I came across this really interesting take on how Conspiracy theories work. How are they constructed ? What do they offer people ?
Make what you will of it . I have posted a couple of excerpts.
The Epstein Story Wouldn't Have Gotten This Far Unless MAGA Was Ready to Cut Trump Loose
Dissecting the structure of most conspiracy theories seems to indicate that MAGA is willing to consider a post-Trump future. Is this another mirage, or does MAGA think it doesn't need him anymore?
William Anderson
.........Let’s break down the anatomy of a conspiracy theory.
For me, the easiest conspiracy theory to understand has always been the
Procter and Gamble Satanism conspiracy theory. It has a number of qualities that make it very easy to dissect, like a frog that you’d give to a middle schooler. It is obviously, blatantly, self-evidently untrue, so no mental effort needs to be spent on investigating the factual claims made by the conspiracy theory or even really concerning ourselves with whether or not people capable of dressing themselves could be genuinely tricked into believing it.
.... The Procter and Gamble conspiracy theory is ‘simple’. It is also staggeringly stupid and impossible, but that doesn’t matter.
The chain email, as reproduced by Snopes, follows: all errors are as they were in the original.
PLEASE MAKE A DIFFERENCE
The President of Procter & gamble appeared on the Phil Donahue Show on March 1, 1994. He announced that due to the openness of our society, he was coming out of the closet about his association with the church of Satan. He stated that a large portion of his profits from Procter & Gamble Products goes to support this satanic church. When asked by Donahue if stating this on t.v. would hurt his business, he replied, "THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CHRISTIANS IN THE UNITED STATES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE."
.... Let’s dissect it piece by piece.
The conspiracy theory about Procter & Gamble was originally started by
Amway distributors. Amway is a
multi-level marketing organization that sells the fantasy of becoming a self-sufficient salesperson of household cleaning products, primarily to
Christian housewives. Procter & Gamble makes a number of cleaning products that directly compete with Amway’s knockoff versions of the same product. Saying that Procter & Gamble was financially entangled with El Diablo is the same thing as the Bush Administration saying that
marijuana smokers helped fund Bin Laden; if you want to discourage the consumption of a product, just say that anyone buying the product is funding the most evil thing you can think of.
But that explains why a small number of people in the Evangelical community would start the rumor; to either defame the company or to just create the sense that Procter & Gamble was somehow controversial, counting on people to assume that where there’s smoke, there’s probably some sort of fire. In order to go viral - so viral that
Procter & Gamble had to create a dossier they distributed to churches where they got Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell to state that Procter & Gamble was not now and never was a member of the Satanist party - people who aren’t actually getting direct financial benefit out of the conspiracy theory need to want to spread it.
And this conspiracy theory has a number of elements that give them a reason to.
Dissecting the structure of most conspiracy theories seems to indicate that MAGA is willing to consider a post-Trump future. Is this another mirage, or does MAGA think it doesn't need him anymore?