No mention of the delusional, years-long coverage of the Russian collusion hoax by mainstream media, and those videos have stayed up on YouTube and Facebook — I suppose some “conspiracy theories” are more socially acceptable than others.
One man's conspiracy theory is another man's truth. The Russian collusion hoax showed that even intelligent, rational individuals, can subscribe to - and elevate - an absolutely false narrative so long as it furthers a personal goal or ambition.
>I suppose some “conspiracy theories” are more socially acceptable than others.
Yes, of course. As another commenter pointed out, the existence of what (almost) everybody agrees is a "conspiracy theory" by the colloquial definition does not automatically delegitimize every theory about conspiracies.
There’s no hoax, we know that Russian operatives purchased ads across social media to influence the 2016 election. We know that members of Trump’s campaign party went to the Russians for dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Missing a smoking gun does not mean that this was a hoax.
By that logic, could not any accusation have merit so long as enough "evidence" is produced to support it?
For example, producing a false document on a political candidate, then using it to drum up media speculation, while pushing politicians to "do something" to the point where they have no choice but to buy in to the narrative, and accept the talking points and media speculation as truth.
Generally when people insist something happened a certain way despite a massive investigation that concluded the opposite, we regard them as loony conspiracy theorists.
In this case the investigation “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government” but because the conspiracy theorists at issue are MSM-sanctioned they can peddle their poisonous hoax of a colluding, treasonous public official to their hearts content.
Like conspiracy theorists tend to do, this is a conflation of the fact that Russia, like all countries, engaged in active operations during the election focused on advancing their own interests, and the hoax suggestion that President Trump’s campaign coordinated and conspired in those activities.