I don’t know who Rachel Maddox is, maybe you meant Rachel Maddow? At any rate, can you give a link to these conspiracies? I couldn’t find anything on rachel maddow russia conspiracy except for the belief that the FBI is correct about Russia interfering with the 2016 election. So are you suggesting that the FBI is now engaging in conspiracy theories?
Hereis the poll.
And then, AFAIK, I have not seen Clinton supporting those conspiracies, Shodan does really think also that I was talking in absolutes, missing the point there too.
And while bad, that is nowhere at the levels the Republicans fall for manufactured conspiracies nowadays.
Don Lemon said a very stupid thing on TV. I’d argue that it’s not a conspiracy theory, in that he’s suggesting a (very dumb) theory about a natural disaster claiming the plane, not suggesting that somebody deliberately destroyed it - but that’s admittedly nitpicking, because his suggestion is still really stupid and really wrong, like most conspiracy theories. Also, so far as I know, it’s just something he brought up this one time, trying to fill air-time when there wasn’t any more to a story about a missing plane than, “plane still missing.”
I view the left/right political continuum as a circle rather than a line. The far left hippie new age crazies, at some point, become almost indistinguishable from the far right crazies.
And I do know some far left crazies. My masseuse and his yoga teacher wife believe all this crap, including 9/11 plots and Obama as the Kenyan Manchurian candidate. Sometimes they try to hold meetings to spread their beliefs. I think that one time they got 4 people to show up to one of these meetings.
On the other side of the spectrum, yesterday the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States of America confirmed that he had blocked an aid package for a foreign country because of a conspiracy theory. He, along with the President of the United States and the Attorney General of the United States believe this batshit theory, which involves malfeasance by the government of Ukraine. As such, they have made confirming this theory a cornerstone of American foreign policy.
Now, I think one of these things is much more concerning that the other thing. And I don’t think it’s hypocritical at all to be more deeply concerned about the latter.
Because my issue isn’t with some right wing crazies being conspiracy theorists, it’s with the POTUS believing this stuff and basing policy on it.
Birther, right? 
His words, from the linked article:
“That’s what people are saying,” Lemon said. “I know it’s preposterous — but is it preposterous you think, Mary?”
He doesn’t sound like a typical proponent of conspiracy theories.
It’s paywalled, so impossible to judge the methodology or potential bias, but from the numbers I can see it would appear Dems were 3 times as likely as Pubs to believe Bush (a president many of them already despised) knew about the attacks.
If valid, that is one data point arguing that the left is also vulnerable to CTs.
That capsule at the beginning, btw, immediately casts doubt on the fairness of the poll. It gives a number for Dems (35%) but casts the Pub response (7-to-1) in a way that seems less significant than the actual percentage (12%).
The OP posted that the right were more credulous, not that the left were completely immune. I submit that a single (or even a few) opposing data points do not disprove his hypothesis. In fact, rather than coming up with individual examples, a better methodology would be to count the number of accepted fringe theories that have been espoused by each side, and see if there is a statistical difference.
Trump is a black man??!?
The antivaxer charge has validity, but to his :dubious: credit, Trump never followed through on flirting with using the power of his office to appoint antivax crazies to examine/determine federal vaccination policy, and he actually urged people to get vaccinated against measles.
I’d take it as yet another case where Trump tries to get credit for ‘solving’ a problem that he help create in the first place.
Remember, early on in his term he wanted to set up a commission on finding the bad things about vaccines, one that would be led by Robert Kennedy Jr. a notorious anti-vaxxer. Apparently Bill Gates had to talk him out of it.
Trump has many tweets showing him to be anti-vaxx, although at one point he tried to say he wasn’t just that underhanded tactic of ‘too many vaccines too soon’ which has been shown to be nonsense.
He only went pro-vaccine when there was an outbreak. Again, he was part of the problem to begin with.
Woooooops and there goes Hillary saying Tulsi is a Russian asset.
Needs context. But first, was she really born in Hawaii?
I’m pretty sure Hawaii isn’t even real. It’s right on the edge of the world and would fall off
AFAIK there were some reports about the troll factories now grooming people like Tulsi, what the ones that calls it ‘just a conspiracy theory’ forget is that someone being groomed does not need to be aware of how useful he or she is to a foreign government. Just ask the ones looking at Trump, don’t ask Trump, because he has no clue whatsoever.
Context. Not remotely a crazy assertion, assuming that Clinton doesn’t think Gabbard is a knowing pawn of Russia. The idea that Russia is going to try to monkeywrench the elections by creating the illusion of support for a minor candidate is entirely plausible, and Gabbard is as likely a target for this effort as any other candidate in the Dem field.
Maybe a better target than most, given her response:
“My party is full of rot and corruption!” is kind of a weird flex for someone trying to argue that they’re not a mole.
Oh I agree she can easily be selected by Russia as a wrench in the works. My point to Dale Sams was perhaps not well stated, that it was not a great example of Hillary Clinton pushing BS conspiracies.
Exact opposite actually. But she’s stating the obvious…also let me know how life on Maple Street is
Besides coming out and saying she won’t run third party.
But everyone clap like seals for Hillarys bald faced accusations of “if you run third party then you’re a Russian pawn”
That’s an awfully convient assertion for a kabillionaire power monger affiliated with one of the two major parties