This is all helping me clarify my ideas about conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theory is in a sense the ultimate politicisation of argument, because it insists that we must consider nothing but political information about its chosen issues. J has just given us an example – Jim Smith has been senior in the “MSM”, and is on the World Economic Forum, the Atlantic Council and the board of Pfizer (these all being political issues); therefore the vaccines must be dangerous and/or the pandemic a hoax or whatever (which are medical/scientific matters).
In conspiracy theory, all non-political evidence must be dismissed as fake due to the aforesaid political issues – unless it happens to support the conspiracists’ contention, in which case it’s slam-dunk unarguable Truth. If it’s marginal or contested evidence, expert opinion contradicting the consensus, or from a professor speaking outside his field, it becomes “what they don’t want you to know”.