I don't hear much chatter about QAnon anymore. The only place I heard much about it was media reports; outside of those I only know of one person who is/was into it, and I never met him. It never seemed to have any institutional support, unlike Kendi's conspiracy theory, which has a great deal. and is unusual, in that he posits an unconscious conspiracy
What gives a conspiracy theory cachet? Some critical mass of celebrities endorsing it? Tribal endorsement? Popularity great enough that nobody wants to say anything against it?
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Yes, I know, once there was such a "conspiracy", though not universal--and to assume that after all the changes every difference may still be attributed to it seems to fit the conspiracy theory model.
I'm probably paraphrasing AVI (or somebody) but people like explanations for events, and they really like the explanations to be as momentous as the impact of event. That's why the gods bring fire rather than Og figured out rubbing two sticks together makes them hot enough to burn. A random act of violence from a mentally disturbed individual feels pretty unsatisfactory to explain the death, or near death, of a popular politician.
Now, that steaming pile of hoopoe munitions about 9/11 supposedly being an inside job... I wonder how much of that is simply because the president at the time had an R after his name, and thus OBVIOUSLY had to be tilting at windmills.
And also, the belief that some conspiracy is likely precedes the belief in any actual conspiracy. The paranoia comes first, it does not result from learning data about about a particular conspiracy. The Germans had some uneven history of hating Jews, as did much of Europe. They did not turn on them because of new information, but because they believed they were a superior culture yet somehow lost WWI. They also hated Slavs and Gypsies.
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