{"id":3451,"date":"2020-05-22T10:11:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T14:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3451"},"modified":"2020-05-22T10:22:41","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T14:22:41","slug":"not-a-conspiracy-theorist-definitely-a-conspiracy-theorist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3451","title":{"rendered":"Not a Conspiracy Theorist (Definitely  a Conspiracy Theorist)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"416\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/JPA241.jpg\" alt=\"Not a Conspiracy Theorist (Definitely  a Conspiracy Theorist)\" class=\"wp-image-3452\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/JPA241.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/JPA241-300x223.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Americans have always been prone to conspiracy theories \u2014 from the McCarthyism and the John Birch Society to pizzagate and\u00a0anti-vaxxers. But it certainly seems to hit a higher gear lately, hasn&#8217;t it? Of course it doesn&#8217;t help\u00a0having a president who\u00a0gins up outrage as a matter of course and doesn&#8217;t feel confined by details (or truth).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still,&nbsp;our willingness to&nbsp;enthusiastically&nbsp;believe what should be&nbsp;unbelievable is astonishing. Take the United States Postal Service as an example. It&#8217;s an institution older that the country itself with offices in biggest cities and smallest towns that have severed as keystones to our communities. How did&nbsp;it become&nbsp;a bad guy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can&#8217;t trust them as an integral part of our voting system? Because why? Because it has perpetuated massive voter fraud in the past? (It hasn&#8217;t.) Because it will in the future? (It won&#8217;t.) Because it&#8217;s government run, and therefore part of the deep state? (It isn&#8217;t.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a cartoonist, it&#8217;s\u00a0can be exhausting trying to keep ahead of the conspiracy theories \u2014 to come up with\u00a0satire so outlandish that it will it will make people pause to think or laugh (hopefully both). But, honestly, drawing a character\u00a0that blame\u00a0the historically terrible floods in Midland this week on the post office \u2014\u00a0is that\u00a0over-the-top exaggeration\u00a0or real life?<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Americans have always been prone to conspiracy theories \u2014 from the McCarthyism and the John Birch Society to pizzagate and\u00a0anti-vaxxers. But it certainly seems to hit a higher gear lately, hasn&#8217;t it? Of course it doesn&#8217;t help\u00a0having a president who\u00a0gins up outrage as a matter of course and doesn&#8217;t feel confined by details (or truth). [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10,13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andrewheller-com","category-editorial-cartoon","category-michiganpress-org","category-michiganradio-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3454,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3451\/revisions\/3454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}