Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the online extremism-tracking group Open Measures, told the paper that the survey was a worrying indicator of the growing prevalence of conspiracy-theory-style thinking.
“Those poll numbers don’t terribly shock me. They’re definitely bleak,” Holt said. “Conspiracy theorizing has infected our body politic now to the point where it has become a gut reflex for a seemingly growing portion of the population.”

I think calling this conspiracy theorizing is shoving people in a box that is inaccurate at best and misleading at worst. When the administration lies to people’s faces over and over about the most easily verifiable things, they lose the benefit of the doubt. When the owners of media companies repeatedly give gifts to and fawn over the administration, they lose the benefit of the doubt. Why should people believe the administration or the media when reporting on this or any other matter at this point?

“No stunt would be so sloppy, amateurish, and chaotic. No stunt would leave Trump and those around him looking weak, old, and—some of them—terrified. No stunt orchestrated by Trump insiders would end in backbiting and recrimination inside his inner circle,” Dougherty wrote.

Have you been paying attention to this administration?! They are at mythical levels of incompetence. They are beyond parody levels of bad at everything they do; the Onion regularly simply reports on reality in a snarky tone because fiction is bound by believability. I don’t believe it was staged, but in this climate I definitely don’t trust anything the government or media say about it., so I don’t believe it wasn’t staged either.

Hoisted by their own petard. They spent how long convincing people everything is a conspiracy.

Which one?