Should be in dunk tank.

Conspiracies are flourishing because we're constantly being lied to or whiplashed by those in charge and we have no power. If people live in a system where any real self-determination is out of their hands, then of course they'll feel someone else is in charge. They'll feel like their world is being controlled by a puppet master. We spent the last year being told one thing in the media and by politicians, while they did another. We had to stay inside and wear masks because that was supposedly the only possible way forward. Then all the wealthy people went to parties and ate at restaurants and could do what they wanted. People aren't stupid and they noticed. It created a shit load of valid distrust in authority.

We also can't do anything about the way our country is won. If we're to go to war, it won't be the average voter who has anything to say about it. We had no say in response to covid. We didn't avoid real lockdowns because chuds protested. We avoided lockdown for the same reasons those protests got boosted in the media. The business interests wanted the country to remain open. They're fine with chuds getting laughed at on national TV over buying grass seed during a pandemic, as long as it's part of the conversation. The media buys directly into it because it's spectacle and that makes the silly shit right on par with real opinions.

Not to mention that Democrats indulged conspiracy theories throughout Trump's term. r/politics is one to talk about pushing conspiracies. They were fine with it then but of course they don't view it as a conspiracy. They lack the self-awareness to consider that conspiracy people they disagree with might be just like them. The same way an r/politics person was obsessed with Lev Parnas and all these intricate 13D chess moves there are people who feel the same way about JFK or 9/11.

The more these people fight to have conspiracy theorists censored and alienated and possibly arrested, the more it's just going to validate the idea that everyone is against them. Trying to make snopes the arbiter of facts and facebook the internet police is going to make it worse. Media platforms can't be good if they're not democratic and they can't be democratic if they're privately owned. All you end up with is state-backed private companies with extreme amounts of power and are removed by what laughable market forces might exist to keep them in check.