When Obama was in office a bunch of neocons claimed that he was planning to use the United Nations military to establish martial law, secretly a Muslim Brotherhood operative trying to bring Sharia to the United States, plotting the destruction of Israel, and a whole bunch of other conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, the neoliberals were calling those neocons paranoid and mocking them ruthlessly.
Today a bunch of neoliberals are claiming that Trump is planning to abolish the public schools, reestablish institutionalized racism, round up and kill homosexuals, and a whole bunch of other conspiracy theories. Likewise, now the neocons are calling neoliberals paranoid and mocking them ruthlessly.
As it turns out, this sudden flip in conspiratorial thinking is pretty common:
Even as Democrats decry the false claims streaming regularly from the White House, they appear to have become more vulnerable to unsupported claims and conspiracy theories that flatter their own political prejudices. The reason isn’t just that a Republican now occupies the White House. Political psychology research suggests that losing political control can make people more vulnerable to misinformation and conspiracy theories.
This isn’t surprising. Anybody who isn’t directly embroiled in the political mess of this country but pays attention to those who are have noticed this type of behavior. When a politico’s team is in power all is great and the world is moving in the right direction. When a politico’s team isn’t in power everything is terrible and the world is going to come crashing down. Regardless of the situation, politico’s will tend to believe whatever news fits their personal bias. If they think everything is great they’ll believe any news that supports that bias and label any news that doesn’t as fake or propaganda. The same goes for when they think everything is terrible.