Both the Left and the Right nurture their own pet conspiracies and accuse the other side of being a bunch of ideological whack-jobs. However, one side tends to receive the most criticism.
“Our observation is that such accusations are made more against conservatives,” Uscinski and Parent wrote. “We believe the notion of asymmetry has persisted because academics and journalists align largely with the left. This pushes these two institutions to disproportionately dwell on conspiracy theories held by the right.”
According to surveys, Republicans and Democrats rate about equally in measures of conspiratorial thinking. For every conservative who wrongly claims that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, there is a liberal who erroneously insists that 9/11 was orchestrated by the Bush Administration. As people on the right cry foul about the potential for mail-in ballot fraud, people on the left insist that the Democratic National Committee rigged the 2016 and 2020 primary process against Bernie Sanders. But this conspiratorial equality is frequently lost on those inhabiting the ivory tower of academia, who overwhelmingly tend to be liberal.
