Before anyone was sure what happened to Donald Trump on that stage in Pennsylvania, the conspiracy theorists were hard at work. It is reaching the point where conspiracy theories are the primary driver of public discourse. No one can accept the official version of things, so we are left to create our own versions. Throw in the fact that it is easy to manipulate digital images, video and sound and we will soon doubt what our senses tell us about anything in the digital space.

It is fair to say we are living through the conspiratorial age. Fifty years ago, the only people who trafficked in this material were the people who lined their clothes with aluminum foil and vacationed at Dallas. Today, no one believes official narratives, so everyone has their own theory of reality. If not for conspiracy theories, no one would have any idea what is happening in the world, as the official narratives often sound less plausible than the so-called conspiracy theories.

The term conspiracy itself is a conspiracy of sorts. Many people think it was created by the CIA as a way of tarnishing those skeptical of official narratives. In reality the term existed as far back at the 1860’s but was popularized by Karl Popper in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies, published in the 1940’s, which was long before the Central Intelligence Agency existed. Even so, the term is primarily used as a way to discredit people who question the official story.

The irony is that the people most fond of throwing around the term “conspiracy theory” are the people most fond of conspiracy theories. The media exists, to a great degree, to fabricate narratives, even when the facts are clear. The great change in the media came in the middle of the last century with the rise of narrative journalism, called new journalism, which sought to contextualize the news through the creative use of narratives into which the facts were fitted.

Of course, it is a conspiracy theory to say that the media works with the regime to create these narratives as a way to distract people. CNN posting a piece about how analysis of the audio at the Trump assassination attempt suggests there were three different shooters using three unique weapons is really a plot to insert this conspiracy theory into the online discourse. This allows the authorities to dismiss all of the alternative explanations as conspiracy theories.

For a conspiracy theory to gain traction the event in question has to be anomalous enough to feel unlikely. We do not get many assassination attempts at the moment, so the Trump event feels like something not to happen by chance. The other piece of the puzzle is the official explanation has to seem unlikely. Given that our authorities lie so much, this piece of the puzzle is now a default. Logic says they lie so much because they are hiding things they wish to remain hidden.

In the Trump case, there seems to be too many coincidences that had to happen for that shooter to get on that roof by himself. Sure, it is probably just crazy luck that he happened to star in a BlackRock ad and be the only young person who did not spend his free time on line, but most people find that unlikely. The FBI rushing out to say he was just another lone wolf in their system, one  that always seems to know about these guys before they commit a crime, also raises eyebrows.

The other aspect to this is the death of the supernatural. When people believed in the old gods, they could accept the unlikely as the work of the gods. There was no need to think more about it. Fate is just a part of life. In the Christian age, miracles were not just an explanation for the unlikely, but they were also proof that God played an active role in the affairs of man. Today, Christians say that Providence tipped Trump’s head to one side so that the bullet nicked his ear rather than ending his life.

In this age, people assume there is a material explanation for everything, so that means everything can be explained with actors and actions, cause and effect. People can accept that it was mere chance that Trump tilted his head when he did, but they cannot accept the million unlikely events that allowed that shooter to get on the roof and take shots at Donald Trump. One coincidence is proof that life is a roll of the dice, but a string of coincidences is proof of a conspiracy.

Another part of the conspiracy theory phenomenon is that humans have a natural desire to know who is in charge. Our base assumption, in all matters, is that someone is the final boss in every story of life. When an angry customer walks into a store she demands to see the manager. She does this on the assumption that the manager is the guy calling the shots. When the space aliens arrived in old monster movies, they always demanded to be taken to see the leader.

We live in an age where it is unclear who is in charge. The magic of democracy is it tells people that they are in charge, but that is impossible, and people sense it, so without a clear shot caller responsible for what is happening, people naturally look for an explanation that provides that shot caller. Every conspiracy theory assumes that there is someone, or a small group, who has the power to affect the course of history and the foresight to alter those events to their liking.

The first question after Nursing Home Joe drooled through that first debate was “Who is really running the White House?” It was clear, and has been clear for a long time, that Biden is incapable to doing much of anything. Therefore, someone else has to be making the decisions. Since our system does not have an answer for this and official sources deny the question is valid, we have the perfect environment for conspiracy theories about who is running the government.

Not only does democracy create the conditions for conspiracy theories, but the liberal tradition is also a conspiracy theory of its own. Once Western man dropped God as the final boss of the universe, the search was on for what was the first cause. Theories of history, for example, are simply attempts to create a compelling story that explains why we ought and ought not do things. Fairy tales about elves with bags of natural rights are a way to replace God with a really good story.

Perhaps Francis Fukuyama was right to some degree. The end of history is not as he imagined it, but instead it is the end of the line for the West and its quest to find the answer to the great question, who is really calling the shots? Perhaps we return to the old gods or maybe some new version of the Christian God. Alternatively, maybe we just shake ourselves to pieces with conspiracy theories. At the end of history, the last man is a guy wrapped in aluminum foil staring into a mirror.

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