Conspiracy theories are seductive to stupid people because they’re an easy way to feel smart.

I never heard that before today, but it really makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

It does

          You mean like twisting the truth to fit your narrative, right? The liberal way, all the way....

Dear Davey Dog, we know which side uses conspiracy theories to further its goals, and guess what...it ain't the liberals.

Just two weeks to flatten the Earth,

I have a slightly different take on it--they're a way to oversimplify an issue that the tiny-brained folk would otherwise have trouble grasping. And of course, into that delightful bubbling pot of soup, we have to add a generous helping of delicious lies, skillfully crafted to taste good to idiots.

The popular American myth is that the little guy can change the world.  Land of Opportunity, anyone can be President, all of that.  Just not true.  When I was a kid, we were taught in school that in 1492, the Establishment (that's what we called it in the '60s) party line was that the world was flat, but this unknown amateur, Christopher Columbus, had a revolutionary idea, that the world was round, and he convinced Ferdinand and Isabella to back him and to prove it.  Nothing could be further from the truth:  everyone with any education at all knew that the earth was spherical, a flat-earther in 1492 sounded as stupid as he/she does in 2024.  Columbus wasn't an amateur, he was an experienced and talented navigator; Spain wouldn't have invested in him otherwise.  Bottom line, it's a nice myth, but the unknown amateur rarely, if ever, proves established academia wrong.

Same with conspiracy theories.  I got Bs and Cs in high school, I'm a shoe salesman, but look, I've discovered things about COVID that none of the epidemiologists or immunologists ever thought of.

Dictators love that stuff.  Hitler and Stalin purged the universities, both pushed the notion that common sense was worth more than academic degrees.  Hell, that was Trump's constant message when he was in office.  Hell, you heard those (almost) exact words during the VP debate when Vance was talking about economic predictions.

People who spend their lives and their careers in pursuit of knowledge will be better informed than uneducated people whose "common sense" gives them an idea.

All that said, that doesn't mean that some otherwise unschooled doof can't blunder into a good idea or concept.

But I get what you're saying. The "common man" is a construct, not a reality. We're just as much in the thrall and under the control of the guys with all the money and stuff as we were in the year 1200. The only difference is that they've found it expedient to make us think otherwise.