Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Long a fringe part of the American political landscape, conspiracy theories are now mainstream: 147 members of Congress voted in favor of objections to the 2020 presidential election based on an unproven theory about a rigged electoral process promoted, in part, by followers of the mysterious QAnon community, itself a network of believers of a wide-ranging conspiracy involving pedophilia among elected officials and other civic and business leaders. But these are only the latest examples of a long history of conspiracies that have gained adherents in society. In his timely new book, Conspiracy, Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, discusses what makes conspiracies so appealing to segments of the population. Shermer finds that conspiracy theories cut across gender, age, race, income, education level, occupational status―and even political affiliation. One reason that people believe these conspiracies, Shermer argues, is that enough of them are real that we should be constructively conspirato