Right Wing Nut Jobs

I mentioned conspiracy theories last time.  Which isn't unusual.  However, I got to wondering why it is that conspiracy theories appeal so much to right wing nut jobs?  Sure, I know that there are also liberal conspiracy theorists, but they tend to be more interested in the hippie dippy, mystical type of conspiracy.  When it comes to political conspiracies involving 'World Governments', black helicopters, Jewish bankers and secret cabals of trans-dimensional shape-shifting lizards secretly ruling the world, you find that the main proponents are invariably right-wing nut jobs.  Personally, I suspect that it comes down to the fact that they need some kind of explanation for the fact that their distorted extreme right wing view of the world isn't reflected by the media or the majority of sane people, and is consistently rejected at the polls.  Clearly, it's all a conspiracy which subverts the media and brainwashes the rest of the population so that they can't see 'the truth'.

That's certainly how the right wing nutters are trying to explain Obama's victory in the recent US Presidential elections.  In this case their belief in a conspiracy involving the 'liberal media', the Black Panthers and God knows what else, has been reinforced by their having believed their own propaganda that their own candidate was consistently ahead in the polls.  The problem was that they only saw the polls which told them what they wanted to hear.  In truth, after the boost Romney enjoyed after winning the first debate, taken as a whole, the polls consistently showed Obama moving ahead.  Obviously, the media preferred to continue to characterise the race as being 'neck-and-neck' - it makes for a more exciting story than 'sitting President heading for victory'.  I remember something similar happening here during the last general election but one, where the press desperately tried to convince us that Michael Howard had a real chance against Tony Blair.  He didn't - Labour one another convincing victory.  But that was probably a conspiracy too...