Political exclusion drives left-leaning people to conspiracy theorizing

Evidence

With the candidacy and then election of a conspiracy peddler, conspiratorial thinking leaked from its traditional confines to spread in new, more visible ways across the country. As a result, a fresh wave of conspiracy theories and an obsession with their negative effects engulfed America. We all worried late in the election season about “fake news,” a term for disinformation that quickly lost all meaning as it was gleefully seized on by the Trump administration to describe any media attention they didn’t like. We fixated on a conspiracy theorist taking the White House, and then we fretted over whether he was a true believer or just a cynical opportunist. And as left-leaning people found themselves unrepresented in government, with the judicial, executive, and legislative branches held by the right, they too started to engage more in conspiracy theorizing. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 25

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to vault claims about social-identity and threat mechanisms driving out-group suspicion, and to Christian-nationalism/authoritarianism material on how perceived loss of representation fuels paranoid politics. — connects to: Political exclusion drives the mob toward conspiratorial readings of power — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 311; Political losing raises a group’s propensity for conspiratorial reasoning rather than causing it — Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, American Conspiracy Theories, 756; Out-of-power party supporters endorse more conspiracy theories, especially far-right ones — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 223 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Political exclusion drives the mob toward conspiratorial readings of power #corroborates (0.92) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 311
• Out-of-power party supporters endorse more conspiracy theories, especially far-right ones #exemplifies (0.88) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 223
• Conspiracy theories give concrete form to a group’s sensed loss of power #expands (0.85) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 58
• Political losing raises a group’s propensity for conspiratorial reasoning rather than causing it #qualifies (0.82) — Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, American Conspiracy Theories, 756
• Conspiracy theories often stem from legitimate populist suspicion of elites #expands (0.80) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 66
• Fear of invisible government manipulation drives false flag conspiracy theories. #exemplifies (0.72) — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 351