Cranks have turned the world upside down – it’s time to fight back | Nick Cohen

Conspiracy theories were once a fringe interest. In the era of populists, they’ve now gone mainstreamNothing makes the contented turn of the century feel further away than the indulgence with which the old world treated its cranks. Their prime purpose was to be entertaining freaks for the allegedly sane majority to laugh at. The BBC ran shows where Louis Theroux met religious zealots and white nationalists. As they watched, broadcasters and the audience had an unspoken pact that made sense