Inside the Right-Wing Love Affair With Conspiracy Theories
While the right is deeply invested in conspiracy theories, I do believe that Charles pegged it the other day when he said something to the effect that the reason Benghazi still has legs on the right is because they see it as a way to pre-tar & demonize Hillary before 2016 elections. I also believe that the GOP needs to do this because Hillary Clinton is actually more centrist than Barack Obama, and has potential to sway larger portions of the Southern Republican base than Obama ever did.
Barry Beyerstein, a professor of psychology, says people are often unable to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. “People like to enchant themselves and this is classic mystery mongering,” he says. “People want there to be grand conspiracies and they want the world to be an ever mysterious place than it is and want more simplistic pat answers as to why they are not happy and why the world isn’t the wonderful place they think it should be. And that’s more satisfactory psychologically than the sort of thing that science and decent scholarship will say.”
Conspiracy theories make the uninformed think they’re in the know; that they know the “truth.” The truth, however, is they’re afraid.
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