Steve Benen seems quite confident that the conspiracy theory that the January 6th Insurrection of 2021 was actually a creature of the FBI has been destroyed:
What actually mattered was the degree to which the inspector general took a sledgehammer to the right’s conspiracy theory that the FBI was somehow responsible for creating the attack and entrapping Trump’s poor, unsuspecting supporters. Horowitz’s report discredited this misguided idea once and for all. (The same findings made clear that there were no undercover FBI employees at the Capitol, either.)
That’s not how these things work, though. The more serious attention paid to a conspiracy theory, the longer it can live. Believers and even the skeptical are well aware that investigations can be based on fraudulent facts, and, if the theory strikes a chord, then it lives on and on and on.
What kills a conspiracy theory? People ignoring it.
But that’s hard to do. Conspiracy theories, at their heart, are an opportunity to construct a new social prestige ladder, and that’s attractive to those sitting at the bottom of other ladders with a little free time on their hands and an ambition to move up a ladder – any ladder. Add in some romanticism of any sort, and a ladder is more than likely to be constructed.
Especially when a President-elect benefits from such a conspiracy theory. And a government agency obliged to investigate every cockamamie theory is involved.
