This is fine but I don’t think it really grapples with the roots of the cynical distrust that enable the conspiratorial style. How many popular books or movies can you recall where the dominant hierarchy doesn’t turn out to be irredeemably corrupt? https://twitter.com/douthatnyt/status/1335603697213202433

This libertarian cliche has always been an important thread in American culture. And I think it does instill a healthy skepticism of power! But the dose makes the poison, as they say. Post-Watergate mass media has made this our dominant myth for multiple generations.

Erosion of civic institutions and the lowered viability floor for fringe groups that the internet brings surely haven’t helped but today, at least, this narrative’s primacy seems especially acute.

With the help of @DystopianYA it’s easy to see that genre’s tropes but truly our whole culture is trapped in a default-to-suspicion that isn’t substantially less childish