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The enduring allure of conspiracies
February 28, 2021
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The United States of America was founded on a conspiracy theory. In the lead-up to the War of Independence, revolutionaries argued that a tax on tea or stamps is not
just a tax, but the opening gambit in a sinister plot of oppression. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were convinced â based on a long train of abuses and usurpations â that the king of Great Britain was conspiring to establish an absolute Tyranny over the colonies. The document itself is a written conspiracy theory, says Nancy Rosenblum, a political theorist emerita at Harvard University. It suggests that there s more going on than meets the eye, that someone with bad intentions is working behind the scenes.