As a way to make the world seem understandable again, to focus on a single enemy, the idea of the existence of some kind of elite cabal became irresistible to more and more Americans. Somebody must be pulling the strings. It can be simultaneously terrifying and comforting to believe that bad people are tyrannizing you. So conspiracists squint at the real world and see the exercise of power as both ridiculously simple and brilliantly complex. They fictionalize reality. Instead
