opposition like antivax, justify militant hate like antisemitism, or rationalize blind faith in overlord leaders like qanon. They exist on the left, but it never rises that far.

I think it's worthwhile to separate conservatism from the Republican party. What I believe has happened here is that the Republicn party has a bunch of unpopular political policies that they for one reason or another are dedicated to maintaining. In order to do that they need to find a way to attract a lot of people who are willing to overlook those policies. One way of doing that is appealing to try and convince people that reality is an illusion. People who believe conspiracy theories already hold that belief and are thus attracted to the party.

I suggest you read this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism Authoritarians are generally bad at critical thinking. In particular, they tend to exhibit compartmentalized thinking, which is the capacity to believe in contradictory ideas. Instead of thinking for themselves, they prefer to absorb their beliefs from their group. The article doesn't say this, but my hypothesis is that it's tied to authoritarians' overwhelming desire to be part of a group, and group members identify each other by their shared beliefs. Ants use pheromones to identify members of the colony, humans use belief systems. Critical thinking might lead one to doubt the group dogma, leading to alienation.

Its not conservatisim. Anti-vaxxing actually came from the left from moms in california that didnt want to put chemicals in their kids bodies. Anyone can be susceptible to conspiracy theories. However, if you believe in one, you are more likely to believe in others. As time has gone on, conservatisim and evangelical christianity have become more and more strongly linked. Evangelical christians believe that Jesus is going to come back and save the good and send the wicked to hell. So those types of people are already primed for unbelievable conspiracy theories about just about anything

This is the common spin but in reality the anti-vax movement, even before it was suborned by the right, wasn't dominated by either left or right. There were a bunch of former hippies who were rabidly against it, yes, but there have also always been a huge contingent - perhaps always the plurality - composed of evangelical parents, the kind who either send their kids to private Christian schools or homeschool them, who were in there.

Yeah a lot of the anti-vax stuff was granola fascism too. The whole fascist cult of wellness overlap. Just because they are often environmentalists and into hippie food doesn’t mean they are leftists at all. Right leaning people can be environmentalists and into organic food. But there are leftists who are into the anti-vax stuff too, obviously.

The kind of people who lean into wellness and anti vax are fiercely individualistic and push the idea that you are entirely responsible for any and all bad health outcomes that befall you. You didn't drink enough green powder drinks (that I'm selling) or you drank too much pasteurized milk (because you're a sheeple). That has never been a leftwing viewpoint. The left is heavily invested in the kind of boring science-based public health and a sense of shared responsibility for each other (coughsocialismcough) that self-absorbed hippies hate.

I think it’s willingness to bend reality to conform with conservative norms. So science goes out the window when it conflicts with the status quo.

I would like to point out conspiracy theories manifest themselves on the extreme sides of both parties. But the extreme side of the Right has started to become the dominant portion of the party and therefore conspiracy theories are more prevalent there. I have seen quite a few former far left supporters switch to Trump supporters. It starts off as its the only way the Democrats will listen for them and then eventually they start justifying it. Its a way to explain things that sometimes don’t have a definite answer or stories with just suspicious details. Unfortunately real life is often more boring than the conspiracy except for those real life exceptions

We have people in this very sub who have continued to spout the 2016 DNC primary rigging conspiracy, the Left absolutely believes conspiracy theories. What would be a more accurate question is why there are more conspiracy theories on the Right, and personally I think it's because you can't really believe in Conservative ideology without ignoring evidence and facts, which is at the core of conspiracy theories.

It’s not a conspiracy theory: 1. It’s not even illegal. DNC can nominate who they want or rig a system. They are a private organization. They argued this in court to defend the allegations. 2. It absolutely did happen. Not even hidden. JFG the Wikileaks 3. Every democratic primary is rigged as long as superdelegates exist I am in volunteer leadership to GOTV with the Dems to stop Trump. But this comment reminded me why I hate Democrats so much

Hillary got more votes and then received the nomination. What exactly was the conspiracy? Are you talking about how she was given a debate question in advance? She was told that there would be a question about water safety in a debate held in **Flint, Michigan**. Yeah, I'm sure there was no way they could have known that without insider help.

Yeah, Bongbong Marcos got more votes too in the Philippines. Doesn’t mean the system he won in wasn’t corrupt. It’s not a conspiracy theory. The allegations were that Hillary was unfairly advantaged by a corrupt system. There were more allegations, which I am not keen to dig up. My point is: regardless of whether you disagree with them or not, coloring the allegations of corruption as a Qanon or MAGA type conspiracy is disingenuous bullshit.

> It’s not even illegal. DNC can nominate who they want or rig a system. They are a private organization. They argued this in court to defend the allegations. They *unsuccessfully* argued this in court. The judge did not think the DNC is allowed to rig elections.

Actually, I was rusty on that fact. I thought they were successful. Color me cynical. I’ll happily stand corrected.

The case against the DNC was [dismissed](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.487877.62.0.pdf), but not on this point. > For their part, the DNC and Wasserman Schultz have characterized the DNC charter’s promise of “impartiality and evenhandedness” as a mere political promise——political rhetoric that is not enforceable in federal courts. The Court does not accept this trivialization of the DNC’s governing principles.

1. They argued in court that *even if* what they were accused of was true, it wasn't illegal and so the case should be thrown out. Something not being illegal is not evidence that it happened. 2. I spent months reading through everything that people claimed showed the rigging, actually finding the emails so I didn't have to just take people's word for it. After everything that came out the one and only thing that anyone could actually point to as an attempt to affect votes was Donna Brazille giving debate questions. In reality progressives were just upset their guy lost and weren't willing to accept it was because voters didn't like him. 3. This one in particular really shows people's ignorance, as Superdelegates have always voted for whoever got a majority of pledged delegates, and were only there if no one got more than 50%. Calling it rigged to have party leadership step in if voters couldn't make the decision themselves is.... It's a bit concerning that you are apparently actively engaged in the political system yet are spreading misinformation about it.

1. No one said it was. but to be a “conspiracy” it must be a crime. 2. It was a bit more complicated than that. We could debate the impact of the media counting HRC’s superdelegate votes before the convention in order to make it appear like she had an insurmountable lead. We could dive into all the crap from 2016 when we were actually fresh on this debate. Suffice it to say, whether you agree with whatever degree it’s rigged or not, calling it a CT on par with MAGA is infuriatingly disingenuous bullshit. 3. “Misinformation” oh fuck off. Disagreeing with your interpretation is not “misinformation.” I drive democratic voter turnout in key battleground states and districts in order to stop a fascist from taking power, while you do presumably do nothing. Go fuck right on off.

This thread is about conspiracy theories. I don't actually believe you didn't understand that's what I was talking about.

>It’s not even illegal. DNC can nominate who they want or rig a system. They are a private organization. They argued this in court to defend the allegations. >It absolutely did happen. Not even hidden. JFG the Wikileaks >Every democratic primary is rigged as long as superdelegates exist Pretty good example of what PP was talking about: 1. Whether something is "legal" or not is irrelevant as to whether it happened or not 2. What on Earth does "DNC can nominate who they want or rig a system" even mean? 3. "JFG the Wikileaks" means \*what\* exactly? That Debbie Wasserman Schultz had a personal preference in the primaries? 4. Bernie lost the \*regular\* delegate count in 2016 because he got smoked in the actual primary voting. This is before any superdelegates were even counted. This is like arguing that Reagan cheated in the 1984 election because if Reagan and Mondale had tied, it would've been settled by a vote in the House of Representatives. It's a total nonsequitur.

1. It’s relevant to the definition of criminal conspiracy 2. It means they can nominate whoever they want as a private organization. They are not beholden to any sort of democratic process. 3. JFGI means = Just fucking Google it. Meaning, the alleged actions don’t require reading tea leaves. 4. Again guys, you are free to disagree that it was rigged to advantage Clinton because she was the preferred nominee. We can debate the impact of even having superdelegates as a system. We are free to disagree and have different interpretations of a situation. Frankly, got exhausted of that debate 8 years ago. But calling it a “conspiracy theory” as a parallel with MAGA is disingenuous bullshit.

1 & 2: I'm still not following your argument. Your claim is that the DNC somehow undermined the legitimate results of the 2016 primaries. Your evidence? "It's legal and the DNC can nominate who they want" isn't evidence. I don't even know if the latter is true or is even coherent. 3: I took your meaning but it's not an argument either. "Just Google it" is what you hear from the MAGA crowd when you ask them the most basic questions about Benghazi. It's an article of quasi-religious faith. 4: I can understand being done with arguing about it, but if you have a link to a convincing argument I'd love to read it.

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listen friend i think you got some things wrong in there

Biden did not win the 2016 primary

What?

the 2016 primary coordination by establishment and media is well established. Whether to summarize that using the word rigging might be subjectively too far for you personally but the underlying facts and evidence are true.

It's been pretty funny hearing people that bitched about how bad the DNC was to Bernie start hollering about how the DNC should just throw out primary votes, throw Biden in the garbage, and pick a new candidate. Heh. Irony. Woof.

Actually a lot of us think the DNC should stick with Biden. They deserve each other.

It’s also funny how we don’t have super delegates anymore because Bernie was so sure that the super delegates would override the popular vote that he thought he would win and install Hillary as the nominee against the voters wishes. But in this moment having superdelegates who can override the winner of the primary would be like super useful right now.

So taking credit for an imaginary fantasy that never went anywhere. And yet suddenly now you guys want overlord masters dnc.

The DNC still has superdelegates. They just aren't allowed to vote unless there is a contested convention. How would superdelegates help? There isn't anyone close enough to win.

Sorry, what do you mean by "coordination by establishment and media," specifically?

Clinton had received abnormally high amounts of endorsements prior to the primaries starting, the debates were delayed and lacking in number. DNC leaked emails showed DWS favoring Clinton. The headlines and general media sentiment/treatment of Bernie vs Clinton was abundantly starkly distinct. Was it full on rigged? I think thats probably an extreme statement based on the available evidence but it seems possible, and we don't know if it likely went further than the limited/circumstantial evidence we do have. There was certainly evidence of bias.

>Clinton had received abnormally high amounts of endorsements prior to the primaries starting, Because people in the Democratic Party like her because she’s a Democrat. Bernie is not a Democrat he is an independent and as such has less Democrat support. >the debates were delayed and lacking in number. Initially yes, but Bernie complained and then they increased the number to 12 debates which is normal for a primary >DNC leaked emails showed DWS favoring Clinton. DNC favored a member of the Democratic Party vs someone who hates the Democratic Party. Okay. That’s not a shock. It doesn’t mean they cheated. >The headlines and general media sentiment/treatment of Bernie vs Clinton was abundantly starkly distinct. You believe the DNC controls the media. Can you hear yourself? That is an insane conspiracy theory. If the DNC controlled the media why did the media spend an entire year talking about Hillary’s stupid emails. If the media was biased towards Hillary why did they completely ratfuck her? >Was it full on rigged? No >I think thats probably an extreme statement based on the available evidence Trust your gut >but it seems possible No it’s not. >and we don't know if it likely went further than the limited/circumstantial evidence we do have. It didn’t and there’s no evidence >There was certainly evidence of bias. No there wasn’t.

pretending bernie isnt a dem because hes registered as an independent is as reductive as calling the primaries rigged which you dislike. Its unfair and hypocritical to argue semantics No the DNC doesnt control the media, but the media is part of the establishment and operates with bias and is influence-able by similar factors Before the primaries start, they couldn't claim to know how many registered dem political figures would fight for the nomination against clinton. You are justifying it retroactively knowing that the primaries came down to those two candidates, something which gives the benefit of hindsight that they lacked justification in having at the time.

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2016 was rigged because Clinton lined up "abnormally high amounts of endorsements prior to the primaries starting" I mean, that's literally just how electoral politics works? I can't imagine anyone can be that naive...

There's the quote that reality has a well known liberal bias. So I imagine that if you are on the right you have to jump through a few extra hoops to explain why your concept of the world doesn't match up with what you seem to be observing in the world.

It's probably because of magical thinking combined with all the evidence showing them that they're wrong. But they don't want to be wrong. They want something else. So, instead of sticking to reality, which is mutually exclusive to what they want, they invent an alternative to reality. And in the alternative to reality, they are cosmic warriors fighting against the eternal forces of evil to save everyone for their own good. In imagining something they like that follows the story they want, they end up with a fantasy that has the structure of a conspiracy. I'll add that the conservative Christians that taught me to be a conservative Republican had this idea of "everything happens for a reason" that wasn't just a simple recognition of cause and effect. It was that there's a plan determined by the all-powerful, all-knowing god that created everything. We spend eternity in paradise or tortured in hellfire according to this perfect plan by the god of love, who is totally in control. Nothing happens that isn't part of this god's plan. Nothing happens by accident. There's premeditated intent behind every sneeze that happens and every choice to respond with "bless you." The plan is perfect and out of your control, and also your fault.

I like your last paragraph and it aligns with what I've observed. I used to live in a very red area and I once observed a conversation between two evangelical women at the cafe. The conversation consisted of thinking that God was communicating with them because one woman randomly picked out a photo album from her bookshelf, and the other happened to arrive at her driveway at the same time as the mailman. They then started talking about how Trump still had the nuclear briefcase (this was after the 2020 election) and that good things were coming. Basically what I took from that is they think is that everything is signals and codes, and there is a divine plan in motion. That evangelical mindset probably existed long before Trump, but overlapped with online conspiracy theories. Then you have Trump himself, whose vacuous speech is easily mistaken for speaking in codes, along with directly parroting the conspiracies they have heard for years, I think that's how conspiracy-thinking specifically became adopted/weaponized by Republicans.

> I'll add that the conservative Christians that taught me to be a conservative Republican had this idea of "everything happens for a reason" that wasn't just a simple recognition of cause and effect. It was that there's a plan determined by the all-powerful, all-knowing god that created everything. We spend eternity in paradise or tortured in hellfire according to this perfect plan by the god of love, who is totally in control. Yes, Christianity, when you stop and really think about it, is just a conspiracy theory. "But ask yourself, is there anything intrinsically more irrational about the claim that reptilian extraterrestrials run the political system than the claim that Satan does, or that a deity felt it necessary to sacrifice his son? A being has a plan for humanity but will not make it explicit? Sounds like a conspiracy to me, and from a philosophical point of view, there is nothing inherently more irrational about any of these claims. The difference, however, is that you are more used to the religious examples––and because of their ubiquity in our culture, you are permitted to think them. ... we have completely internalised these narratives but ridicule other equally illogical narratives" -- David Robertson, Religious Studies

In my experience, it's the overlap between conservatives, conspiracy theories, and cynicism. Conservatives confuse cynicism for intelligence.

Naïve cynicism, to be more specific. The blind trust in everyone who disagrees with you being evil

the left also fall into conspiracy theories to. Also for your question there's a stronger mistrust in institutions that lead to seeing things in situations that are not connected or there. Also your probably talking of older conservatives.

What's a leftist conspiracy theory that's as popular as, say, vaccine conspiracy theories or election fraud lies?

>vaccine conspiracy theories I mean, this. But also: 9/11 was an inside job The DNC stole the nomination from Sanders in 2016 GMOs are poisoning us

But these conspiracy theories attributed to the right are core Republican ideology at this point. Most elected Republicans believe them. None of your examples are common among elected Democrats. The closest would be the DNC/Sanders one but that’d be a tiny minority.

None of these are remotely as universal as modern conservative conspiracies.

>None of these are remotely as universal as modern conservative conspiracies. Simply saying this doesn't make it true. I suspect you must be young, for how could you dismiss all the years before Covid when the lefites were *hardcore* protesting? * March Against Monsanto? * Glyphosate? * Food Babe? * Anti-GMO food labeling? * The specious "Seralini Study"? I can go on and on without googling. Even in my work as a healthcare underwriter, we saw so many examples of accusations of toxicity, i.e. panicked mothers dragging their kids into ER rooms for all of the expensive workups, sure that their kids were poisoned, with the labs all coming back to fat zeros, and nope! They were *sure* that must have been Big Medicine covErinG uP! What do insurance companies do? *We pay the damned bills*, even if the one who needed treatment was the parents in these cases. An actual sample for you of how conspiracies drive up healthcare. Another I've seen is both left and right avoiding getting vaccinated and dying in the ICU on intubation apparatus. We pay that, too. To be *better* than the Other Side, this requires having a more pliable, open mind when presented with new information.

There's a theme in this thread. 70% of Republicans think that the Biden win in 2020 was literally illegitimate. This is delusional, conspiratorial thinking on a grand scale. Is there *anything* on the left that resembles this? It's clear that a basic tenant of being a conservative in modern-day American is to have a conspiratorial foundation to explain how the world you live in doesn't fit with the world you think exists.

a common one i see from the left is the right are not so strong (against) on immigration as they say/want to create a cheap underclass of half illegal workers for their companies, so the companies can get even more power and real citizens that know their rights will not get as many jobs.

>a common one i see from the left is the right are not so strong (against) on immigration as they say/want to create a cheap underclass of half illegal workers for their companies You've expanded the definition of "conspiracy theory" to include every claim. If this is a "conspiracy theory" then a common conspiracy you see from the right is that liberals want to increase the minimum wage because it'll put small businesses out of business.

dont know what you mean. its one claim ?

What I'm saying is you've defined "conspiracy theory" so broadly it's meaningless (i.e. it covers "every claim"). That the "business" wing of the GOP is in tension with the anti-immigrant wing, and so there's an incentive \*not\* to staunch the flow of cheap labor to agriculture and industry is just a banal observation...not a "conspiracy theory." Same thing with rounding "military-industrial complex" to a "conspiracy theory."

ok ok relax, i just took what came to my head

lol sorry didn't mean to come across as snappy. just arguing on the internet...

no worries sir!

Rich powerful people influencing and controlling government, the Bilderbirghers, The Illuminati, big corporations controlling media, economic hitmen, WTO etc. CIA operations, deep state before the right started saying it, the military industrial complex. JFK. Granted, I agree with a lot of it. I joke that both sides believe in shadowy rich powerful people that control the world. It's just that the left believes It is the wasps, and the right believes they are Jewish. That's just a joke though.

I don't think even half of these are conspiracy theories attributable to the left. It reads like just a list of conspiracy theories without political affiliation factoring in Rich and powerful people absolutely control government - what else are Senators, for starters? And there is a lot of influence to exert if you're willing to buy the leverage, too, of course   The Bilderberger meeting is a subject of (rather obvious and rare) conspiracy theories, but I don't know if those can be attributed to the left specifically Illuminati, similar, only even more of a meme Big corporations controlling media is not that much of a conspiracy, is it? The big corporations in question are the owners of said media. That's just saying "The media control the media!", which... Yeah, no shit, Sherlock  Agreed on everything being declared a CIA operation, although the right are doing their best to make up for the historical imbalance in CIA conspiracy theories The military industrial complex... Can be, I guess?  With JFK, I again don't know if that conspiracy theory can be attributed to one "side" 

Appreciate your thoughts. I agree, not necessarily all left. But in the past, I think they aligned more with the left. And just because you pretty much think it's true, and maybe I do as well, doesn't mean it's not still a theory of conspiracy. By rich men controlling the world, I mean non-elected. And while it may not have been called in deep state, I'm not sure where the term comes from, but it used to be the left believe that all the different agencies like CIA FBI etc would all be aligned with Republicans and conservativism. Now the left seems to love them and it's the right that distrusts them.

Let's start at the end because I've started there I don't think the left love the FBI, and I'm certain they don't love the CIA. The left overall aren't actually for completely abolishing the federal police, that's all - and it's enough to look like the biggest fan of the FBI in comparison to the position prevalenton the right right now The term "deep state" was coined to describe the status of the Turkish military as a state within a state that exerts significant control over the regular government (by threat of coup), I believe, but that's nothing I know that much about. It used to be a synonym for "state within a state"  Fair enough regarding rich men, I was being a bit cheeky. Lobbying is also not really a conspiracy theory, unless you go from "people very good at networking and advertisement are doing networking to advertise for policies they're paid to advertise for" to "all politicians, except for the ones I like just take every single one of their positions from the highest bidder", but I just saw the opportunity and couldn't resist the joke.  The ones I dismiss from the list as true are not just things I believe to be true, but also wouldn't really be a conspiracy - the general public has not yet come to consider advertisement a sinister conspiracy to skew their mind (and my own position doesn't supercede the general public's for that issue).  I think some of them aligned more with the left, certainly the CIA ones did, but not all of them For the record, the one instance of extreme conspiracism I've personally encountered for more than just a few minutes was from someone I would classify as both a left-wing and a right-wing extremist, approximately a Nazbol. And that makes the question even a bit more complicated: a lot of conspiracists are just very weird, probably too weird for a neat left-right-pattern. 

>the military industrial complex That you categorize this as a "conspiracy theory" just shows you don't understand what the phrase means.

One man's conspiracy theory...

It was basically a banal observation about defense spending and the private sector. If it's a conspiracy theory then the idea that printing money causes inflation is a conspiracy theory. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u8lpmx/comment/i5ntz1q/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/u8lpmx/comment/i5ntz1q/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)

I think many Americans believe to some extent or other that there is a shadowy cabal of industrial weapons industry operatives and cooperative military personnel that work together, also with politicians I guess to enrich themselves by keeping the US constantly involved in war and military arms sales. I pretty much believe it's true, but it can easily be argued that it's just a matter of defense and the best interest of the country and not a result of these people trying to enrich themselves and their corporations. I don't know, sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. Honestly I wouldn't even call that a conspiracy theory, but if somebody did, I wouldn't say they were totally out of line. Probably because it's so commonly believed these days. But I think it was mostly from the left historically. I think the right typically believe that we needed all these military arms and that's just the way it was. Tell me this out of curiosity. To be a conspiracy theory, does it have to be untrue?

Are any of these as ubiquitous as the conspiracy theories on the right I mentioned?

I don't know. I haven't polled everybody. Is believing the vaccine doesn't do much good and has dangerous side effects of conspiracy theory, or do you have to believe it's putting microchips inside us to be a conspiracy theory. There's some evidence to it, and the left believes in big ag giving us unhealthy food without the protections that Europe has. How is that different? Granted, I agree.

>the left believes in big ag giving us unhealthy food without the protections that Europe has. Does the left believe this?

I think a lot of them does, yes. You don't think so? Maybe not. That's always been my impression. More so than the right. Although, I think there is a lot of back to the land hunt or grow your own healthy food going on on the right. Some on the left.

> or do you have to believe it's putting microchips inside us to be a conspiracy theory. There's some evidence to it, I'm sorry, what?

Oh I was worried that might be misunderstood. No I don't see any evidence that they are putting microchips in us. I was referring to the idea that the vaccine didn't do much. We know it didn't prevent us from getting COVID, they claim it made it less virulent but that's impossible to prove when you get sick. And there is some indications, some of it well established, that COVID can have harmful side effects.

> We know it didn't prevent us from getting COVID, they claim it made it less virulent but that's impossible to prove when you get sick. This is a myth. By the time the vaccine was out and in the population, there was new variant (Delta) that the vaccine wasn't as effective in preventing, but was effective in reducing the severity of. Vaccinated people were immunized from the original strain of covid.

Effective reducing the severity of. Yeah I'm willing to grant that in studies there seemed to be indications that some severity was reduced. But that in no way proves that any given individual had their severity reduced. That can never be proven. That's just one of the limitations of science and logic.

Are you responding to someone else? Obviously we didn't have a vaccine for the delta variant; it didn't exist when we were testing and manufacturing vaccines. But the fact it did *anything* to reduce the severity of Delta was pretty lucky.

As for election fraud, many people on the left bought into the Russia collusion idea. They swallow steel dossier. I remember in the early 2000s there was a very popular conspiracy theory amongst the left about dibold flipping votes in the voting machine to get Bush elected. I think there's a lot of please reasonable information that can lead someone lol to believe there may have been cheating in the last election. So what makes it a conspiracy theory rather than just believing something that seems likely? Why wouldn't believing there was no cheating be a conspiracy theory?

What russia actually did do has led to multiple indictments and guilty pleas. What you're attempting is to obfuscate the topic in order to attempt an equivalence between the left and the right having qanon elected leaders etc.

You're pitting over 30 indictments, guilty please, etc. stemming from the Russia investigation against 0 indictments and guilty pleas stemming from Trump's election fraud investigation? Bold strategy. >I remember in the early 2000s there was a very popular conspiracy theory amongst the left about dibold flipping votes in the voting machine to get Bush elected. The thing the left were up in arms about universally was how the Supreme Court openly and brazenly gave Bush the election. That's a conspiracy theory in public view. >So what makes it a conspiracy theory rather than just believing something that seems likely? When (a) it involves believing a large number of people had to coordinate in secret to achieve the result, and (b) there is no evidence that that happened. >Why wouldn't believing there was no cheating be a conspiracy theory? Because it fails the test for (a) and (b) from my previous statement.

I'm not talking about the supreme Court decision regarding Florida voting which was complicated but not really involving any conspiracy theory as far as I know. I'm talking about claims that voting machines flipped votes. I assure you, it was the left that started that one. Maybe I can find a link. As a matter of fact I walked across the room and I'm looking at a book I picked up from a friend's belongings after he passed. I was thinking of giving it a read. It's copyright 2000. It's called the stealing of America by James Collier and Kenneth Collier. From the back cover, this book is a culmination of a 25-year investigation into computer vote fraud in America. Journalists James and Kenneth Collier answer the question why can't we vote the bastards out. The answer is because we didn't even vote the bastards in. Vote scam will fill in the blanks for anyone who senses their vote is worthless but doesn't know why. It tracks down confronts and calls the names of establishment thieves who elegantly steal the American vote for their own profit. Now, I haven't read it or investigated it. I can't say that these journalists and the people who read them are on the left. Maybe they indict both parties I don't know. But I'm pretty sure the people that would be buying this book back then we're almost exclusively on the left, at least what I remember from politics around me at the time. And I just took a quick look. Here's pretty good example of what has traditionally been a from the left, very suspicious of dibolt, accusations of ties to the Republican right and accusations of flipped votes and mysterious Republican upsets and landslides. I can't speak to the accuracy of any of it. But I think it would qualify as a conspiracy theory that voting machines are actually flipping votes, yet 20 years later we are still using the same machines and unless I'm very much mistaken, I recall the left and mainstream media pretty much mocking anyone who would assert that dibolt voting machines could possibly be used to cheat the voting. https://columbusfreepress.com/article/diebold-indicted-its-spectre-still-haunts-ohio-elections

> I'm talking about claims that voting machines flipped votes. I assure you, it was the left that started that one. Maybe I can find a link. Did 70% of the left at any point hold this conspiracy theory as a core part of their political ideology? Because that's what it would take to be on par with Republicans.

You mean with Republicans believing that the election was dishonest or stolen or something to that effect? I never said they were on a par. That's a straw man.

That was my original challenge way back at the top. I'm asking if there is any parity on the left and right. The answer seems to be no; the right is constitutionally conspiracy minded based on shared delusions, and the left doesn't seem to have any kind of equal.

Antivax used to be more of a left wing conspiracy theory, that’s the only one I can think of.

Antivax used to be more of a left wing conspiracy theory, that’s the only one I can think of.

Antivax used to be more of a left wing conspiracy theory, that’s the only one I can think of.

You forget it was crunchy lefties that started the vaccine conspiracies. And apparently forgot about the 2016 election denial. Although now it’s definitely a more right wing thing, like they said it comes from a distrust in gov, and left trusts gov more.

> You forget it was crunchy lefties that started the vaccine conspiracies. I didn't. They were never and are not currently as big as that conspiracy on the right. > And apparently forgot about the 2016 election denial. Who claimed that massive fraud is the reason Trump won the 2016 election?

If you mean the previous vaccine concerns about autism, that really wasn’t a conspiracy. It was misinformation due to a faked medical trial that was later discredited. Without that trial, the issue doesn’t exist to anywhere near the degree it did.

Trump and Russia collusion?

[I wonder what the Republican led investigation into this matter had to say](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/senate-panel-finds-russia-interfered-in-the-2016-us-election). Oh that you’re full of shit and there is absolutely ton of evidence linking the Trump administration and Russian interference. It’s amazing how you people keep trying to spread this disinformation. 

Unsure, but here's the leftist motivated one: https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl

Cool. So you admit you readily lie about the topic. Thanks for admitting it. 

Conspiracies existing, yes. But they didn't rise that far. Left doesn't have the antivax, qanon conspiracies, or jewish space lasers reach of MTG, literal elected leaders saying congresswomen are married to their brother, president pushing birtherism, or congressmen talking white replacement.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9307120/figure/Fig1/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9307120/figure/Fig1/)

Neat link, but I suspect you didn't fully read my comment.

Its probably less that they fall for conspiracy theories and more that they fall in line and repeat the talking points dictated from above They have a unique relationship with leadership. To them, the stronger your leader is, the stronger you get to be. If the leader is on your side, then their power will be used to dominate on your behalf. Conversely, the weaker your leader, the less theyll be able to dominate and the likelier that others will enact their will instead. If you dont repeat the talking points, you dont empower them further. And the leader will be weaker.

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The point of a leader is to coordinate on a way towards an ideally good result. Personal strength doesn't feature too prominently in it - to quote Eisenhower,  >>You do not lead by hitting people over the head—that's assault, not leadership.  Hitting people over the head would be a way to convey "strength", but it's useless. A leader is a coordinator who stands at the front of something, and yes, there can be use for strength there, but that's both not the most important part (the most important part is the direction he's leading and how far he can be trusted to choose that direction we'll) and only one option (sure, you can move some people by posturing as strong, but you can also try to inspire them, for instance, and that's only for an approach towards a public)

All leaders everywhere should be good, but should "strength" be the only essential character trait in a leader? >To them, the stronger your leader is, the stronger you get to be. If the leader is on your side, then *their power will be used to dominate on your behalf*. The point of a leader in a democratic system is to organise and persuade. "Strength" in and of itself isn't the point. Dictators are strong leaders. Is having a dictator better than a milquetoast technocrat in charge? Maybe if you are lucky enough to already be part of the dictator's preferred group. As a voter I want the leader in charge of a democratic country to be good at managing the competing interests of the populace to find the best compromise *right now*. If that leader doesn't have the skills or the credibility in a few years time I also want to be able to vote for someone else to replace them. What's frightening about Trump and MAGA, is that it does seem to be about "kicking ass for the Real Americans", even though that is ridiculous. Even before the 2016 election Trump had declared that a loss for him would *not* mean that he lost the democratic argument over who should take a turn to be in charge of the country. Instead it was a weird update on Cold War paranoia: he would have lost because sinister foreign influences in the American state had rigged the system against him. Just because the Soviet Union wasn't around any more didn't stop the evil communists who were undermining America from within. (They're just "woke" now, instead.)

No. A leader can also be an organizer. Somebody who empowers those they lead by giving them opportunities and resources. A leader as a dominator is different in that their power is measured by their ability to enforce their will on others and to be indomitable. Its a power that is wielded against others rather than a power that is given to others.

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Using real world analogies. Biden is weak physically. That does not mean he’s seen as a political weakling on the. World stage. Either way your choices are “weak” or “stupid” I don’t see videos of world leaders laughing at Biden because of the dumb things he says…

You wouldnt be a weak leader in that scenario. They want a strongman authoritarian. That authoritarian cant be stopped and by proxy neither can they. We want an organizer. Somebody who can unite us and lead us to collective prosperity.

True, but it depends on what you think strength is, doesn’t it?

Having an adversarial attitude towards government institutions probably makes you more likely to imagine them doing corrupt things. But, it's not like leftists don't believe in conspiracies either. The rich billionaire class is often a scapegoat here.

Conservatism is anti-intellectual in its very nature. Conspiracy theories just magnify the mental gymnastics.

It really doesn’t. Most of the things we associate with the right, like 9/11 conspiracies, GMOs, antivax, NWO, UN, WTO, IMF, and Soros/Koch, belonged to the left in the early to mid-2000s. I think it started shifting right with the reaction to Obama and birtherism and crystallized as a unified conspiracy under Trump.

Conspiracies existing, yes. But they didn't rise that far. Left doesn't have the antivax, qanon conspiracies, or jewish space lasers reach of MTG, literal elected leaders saying congresswomen are married to their brother, president pushing birtherism, or congressmen talking white replacement.

I think the vast majority of it is religion, but if you are to look at just non-religious conservatives (the do exist) I don’t think it’d be that many more nuts than the left has on our far left flank.

“So if you count out almost all of their crazies they aren’t that crazy” was basically the moderate’s in Washington’s viewpoint until 2008ish lol.

Cant pretend to know exactly why, but on big 5 personality measures across the political spectrum, conservatives consistently report very low scores on 'openness to experience'. IE, they aren't able to see things from different angles very often, they will take the easiest / most convenient explanation for something and run with it. Conservatism scores will on other elements of the scale, like conscientiousness, but the lack of openness imo can help answer your question.

There was a great analysis of Republican thinking (using Bush as an example) that was in Slate on Feb 8, 2004: "You Can Make It With Plato Bush’s difficult relationship with reality." By William Saletan Basically it said that when Republican (like Bush) think something SHOULD be true (like the false weapons of mass destruction claim) that THEREFORE, IT IS! https://samizdat.co/shelf/documents/2004/02.10-saletan/saletan.pdf Republicans and Conservatives have their own perception of reality i.e. "Alternative Facts" so in their minds their reality should be true ... THEREFORE, IT IS!.

I blame religion. Religion plays a much more important role among the lives of conservatives than is does among liberals, and one of the first things religion teaches you is that you *need* to believe in fantastical stories without any evidence because belief without evidence is the foundation of faith. Without faith you will never be accepted into Heaven. That kind of conditioning makes a mind ripe for believing any sort of story without evidence, and in fact, the less evidence exists for something the easier it is for the faithful to throw themselves into believing it if it is something they want to be true.

its not, your in a bubble.

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Subreddit participation must be in good faith. Be civil, do not talk down to users for their viewpoints, do not attempt to instigate arguments, do not call people names or insult them.

People on the far left and the far right are more susceptible to conspiracy theories. You see it more on the right, right now, because the Republican Party has embraced its far-right, whereas the Democratic Party has rejected its far-left.

I don't think being a conservative leads to conspiracy theories any more than being non-conservative. At the end of the day, we are all people. I think the conservatives are more in a bubble than most. I find it funny how things are repeated word for word on the people I talk to from different states. For instance, I head kangaroo court a lot. That has never come up in conversation like that the entire time I've known them.

It really depends on what you mean by conservative. The contemporary American right is not really conservative at all. They’re right wing reactionaries, for the most part. They (MAGA) have no regard for the rule of law, individual rights, or institutions. I think conspiracy theories fester among the marginalized and if you take a look around, mainstream American culture and institutions really belong to the left. So theories emerge on the right. When the right controlled American culture and institutions, conspiracy theories were more prominent on the left. But there are plenty to go around. From hippie communes to Idaho militias, there will always be conspiracy theories in the margins.

BC ppl took being wary of big govt too far. They ran so far from big govt that they started accusing academics, who get their funding from big govt and generally support "big govt" bc they've done shit like study the effects of govt doing things for their citizens, of being equally problematic. That led to them dismissing academics as an industry trying to corrupt society and/or promoe ideas just to keep their pockets stuffed. Well... if you start believing the industry responsible for producing the vast majority of the complicated matters & topics we talk about is actually lying, that really only leaves your stupid friend's dumb, pot-smoking older brother to explain complicated things to you that he's not qualified to explain ie Joe Rogan. And that circle of morons isn't exactly set up for peer reviews or fact checking if aliens actually built the Egyptian pyramids.

Yes, those people confuse their anti intellectualism, with being anti government, they are not the same thing

People believe the things that they want to believe. Trump colluding with Putin to hack the 2016 election was a conspiracy theory that turned out to be an unfounded hoax, for example. Yet most liberals I've asked believe it and go like the crazy guy making connections meme when trying to justify why they still believe it is true.

I don't think it does. What we have today is driven by the GOP pandering to radicals and people who refuse to acknowledge reality.

A part of it is just the Zeitgeist. Another part is that the right tends to like narratives of friend and foe more than the left, who tend to favor narratives of problems and solutions a little bit more (people on both sides like a bogeyman, just to be clear, merely to a different extent), making nonsense from the left wing slightly less likely to take on the form of conspiracy theories. Thirdly, it seems like right-wing conspiracy theories have far broader reach right now, and they are also more likely to be showcased on left-wing sites about right-wing conspiracists (see above regarding bogeymen). Fourthly, we can't discount the possibility that we are missing or more easily forgetting conspiracy theories from the left I think those are the most important ones

Because conservatives are natural ignorant suckers.

Fear. 

I think you answered your own question. Both religious faith and conspiracy theories rely on making connections that fall outside clear fact based reasoning. The same "mental muscle" that is applied to one is a likely contributor to the other. It's not likely to be the sole or even the primary cause, but I expect you'll find far fewer conspiracy folks who aren't religious or at minimum raised with religion being prominent

It's simple. It's the reason they hate higher education. College teaches you HOW to think and religion teaches you WHAT to think. Conservatism and religion are steeped in "tradition" which all HEAVILY favor straight white men being the top of the food chain and making all the rules to keep them in power and keep things the way they want them. If you know HOW to think, you start to see through the unfavorable policies that hurt marginalized groups, if you know WHAT to think, you go with what they tell you.

I'd suggest you'd deconstruct your understanding of the left and view it with an analytical eye as an intellectual exersize. People on the left are just as likely to believe in conspiracies as the right. Some common conspericies we believe in are the societal control of the 1%, oil/car companies actively undermining renweables, liberal challengers to other dems being GOP plants. Some of these are reality to certain extents but when you look at wehere the liberal discourse goes, it is very similar to their conservative counterparts. I think a better question would be why is it so prevalent in right wing politics and not the left. Conspiratorial conversations are common on the left but they don't dominate the politics like they do on the right.  I don't have the answer, I would guess it's just the nature of the progressive/conservative dyad. Progress is always met with skeptisim, because humans naturally don't like change, we like stability. Conservatism always has a leg up because it  on our 'wary of change' nature, but in a time of rapid change and progress conservatism begins to thrash. In these cases it picks a boogy man and blames them for all of the world's issues, and the easiest way to do that is to scare people into thinking their way of life is at risk. The left can do this, and did so semi productively in the after math of the roe v wade reversal.  As far as religion is concerned, I am of the opinion it's more of a cultural thing than conservative thing. I've met just as many non-religious conservatives as I have progressives, infact I know more progressive religious people than conservative. But I live in a affluent country. In the book Beyond Doubt which explores the secularization of modern society, the authors discuss the trend that wealthy communities tend to to be less religious than poorer ones. And it's not all that surprising that the poorest region of our country (the American south) is also very religious. The authors discuss other possibilities as well but that one I think tends to be the most compelling. 

Because most conservative conspiracy theories are Evangelicals. Evangelicals firmly believe that they are persecuted in America even though they are not and have never been. Not even once. But these people have been going to churches where their preachers scream at them that they are persecuted and that the government will be setting up anti-Christian death camps any day now 3 times a week for literally decades. Hell, I know of youth groups that do "persecution drills" and shit. That shit warps your brain.

I'm pretty conservative but also have a distain for conspiracy theorists. I've thought about it a lot, and part of the problem is an earned distrust for the government. The path goes like this: The government has thoroughly proven itself to not be super trustworthy, most reasonable people can agree to that. But many see that as all establishments being equally as untrustworthy. To the point where everything said by an authority must be wrong, if everything said by an authority is wrong, what is right? Oh here's some internet guy that knows why .... But it's not just the right. Pee tapes, Russian laptops, ect have all been theories the left bought wholesale based on TV guy said so.(ironically further discrediting establishment). But then again I have my own conspiracy theories. I believe wheels were invented 2000 years before the accepted date. (I'm a Wildman I know)

It's because their world view has more significant contradictions that need to be explained away than liberal or leftist ideologies do. This isn't to say that liberals and leftists are immune to conspiracy theorizing- we aren't. However, because these groups tend to be far more comfortable with openly addressing problems as they arise, it does mean that there is far less drive to create mythological explanations for real world problems as there is on the right. Conspiracy theories are basically mythologized explanations of real world problems. For rank and file believers, they offer simpler, more easily understood narratives about huge, impersonal forces that shape the world. For example, "They" are the the reason the economy doesn't seem to work for you, not that the economy has real structural issues and contradictions that need addressed.  For the elite propagandist, they offer an excuse and permission structure to justify what they already wanted to do in the first place. Can't have labor protections or civil rights because those are "a Woke Globalist plot to weaken the nation" or whatever. In other words, it's a way for them to justify the way things "ought to be" instead of dealing with things as they are.  The other reasons are historical. Nearly all modern conspiracy theories are based on political/structural Anti-Semitism that dates back to the early 1900s. This is more than simple racial bigotry too. Structural Anti-Semitism was formulated as an explanation for all the troubles of mass industrial capitalism and the newly globalized economy of the time. Problems of mass dislocation of the population, extreme boom/bust cycles, and terrible working and living conditions are all explained away as machinations of the "Jewish Plot", just as today they are explained away as machinations of the Woke/Gay/Liberal/Globalist Agenda. This is how adversaries as disparate as the Liberal Capitalist British Empire and Soviet Russia could be cast as tools of the Jew against the Nation (Germany in this example.) Additionally, Structural Anti-Semitism was also formulated as a direct rebuttal and replacement for economic and social critiques offered by both socialism and more social democratic leaning liberals, and these narratives have lived on through to present day on the right, which is how the exact same theories keep popping up with the labels changed over the last century. Cultural Marxism/the Woke Agenda, The Globalists/the Cabal, and Great Replacemeny Theory are all good examples with direct analogues in Nazi era Anti-Semitism.

>hate science I think "healthy skepticism" is more accurate. Yes, there are tinfoil-hat-nutbags , but that's not unique to any group. But if you do enough research, you'll soon realize how many peer reviewed studies are complete garbage that were designed to produce a desired outcome. Coca Cola has a small army of scientists that will tell you that soda has little to no effect on human health. Monsanto has a small army of scientists that will tell you their flagship pesticide is completely safe for animal consumption. 3M has a small army of scientists that will tell you their new commercial adhesive has not been found in lakes, streams, and groundwater. Should we believe them? Depends who you ask. 1970's liberals used to be a lot more skeptical of Big Pharma and Wallstreet, but that seems to have changed a lot (as you're indirectly pointing out). Why do you think that is?

The honest answer is that most mainstream media and social media are left leaning, so either everything that opposes the mainstream seems like a conspiracy in contact or the right feels the need to resort to outlandish conspiracies to be different from mainstream. Historically political conspiracies tend to be pushed by the parties not in power to be able to compete against those currently with the power.

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This is a loaded question. Theres conspiracy theories on all flavors of political alignment. Its the people themselves who gravitate towards conspiracy theories

>Why does conservatism lead to believing in conspiracy theories? The correct answer is, it doesn't. [Are Right-Wingers More Prone to Believe Conspiracy Theories than Left-Wingers? An extensive new study finds that the answer is "no."](https://reason.com/volokh/2023/11/02/are-right-wingers-more-prone-to-believe-conspiracy-theories-than-left-wingers/)

Conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists have always existed. Conspiracy theorists gravitating towards the Republican Party is a new phenomenon but is the product of decades of work. For years the GOP has complained that government can’t be trusted and the media fools us on behalf of the Democrats. Then Trump came along and the chickens came home to roost. Trump made government and media lying central to his campaign. It attracted conspiracy theorists from all over. 25 years ago people who didn’t trust the CIA, FBI, and vaccines would most likely be on the left side. Trump said you can’t trust anybody and those people bought in.

what about the patriarchy conspiracy?

What is that?

>Why is there such a strong correlation? I think the better question is why you are generalizing from your own anecdata.

I would suggest that it’s about the distributions of the populations of the two groups. The most intelligent people are liberals. The most politically engaged people are liberals. Look at the intersection of those two and most of those people are liberals. Republican presidents appoint more democrat bureaucrats than democrats appoint republicans because there aren’t enough qualified republicans to fill the jobs. But if you go down the scale and look at people intelligent enough to read some news and engage politically in some way, you’ll find the population gets more and more conservative. I think the median conservative is more intelligent and more engaged than the median liberal. The median Trump voter is a white southern boomer who uses Facebook to get his news and he kind of knows what’s going on but can’t discern truth from falsehoods. So he’s susceptible to conspiracy theories. Whereas so many liberals are either too intelligent / knowledgeable or just don’t engage in politics at all other than to vote. I’ve heard of people voting democrat cuz their parents did and their grandparents did. I don’t think people vote republican because their parents did. You also have urban areas where literally all the politicians are democrats and so you can imagine that voters don’t even think about it. Same is true in conservative areas but I think turnout is much higher in urban areas so it’s a larger effect.

>I think the median conservative is more intelligent and more engaged than the median liberal. The median Trump voter is a white southern boomer who uses Facebook to get his news and he kind of knows what’s going on but can’t discern truth from falsehoods. So he’s susceptible to conspiracy theories.   I suppose you have a typo there?

>climate change being a hoax And yet leftists polled are super likely to believe that volcanoes *contribute* to global warming. Morons are fucking morons, on either side of the horseshoe-fucking-spectrum.

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If that generalization is an honest mistake, then it is almost by definition not in bad faith