Even If It's 'Bonkers,' Poll Finds Many Believe QAnon, Other Conspiracy Theories

Actually, I'd disagree. If you dig in to a lot of these theories, there is a kernel of rationality behind them. Many adherents can actually rebut arguments with evidence that makes a surprising amount of sense: there are usually multiple possible explanations for individual phenomena, and if you look at them in isolation, it can be very hard to conclusively demonstrate that the "scientific" answer is actually the best possible explanation. This to me explains why even intellectuals can fall prey to these theories: if you already have a nonconformist streak, the alternative explanations can be interesting to dig into.

Where they fall flat is in overall coherence; these theories often end up with massive gaping seams if you try to expand them from explaining one phenomena. And these seams are so obvious, and yet adherents have no coherent explanation for these seams, that it overshadows whatever kernel of rationality the theory originally had.

Honestly, it's probably part of a real justification narrative for trusting things like QAnon and talk radio over the mainstream media. If you do that, you at least have to put them on the same level, and if it's too difficult to build up things like the first two, then you can always try tear down the latter (since it's easier to cherry-pick enough stuff to make that passably believable: just set a very high bar then catalog the inevitable times one of the thousands of journalists didn't live up to it over the last century).

The FBI and Mueller special counsel report specifically called out an anti-Clinton campaign by the GRU. No one argues that Trump was elected by Russians, only that they did an awful lot to air Clinton's dirty laundry.

Seems a tad different than 'Hillary Clinton runs a child sex ring in a pizza parlor basement'.

But maybe that's just my liberal bias speaking.

Just off the top of my head:

* WaPo and NYT lied about WMDs and Iraq.

* NYT lied about NSA spying programs in 2005. Snowden explicitly said he gave his leaks to a British organization because US news could not be trusted.

* Rolling Stone misrepresented or omitted testimonies in 'A Rape on Campus'.

* CNN said repeatedly that Clinton was polling higher than Trump and there was absolutely no way he was going to win. CNN also blacked out Yang and Sanders coverage and got flak for it. CNN also retracted at least one story on Trump, i cant remember what it was about but probably Russia.

* HuffPo has retracted a racist article after it was revealed the author had faked their identity, and editors made no attempt to verify whether or not their credentials were real.

* And of course everyone is familiar with the evils of 'new media' companies like Facebook and YouTube, from spreading harmful content to children, unfairly enforcing policies, spreading misinformation, and harmful ads.

I'm sure I could come up with more. Why should I trust them? What have these organizations done to prove to the public they are changing? Why does distrusting them make me some sort of alt-right crazy? It seems like the media has the burden of proof, not me. From where I stand, the "political ideology" is a reaction to a sleazy, corrupt, and dying media industry.