Conspiracy theories can be harmless or they can be the opposite.

In the main, conspiracy theories are stories that try to create meaning in an often meaningless world. They try to impose order on chaos. Sometimes, they assign blame.

KINSELLA: Antisemitic conspiracy theories seek to instill panic and fear Back to video

The Earth is flat. The moon landing was faked. Paul McCartney is dead. Birds aren’t real. Governments are seeding chemicals in the atmosphere using chemtrails. Area 51 in Nevada is where the remains of space aliens are kept. Those are among the many (mostly) harmless conspiracy theories.

Then there are conspiracy theories that aren’t harmless at all. They seek to instill panic and fear – and they do so by accusing a particular group of something particularly terrible.

So: 9/11 was an inside job. Covid-19 wasn’t real, and vaccines don’t work. There is a deep state – or New World Order or the like – that secretly controls the world. The Sandy Hook Elementary School slaughter was false flag operation, carried out by crisis actors. And so on and so on.

There many conspiracy theories like that – ones that hurt people, and lead to spilled blood.

Most persistent conspiracy theories involve Jews

The most persistent conspiracy theories, however, have to do with Jews.

Antisemitism is a conspiracy theory, in and of itself. It has been around since the Middle Ages: Jews killed Jesus, Jews consume the organs and blood of Christians, Jews........

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