The word “conspiracy” has been thrown around a lot lately. It used to be mostly by people who were a little excentric claiming cover ups of things like alien autopsies, who really shot JFK, and the whereabouts of Elvis Presley. But lately this term has been thrown around quite a bit in the political arena as well. Accusations are being made that Hillary Clinton is gravely ill, Melania Trump is an illegal alien, Donald Trump’s hair gets radio reception, etc. etc. Some of theories are plausible and some are just plain loony.
So, what does the word conspiracy actually mean? Merriam- Webster defines it as “a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal” or “the act of secretly planning to do something harmful or illegal”.
So, based on that expert definition, which of the following is a conspiracy:
#1 A major political party covertly doing everything it can to ensure the candidate their leader likes best wins their party’s nomination.
#2 A candidate who is behind in every poll losing an election
#3 Climate change
The answer of course is A- the DNC’s truly awful, but successful efforts to derail Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Donald Trump may claim otherwise, but losing an election because you get fewer votes is just how democracy works. And of course climate change is very well documented by folks all over the planet, not invented by the Chinese or the Russians or Al Qaeda.
As the election gets closer the accusations will only get more and more outrageous. It’s up to each of us to use our intelligence and common sense to decide which “conspiracy” actually exists and which ones belong in the land of the tinfoil hat wearing crowd.