Every so often some political commentator will confidently pronounce that those critical of, or angry at, the established order are not only misinformed, but paranoid and tantamount to conspiracy theorists. Amid the collapse of the political center ground, and all the anxiety about “post-truth” and “fake news,” this seems an increasingly widespread argument.

The dismissive allusions to “conspiracy theory” are well suited to the commentariat’s trademark condescension and political deflection. In fact, many of these same guardians of our public sphere seem as prone to conspiratorial thinking as any adolescent dabbling in memes.

In the United States, large sections of the liberal intelligentsia have become obsessed with the Russian subversion of American democracy, whilst in UK there is a similar sort of paranoid obsession with the hidden political forces behind Brexit. What else could possibly explain the dramatic implosion of a rational and prosperous political order?