&gt; Randomness has no place in the mind of a conspiracy theorist.<p>I agree, and I see chronic conspiracy theorizing as a pathology. One should beware the Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory of Everything (antisemitism, capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, &#x27;Cultural Marxism&#x27;, are common belief attractors on who to blame)<p>But conspiracies do also exist in reality - in fact, conspiracies should be rather common, as giving your opponents perfect information makes you less competitive. As they say, one man&#x27;s conspiracy is another man&#x27;s business plan.<p>There have been many occasions when &quot;conspiracy theories&quot; turned out to be true (Iran-Contra, Watergate, George W. Bush&#x27;s manipulation of intelligence over Iraq&#x27;s WMD), and it&#x27;s all too convenient for the perpetrators to dismiss accusations as such.<p>Particularly, present day corporate media that only airs a  narrow range of opinions and has zero interest in investigative journalism, tends to call anything that question the motives of those in power a conspiracy theory. Likewise the outsize role of money in US politics means it&#x27;s easy for politicians to be bought and lobbied. And difficult for the corporate media, subject to the same financial pressures themselves, to point it out.<p>That disconnect between media reporting and reality also leads to a kind of &#x27;conspiracy theory&#x27; that isn&#x27;t a conspiracy theory at all: when politicians or corporations do corrupt things or go against the public interest in plain sight, but nobody in widely circulated news media&#x27;s willing to report on it and bring it into public conversation. If you&#x27;re on the right you&#x27;d say this is what&#x27;s happening with immigration. If you&#x27;re on the left you&#x27;d say it&#x27;s what is happening with financial corruption or the military-industrial complex.<p>Successful democracy depends on information flow between population, media and politicians, and corruption and pressure from special interests can undermine that. Arguably conspiracy theories are a symptom of a decline of trust in a unified democratic society and particularly government and media. Those who subscribe tend to feel marginalized in some way.<p>Plenty of those who point this out aren&#x27;t authoritarian in the least.