One of the most prolific conspiracy theories is QAnon, which alleges Democrats are secretly eating children, among other allegations. There is no major counterpart alleging things for Democrats, and that is true for multiple theories like it.
Why are conspiracy theories apparently overwhelmingly right wing in the United States?
I just don't think this is particularly true. Here are some examples of conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theories associated with the left:
Robert Kennedy, Jr. (a longtime US Democratic Party personality who promotes conspiracy theories related to covid and vaccines)
David Icke (promotes anti-semitism and the lizard people conspiracy theory, associated with UK Greens and promoted by US lefties like Alice Walker)
Unscientific belief that people's health is harmed by nonionizing radiation, eating GMO food, chemtrails, or levels of ionizing radiation that are negligible compared to natural background. (Beliefs about GMOs led to the blocking and delaying of efforts to grow and distribute golden rice, which could have prevented hundreds of thousands of cases of childhood blindness every year.)
Harassment and attempts to stop the development of sociobiology, such as the infamous incident in which a Marxist poured a pitcher of water over E. O. Wilson's head.
Denial of facts related to the Muslim world, such as denial of female genital mutilation. (For example, there are people on the left who have claimed that Ayaan Hirsi Ali could not have suffered FGM because it doesn't exist.)
Certain specific conspiracy theories are associated with the right, e.g., the birther conspiracy theory. That doesn't mean that all of them are.
Theories such as the birther theory and Icke's are racist, and one might imagine that this would lead to a correlation with conservatism, since there has been quite a bit of research statistically correlating conservative views with racism. However, it turns out that prejudice and intergroup bias, considered more generally, are actually not that correlated with ideology. See Crawford and Brandt, Ideological (A)symmetries in prejudice and intergroup bias, 2010.
There is a 2019 paper by Douglas et al., "Understanding Conspiracy Theories," that has some discussion of this. Factors correlated with belief in conspiracy theories include:
But, referring to a bunch of previous literature:
There exists a strong assumption both within and outside academia that there is evidence for conservatives being more prone to conspiracy theories than liberals. Some studies support this assumption (Galliford & Furnham, 2017; Miller et al., 2016). Furthermore, several studies (e.g., Bruder et al., 2013; Grzesiak-Feldman & Irzycka, 2009; see also Richey, 2017) reported a link between conspiracy beliefs and right-wing authoritarianism—a dimension of political attitudes characterized by preference for conventionalism, authoritarian aggression, and authoritarian submission to authorities (Altemeyer, 1996). On the other hand, Oliver and Wood (2014a) and Uscinski and Parent (2014) did not find a link between political ideology/party and conspiracy belief, and Berinsky (2012) did not find a link between authoritarianism and conspiracy belief.
This Vox.com article discusses research that explains why conspiracy theories tend to be more common among the right wing. "CT" = conspiracy theories.
The researchers found, after examining two large data sets (details in the paper), that the effect of trust is as expected, across the political spectrum. Lower-trust conservatives and liberals are both more likely to endorse ideologically congenial CTs (i.e., CTs that make the other side look bad).
But beyond that, there are interesting asymmetries. For liberals, more knowledge reduces endorsement of CTs, no matter the level of trust, and more trust reduces endorsement of CTs, no matter the level of knowledge — "knowledge and trust are both independently negatively related to liberals’ endorsement of liberal conspiracies."
For conservatives, on the other hand, more knowledge increases endorsement of CTs among those with low trust; for high-trust conservatives, knowledge seems to have no effect — it neither increases nor decreases tendency to endorse CTs.
In other words, the high-info/low-trust dynamic is in fact the conspiracy theory sweet spot, but primarily for conservatives.
What explains this asymmetry?
As the researchers say, their results are consistent with the theory "that conspiracy endorsement, and science denial more generally, is a more attractive worldview-bolstering strategy for conservatives than liberals, especially for high-knowledge and low-trust conservatives." That lines up with several other recent lines of research.
However, they are careful to acknowledge that there are alternative explanations for the asymmetry that they cannot (yet) rule out. Perhaps conservative conspiracy theories are simply easier to believe. Perhaps they are more salient at the moment (liberal CTs mostly date back to the Bush era). Perhaps the fact that there is a Democratic president in office has made conservatives more prone to CTs, and the effect would be reversed under a Republican president. Perhaps conservatives are just taking their cues from elites, who are more likely to push CTs when a Democrat is in power.
The article was written a few months before Trump was elected. So the suppositions in the last paragraph can now be examined. Right-wing conspiracy theories didn't really wane when Republicans were in power. If anything, they seemed to multiply: Qanon didn't emerge until well into the Trump administration. And we didn't get much in the way of left-wing conspiracy theories.
The original research paper that this Vox article was summarizing is Conspiracy Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge and Trust published in the American Journal of Political Science.
Are they really? All Reps believers and Dems are happily immune? This got me to think about the ur-daddy of all recent conspiracy theories, the 9/11 Truthers. What was the Dem position on that? I used a Google search limited to before 2016 to avoid the Trump effect on the right.
Which got me to WP's Conspiracy theories aren’t just for conservatives
So are all Americans created equal when it comes to fearing collusion and conspiracies? Our recent research suggests that they are. As part of a 2012 national survey, we asked respondents about the likelihood of voter fraud as an explanation if their preferred presidential candidate did not win. Fifty percent of Republicans said it would be very or somewhat likely, compared to 44 percent of Democrats. This contradicts claims by Jonathan Chait that Republicans believe in electoral conspiracy theories far more than Democrats do.
Another 2012 national poll asked about fraud in specific presidential elections. Thirty-seven percent of Democrats believed that “President Bush’s supporters committed significant voter fraud in order to win Ohio in 2004,” compared to 36 percent of Republicans who believe that “President Obama’s supporters committed significant voter fraud in the 2012 presidential election.” Again, not much difference. This dovetails with Brendan Nyhan’s findings about “birther” and “truther” conspiracy theories. He found that Republicans were just as likely to believe that President Obama was born abroad as Democrats were likely to believe that 9/11 was an inside job.
Or Politico's More than half of Democrats believed Bush knew, about 9/11.
Before the Covid mess, I also recall that measles vaccine doubt was a fairly equal-opportunity bit of stupidity as well.
in 2008—when a widespread theory linking vaccines to autism had already been debunked—Clinton wasn’t so definitive on this point. In response to a questionnaire from an autism advocacy group, she wrote, “I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines…We don’t know what, if any, kind of link there is between vaccines and autism – but we should find out.”
Yes, a lot of recent events makes it seem like Dems are a lot savvier than Reps. This may be a permanent effect, if Trump's influence lasts beyond 2024. And climate change and science denial are mostly more Rep hobbyhorses. But to assume that Dems are somehow immune is pretty gullible.
As it has been pointed out by other answers to this question and this related question, there are ample examples of historical left-wing conspiracies. Why this has changed recently to being conservative-dominated I would posit can be attributed to two factors: A steady decline in Republican trust of institutions, especially major media outlets and the changing demographics of the Republican party
Distrust:
Republicans have markedly low trust in academics and government workers, and both sides distrust elected officials and business leaders. This comprises essentially all institutions outside the state security apparatus and religion. The lowest trust is in journalists, who disseminate the information generated by the institutions that are already distrusted. If you don't trust any of the people saying that Democrats are not stealing and drinking childrens blood, the belief will continue.
While Republicans do have media sources in Fox news, and to a lesser extent opinion radio and Newsmax/OANN, Republican trust of media has been lowering for decades, with a steep drop at the start of Trump's term
Fox news is presumably not considered "mass media" by respondents despite being the most viewed news source in the US, unless a significant amount of Republicans watch but do not trust it.
Changing Demographics:
It was the case 30 years ago that the Republican party had higher educational attainment than the Democratic party. This has seen drastic change - Trump's strongest demographic was white men without a college degree. While educational attainment is not necessarily synonymous with intelligence, most conspiracy theories do not take a large amount of critical thinking to dispel. Clearly this has been lacking.
Conclusion:
Republican distrust of all institutions outside of religious leadership and police/military (and implicitly Fox news) combined with low educational attainment sets the stage for conspiracy theories to flourish, and social media provides platforms where such theories can spread instantaneously and be reinforced by peers.
Here is a recent article from the American Association for the Advancement of Science that addresses this issue.
From the abstract:
Results confirm that conservatives have lower sensitivity than liberals, performing worse at distinguishing truths and falsehoods. This is partially explained by the fact that the most widely shared falsehoods tend to promote conservative positions, while corresponding truths typically favor liberals. The problem is exacerbated by liberals’ tendency to experience bigger improvements in sensitivity than conservatives as the proportion of partisan news increases. These results underscore the importance of reducing the supply of right-leaning misinformation.
Basically they're saying:
The biggest fake stories target conservatives so if you're conservative you are more likely to encounter a fake story.
If you are conservative you're also more likely to share and read more fake stories (because more of them target conservatives).
Since conservative news will also likely be a larger part of your total news, a larger part of your total news will be fake news and you will not be as good as telling the difference between real news and fake news.
At least part of the reason is because the majority of US news outlets are left-wing. Yes, Fox News is the largest single outlet, but 2nd and 3rd place combined are bigger, and then there's a long line of smaller outlets also broadcasting the left's perspective.
Both sides are aware of the general cultural belief that conspiracy theories are false; the phrase is too heavily associated with nonsense like moon landing denial or CIA involvement in the JFK assassination. So they use the phrase "conspiracy theory" when discussing something they want their viewers to doubt, and they use other phrases like "collusion" or "cronyism" when they want their viewers to believe a story.
These two facts combine to mean more right-wing driven stories get called conspiracy theories than left-wing driven stories. Both sides also will tend to report the most extreme version of the story, because a large percentage of news is activist now. If someone says they believe Democrats cause the wildfires ravaging the west coast, left-wing news will conflate it with Marjory Taylor Greene's "Jewish space lasers". they will either not mention the full quote where the belief is backed with examples of Democrat-led forestry mismanagement, or it will be buried deep in the article.
Likewise if someone says they believe Donald Trump coordinated with Russia to win in 2016, right-wing news will assume you believe the Russians had video of Trump with prostitutes and were blackmailing him. They won't assume you're talking about Russian propaganda on Facebook that Trump could've had a roundabout hand in.
So in summation, I think it seems like the craziest conspiracy theorists are Republican because the left's media sphere is larger, and thus more able to shine a light on the right's most unhinged members. They're also more able to hide the fact that many of their stories are literally conspiracy theories as well; Trump-Russia collusion being the biggest, but far from only example. This is all textbook Manufacturing Consent, and the fact that this question even had to be asked is evidence as to how effective it can be.
Conspiracy theories are 'sour grapes' rationalizations: ways of justifying and excusing the failures of a belief system. At the heart of every conspiracy theory is an ideology or set of beliefs that did not work out as planned: what should have happened (according to the belief system) didn't; what did happen (according to the belief system) should have been impossible. But instead of questioning, examining, revising, or discarding this belief system, the conspiracy theorist asserts that the belief system failed to have its expected outcome because vast networks of people joined in conspiracy to undermine and subvert the 'natural' and 'correct' order of things.
Conspiracy theories are always present within the more self-righteous, dogmatic elements of any belief system (Left, Right, or Center), because individuals who are prone to self-righteous, dogmatic thinking often have difficulty accepting the failure of their efforts. Anyone who truly believes they have found the 'correct' way of understanding the world will have difficulty accepting that this ostensibly 'correct' understanding does not yield immediate and tangible results, and it is often easier for such people to embrace improbable explanations for that failure than to do the mental work of revising their beliefs. Belief systems create existential security. For those who are deeply egoically attached to their belief systems, any perceived weakness in that system can produce levels of existential angst that are incapable of facing directly.
Over the last three or four decades, the conservative movement in the US has seen repeated losses and failures. Social policy has become increasingly liberal and secular; fiscal policy and regulations have become progressively federal and 'Big Government'; corporations have displaced the political and social power of individuals; minorities and women in US have made notable advances into the traditional white male hegemony. Every time a Democratic administration comes to power the wealth and status of the nation rise, while every time a GOP administration comes to power the economy and US reputation collapse. The further reaches of the Right in the US can't ignore these failures that seems directly connected to GOP/conservative belief systems, but they cannot emotionally accept that there are flaws within the belief system itself. So they turn to ever more extreme and wild theories to explain why they have failed to achieve their ideological goals, imagining that cabals of people are secretly and nefariously subverting the system, and thus subverting the natural order in which their ideology would unquestionably be successful.
Sometimes there are conspiracies, no question. As the old saying goes, being paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you. But by the same token, having people out to get you doesn't mean you're not paranoid. Society and politics are competitive institutions, and sometimes when you lose it's right and proper that you lose.
