Editing Conspiracy theory (section)

===United States===
{{Main|Conspiracy theories in United States politics}}

The historian [[Richard Hofstadter]] addressed the role of [[paranoia]] and conspiracism throughout [[History of the United States|U.S. history]] in his 1964 essay "[[The Paranoid Style in American Politics]]". [[Bernard Bailyn]]'s classic ''[[The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution]]'' (1967) notes that a similar phenomenon could be found in North America during the time preceding the [[American Revolution]]. Conspiracism labels people's attitudes and the type of conspiracy theories that are more global and historical in proportion.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bailyn|first=Bernard|title='The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|location=Cambridge|id=ASIN: B000NUF6FQ|isbn=978-0-674-44302-0|year=1992|orig-year=1967}}{{page needed|date=September 2011}}</ref>

Harry G. West and others have noted that while conspiracy theorists may often be dismissed as a fringe minority, certain evidence suggests that a wide range of the U.S. believes in conspiracy theories. West also compares those theories to [[hypernationalism]] and [[religious fundamentalism]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order|author=Harry G. West|publisher=Duke University Press Books|pages=4, 207–08|display-authors=etal}}</ref><ref>[[Michael Shermer|Shermer, Michael]], and Pat Linse. ''Conspiracy Theories''. Altadena, CA: Skeptics Society, n.d. Print.</ref> Theologian Robert Jewett and philosopher [[John Shelton Lawrence]] attribute the enduring popularity of conspiracy theories in the U.S. to the [[Cold War]], [[McCarthyism]], and [[Counterculture of the 1960s|counterculture]] rejection of authority. They state that among both the left-wing and right-wing, there remains a willingness to use real events, such as Soviet plots, inconsistencies in the [[Warren Commission|Warren Report]], and the [[September 11 attacks|9/11]] attacks, to support the existence of unverified and ongoing large-scale conspiracies.<ref>Jewett, Robert; John Shelton Lawrence (2004) [https://books.google.com/books?id=VE2k18ScPnQC&q=%22conspiracy%20theories%22 ''Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418133818/https://books.google.com/books?id=VE2k18ScPnQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=%22conspiracy%20theories%22 |date=18 April 2019 }} Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing p. 206.</ref>

In his studies of "American political demonology", historian [[Michael Paul Rogin]] too analyzed this paranoid style of politics that has occurred throughout American history. Conspiracy theories frequently identify an imaginary subversive group that is supposedly attacking the nation and requires the government and allied forces to engage in harsh extra-legal repression of those threatening subversives. Rogin cites examples from the Red Scares of 1919 to McCarthy's anti-communist campaign in the 1950s and, more recently, fears of immigrant hordes invading the US. Unlike Hofstadter, Rogin saw these "countersubversive" fears as frequently coming from those in power and dominant groups instead of from the dispossessed. Unlike Robert Jewett, Rogin blamed not the counterculture but America's dominant culture of liberal individualism and the fears it stimulated to explain the periodic eruption of irrational conspiracy theories.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rogin|first=Michael Paul|title=Ronald Reagan, the Movie and Other Episodes in Political Demonology|year=1988|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-06469-0|page=7}}</ref> The [[Watergate scandal]] has also been used to bestow legitimacy to other conspiracy theories, with [[Richard Nixon]] himself commenting that it served as a "[[Rorschach test|Rorschach ink blot]]" which invited others to fill in the underlying pattern.<ref name="knight-2003"/>

Historian Kathryn S. Olmsted cites three reasons why Americans are prone to believing in government conspiracy theories:

# Genuine government overreach and secrecy during the Cold War, such as [[Watergate]], the [[Tuskegee syphilis experiment]], [[Project MKUltra]], and the CIA's [[assassination attempts on Fidel Castro]] in collaboration with mobsters.
# Precedent set by official government-sanctioned conspiracy theories for propaganda, such as claims of German infiltration of the U.S. during World War II or the debunked claim that [[Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations|Saddam Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attacks]].
# Distrust fostered by the government's spying on and harassment of dissenters, such as the [[Sedition Act of 1918]], [[COINTELPRO]], and as part of various [[Red Scare]]s.<ref>Olmsted, Kathryn S. (2011). [https://books.google.com/books?id=u7Sd5vyOOtEC&pg=PA8 ''Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418133815/https://books.google.com/books?id=u7Sd5vyOOtEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA8 |date=18 April 2019 }}. Oxford University Press, p. 8.</ref>

[[Alex Jones]] referenced numerous conspiracy theories for convincing his supporters to endorse [[Ron Paul]] over [[Mitt Romney]] in the [[2012 Republican Party presidential primaries]] and [[Donald Trump]] over [[Hillary Clinton]] in the [[2016 United States presidential election]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Friedersdorf|first=Conor|date=29 October 2011|title=Ron Paul, Conspiracy Theories, and the Right|work=[[The Atlantic]]|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/ron-paul-conspiracy-theories-and-the-right/250638/|access-date=30 August 2020}}</ref><ref>Stack, Liam (3 October 2016). [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/us/politics/alex-jones.html "He Calls Hillary Clinton a 'Demon.' Who Is Alex Jones?"] ''[[The New York Times]]''</ref> Into the 2020s, the [[QAnon conspiracy theory]] alleges that Trump is fighting against a [[Deep state in the United States|deep-state]] [[cabal]] of child sex-abusing and Satan-worshipping [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]].<ref name="Nature 2021"/><ref name="Crossley 2021"/><ref>{{cite journal|last=Bracewell|first=Lorna|date=21 January 2021|title=Gender, Populism, and the QAnon Conspiracy Movement|journal=[[Frontiers in Sociology]]|volume=5|pages=615727|doi=10.3389/fsoc.2020.615727|doi-access=free|pmc=8022489|pmid=33869533|s2cid=231654586}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author-last=O'Donnell|author-first=Jonathon|date=September 2020|title=The deliverance of the administrative state: Deep state conspiracism, charismatic demonology, and the post-truth politics of American Christian nationalism|editor1-last=Stausberg|editor1-first=Michael|editor1-link=Michael Stausberg|editor2-last=Engler|editor2-first=Steven|editor2-link=Steven Engler|journal=[[Religion (journal)|Religion]]|volume=50|issue=4|pages=696–719|doi=10.1080/0048721X.2020.1810817|s2cid=222094116}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Roose|first=Kevin|date=3 September 2021|orig-date=4 March 2021|title=What Is QAnon, the Viral Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory?|url=https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html|url-status=live|location=[[New York City]]|work=The New York Times|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210919060514/https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html|archive-date=19 September 2021|url-access=limited|access-date=25 September 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Bowman|first=Emma|date=4 February 2021|title=Why QAnon Survives After Trump|url=https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963861418/why-qanon-survives-after-trump|url-status=live|publisher=[[NPR]]|location=[[Washington, D.C.]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210905103408/https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963861418/why-qanon-survives-after-trump|archive-date=5 September 2021|access-date=25 September 2021}}</ref>