Rigging

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

popularized by Carl Sagan 

This quote is usually used to debunk supernatural events, but I believe that it applies equally to conspiracy theories. Oftentimes what we call conspiracy theories speculate from ambiguous evidence and draw conclusions about what might be turning them into, in their view, what is?

One of the latest conspiracy theories is that the Clintons and their media allies are colluding to "rig" the results of the presidential election. As with most conspiracy theories, it is based on scant evidence, and what supposed evidence there is, is extremely ambiguous.

The vague allegations that the election would be rigged came first; some time ago Trump suggested that the only way that he could lose would be if the election were stolen from him via "massive fraud". Later the (mainstream) media were added to the mix, Trump alleging that the media was an arm of the Clinton campaign, that they were biased against him, and that they were poisoning people's minds against him. Finally, he combined the two allegations into one, that it was media collusion and voter fraud that would cost him the election. Of course he praised the media when a story was run that supported his narrative or criticized Hillary Clinton.

I'm not surprised that Trump thinks this - he's a nut. He's a self-absorbed, narcissist who's overly impressed with his own resume, and who has demonstrated a predilection for conspiracy theories. What I find disturbing is the number of seemingly intelligent people who believe it as well. Despite the fact that every allegation against Clinton, not only in this campaign, but for decades has enjoyed media coverage, Trumpists still believe that the Clintons have the mainstream media in their pocket. This is not to say that there's no bias, or that different news organizations haven't supported Clinton, but look at the New York Times, supposedly the media stooge of the Clintons, and their very much complete coverage of every Clinton pseudo-scandal. When I've pointed this out on occasion, the goalposts move and the standard then becomes that the media isn't criticizing Clinton. Trump, who had received free and scrutiny-free coverage from the mainstream media for most of the primaries, when he finally starts to see some actual coverage of his positions and questioning of his blatantly false statements, he and his followers think that everyone is against him. Most of the coverage is actually just reporting of Trump's own words.

Then there's the supposed rigging of the election. Despite there being no evidence of any voter fraud, let alone massive voter fraud, Trump has his people believing that huge amounts of people will be voting in the name of dead people, and that despite Republicans being in charge in most of the swing states, that institutional election fraud will be perpetrated.

Like most of Trump's fantasy allegations he has people believing that if it could be true, then it must be true.

To refer back to Sagan's putative quotation, this is quite the extraordinary claim, therefore it requires extraordinary proof, or at least some proof.