Nobody doubts that conspiracies do happen: there's a specific criminal charge for conspiracy, for example. What people call a 'conspiracy theory', in the sense

Nobody doubts that conspiracies do happen: there's a specific criminal charge for conspiracy, for example. What people call a 'conspiracy theory', in the sense of what you've posted, is a type of discourse that's basically only persuasive to people with a psychological predilection for these kind of narratives, while to everybody else, it's obvious nonsense. It's a bit like the Reichsbürgern in germany. They see themselves as uncovering hidden or uncomfortable truths about Germany. To outsiders, what they write is basically ridiculous, it's full of fundamental misunderstandings about how states and laws work.