Trump did finally concede in September that Obama was indeed born in the United States, perhaps just to make room in his stump speeches for even more extravagant conspiracy theories. In December he gave an interview to Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist whose talk show and websites reach an audience of millions. So why did Americans’ belief in ever-more-implausible conspiracy theories grow steadily in the 1980s and especially the ’90s — decades when Americans had less to worry about than at any other point in the country’s modern history? The most straightforward answer may be that conspiracy theories are popular, and Trump tends to like things that are popular. Conspiracy theories, like Trump’s post-truth provocation of a campaign, are less a coherent politics than a form of political entertainment.

Source: New York Times September 27, 2016 09:00 UTC