The Trump era is a golden age of conspiracy theories – on the right and left

In his novel Foucault’s Pendulum, the late Umberto Eco dreamed up a plot for our time. The book portrays a collection of enlightened skeptics who get swept into conspiracy. First to amuse themselves, and then because the crackpots they ridicule participate in the madness, Eco’s characters seal their own doom. They connect dots that are unrelated. They see cabals that don’t exist.