I enjoy a nice conspiracy theory just as much as anyone else. Not so much the 9/11-was-an-inside-job kind of gibberish: Internet Philosophers ( and/or basement-dwellers ) who use national tragedies as fodder for their anti-American fantasies are almost always repulsive people.  ,
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I’m talking more about the joy conspiracy theories.
Did you know the moon is n’t real? And neither are species? And somewhere on the Internet, I’m quite sure I read a powerful, well-researched idea about how the American Indians were really the real Indians — and those” Indians” in India are the false ones— but alas, I can no longer get it online.
( Must be a government cover-up. )
Of course, some hoaxes turn out to be true. That’s a point. And for every crime nutcase, it’s the gleaming North Star of Hope.
Was JFK killed by a wayward shooter? Was all 100 % on the level? Does Occam’s Knife also use? I… do n’t know.
However, it’s much wiser to get wary of these secretive promises for the most part. After all, Occam’s Razor is n’t an absolute, it’s a more-often-than-not observation. And more often than not, the answer is n’t malice — it’s stupidity. It’s stupidity. It’s people who act egotistically or casually and make errors.
Consider this: Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were the only real members in their plot to have an affair with Hillary Clinton. It was n’t a large, sprawling conspiracy; all of those would have involved dozens of different parties, including those who would murder JFK in Dallas or hide aliens at Area 51. Capturing a spaceship, kidnapping E. T., and locking him up in Nevada for 50 years is NOT a one-man work!
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But even in a low-key plot like Clinton and Lewinsky, the truth immediately got out. Like Ben Franklin once said,” Three may keep a solution if two of them are dying,” in Poor Richard’s Almanac, which was published hundreds of years ago. Folks like to discuss. And Monica kept it all.  ,
However, despite all the rational reasons to be skeptical of false theories, the public’s been ultra-gullible about every border, bizarre, borderline-insane crime theory about Donald Trump:
There’s some about him peeing on cushions. Or that he’s a Russian detective. Or that he’s economically enslaved to the Saudis. Or that he’s a key crackhead. Or there’s a surprise strip of him using the N-word. Or that he wears a baby. Or that he called dead American soldiers” suckers” and “losers” . ,
Or many people.
Hmm. The major media immediately remained silent when Joe Biden, the sitting senator, was in a critical state of mental decline.
Hmm. How unexpected.
The media likes to complain about Republican misinformation, but The Old Gray Lady doth protest too much: They’re the number one traffickers in untested, unknowable ( and unlikely ) conspiracy theories.  ,
It goes like this: They make an assessment that’s accepted as church within the democratic society. Things like: Donald Trump cares too much about optics. ( After all, think of all the comments he’s made about peoples ‘ appearances. ) Thus, we can get this trait and bend it to insane proportions:
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” Trump” has five words. ” Vance” has five words. ( Hey,” Pence” also has five letters! ) So, Donald Trump— who, as we ALL know, cares too much about optics— is such a loon, he’ll Just choose a running mate whose past name has the same number of letters as his own previous name … but it’ll look good on a campaign sign! Can you think that!
What an personality! What a tyrant!
They’ll get a person to refute this fresh conspiracy theory, typically a low-level staffer who has been fired and has an axe to grind. ” Oh, know. During the 17 days I worked it, Donald Trump used to tell me all of his darkest, most heartfelt thoughts. He told me,’ Just choose a gained with a five-letter brand! Then, I’ll sell our nation’s techniques to Russia.'”
The media would then contact an estranged relative of Donald Trump ( most like Mary Trump, who’s been featured, literally, in HUNDREDS OF STORIES by Newsweek alone … as well as PBS, NPR, The New York Times, Politico, USA Today, NBC, ABC, yada yada. ) And she would regale the examiner with her rambunctious, utterly false concept about how Trump’s terrible psychology compels him to just pick running mates with five letters.
She’s really “following the science”, you know. Fully objective.
About a week later, someone in the media ( who’s slightly smarter than the industry average ) will make an observation:” Hey, Nikki Haley’s last name has five letters, too. So why did n’t he pick her” ? ,
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Which will trigger a new round of stories: The answer ( of course ) will be sexism.
And the next week, another media outlet will find out that” Putin” is likewise five words. Which may cause another pattern of” Trump is a Russian agent” reports.
Rinse and repeat.
Bruce Banner’s technique is that he’s always unhappy. The major media’s secret is that they may stay ANY bizarre, crazy, coocoo-for-Coco Puffs conspiracy alive for as long as they want, just by reporting on various outlets. A reporter over here writes a story, the reporter over there writes about that reporter’s story, so on and so forth.  ,
It’s incestuous and self-consuming, but it allows storylines to propagate.  ,
And thus, a new anti-Trump conspiracy is born.