Up at 3 am reading Google Scholar on why people are attracted to conspiracy theories.

Some broad themes, people are attracted to conspiracies when:
1. They feel powerless or hopeless
2. Feel alienated, low trust
3. Feel angry, like they are victimized
4. Their worldview has been repudiated

This made me think of another concept, which I think is more associated with history, “loss of empire.” All of those concepts—alienation, hopelessness, victimhood, hostility—can, imo, be emblematic of the emotions of loss of empire.

In the US context the most well known and trafficked conspiracies are on the far right. Qanon conspiracists even get elected now. I think this can be somewhat explained by the feelings associated with “loss of empire.”

Essentially far right conspiracy followers feel a deep alienation to broad changes in US society, they feel powerless to stop fast moving cultural and demographic change. This makes them feel angry and victimized. This makes them move into the realm of conspiracy

Loss of empire—imo—is a much simpler and cleaner explanation than “economic anxiety,” since many middle class and even wealthy conservatives fully believe completely made up conspiracies about Obama, voting machines, BLM, Antifa, Soros, etc. It isnt just poor conservatives.

Losing the sense of “country” and feeling scared of cultural/demographic change can really drive people into some extraordinary explanations for mundane events. It can make educated and relatively well off people believe ridiculous lies.

So how do we combat far right conspiracy theories? Not really any good answer. You’d have to convince them the cultural and demographic changes they fear aren’t actually that bad. There’s some evidence that increasing diversity can moderate beliefs.

So maybe if conservatives were in less of an echo chamber and saw more liberals/poc in real life. Maybe that’s college or some type of national program where ppl can experience other cultures. Idk. But the internet makes echo chambers easy to make and reinforce.

So generally I think we have a good idea of what causes conspiratorial beliefs but there are no good, easy answers for solving how to reduce them in the US right now.