A lot of people mistake for conspiracy theories dynamics that are actually caused by incentives and people being unwilling to risk their jobs/incomes. It leads to self-censorship and people saying and behaving in ways they perceive as necessary to not attract unwanted scrutiny.
Being able to freely speak your mind is a position of privilege most people lack. You need to be financially independent and not beholden to the whims of your employer. Most people need to be sensitive to politics in what they say & do and are not in a position to risk their job.
Journalists need to worry about what their boss will think, how their story/view will be perceived and the potential reputational impact. Academics have to worry about how their institution & peers will react & the implications of their views on their opportunity for tenure.
Politicians have to worry about how their views will be reported on and perceived, and the implications for their electoral prospects. CEOs have to worry about adverse publicity and the risk saying/doing unpopular/unconventional things could lead to calls for their removal.
The heads of government-funded institutions, whose appointments are political, have to worry about how their views/actions will be perceived and the implications it could have current and future appointments. And the employees further down the line do what their bosses want.
When you see an all-out embrace of a political narrative, often in defiance of obvious facts and evidence, it can appear to be a conspiracy, but it's not. It's politics and self-interest/self-preservation. People simply say & do what they need to say & do to get what they want.
This is how, incidentally, all kinds of ideological movements have swept through human societies throughout history, from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, to Nazism and Soviet ideologies. Everyone visibly tows the line because it's in their personal interests to do so.
It is important to understand that our system does not tend naturally towards rationality and truth, which is what many assume. It tends towards political narratives & ideologies driven by special interests, that often significantly decouple from truth.
Constitutional guardrails are needed to prevent this spiraling too far out of control. Institutions such as freedom of expression & protections afforded to dissident opinion are perhaps the most important of all. At present we are at significant risk of losing those guardrails.
Conspiratorial thinking has increased in recent times. I think that has a lot to do with a decline in the robustness of the said guardrails, which has lead to greater censorship and uniformity of "acceptable" thinking. It feels like a conspiracy to many, but it's not.
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