>I think this conflates conspiracy and conspiracy theory: there was a concerted post-reconstruction effort to distort the facts of the civil war. You could even

>I think this conflates conspiracy and conspiracy theory: there was a concerted post-reconstruction effort to distort the facts of the civil war. You could even call that a conspiracy. But it lacks the “hidden” narrative of a conspiracy theory: both the Lost Cause and actual civil war history were taught in the open. This just exposes your perspective bias. Black families would tell you that it was an obvious lie that was hidden from white America, which was increasingly made up of people with no familial memory of the antebellum period (and even fewer with direct contact to either slavery or the Civil War). To characterize (perhaps liberally): you had white people of influence and a longer-lived ancestral presence in the country, colluding to distort facts about an event that the families of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation immigrants were not here to witness. It was not just a Big Lie, it was a Grand Lie, spanning decades and becoming so normalized that its influence on political sentiment remains even after the lie itself has been largely (though not completely) dispelled. You also see echoes, bolstered by the preceding lie, in the "race riots" (more correctly termed "massacres") of the early 1920s. >1950s America is none of these things: it’s a collective fantasy based on distorted and politicized memories. It’s also not taught as a normative history (although that may unfortunately change). I don't think this is correct. It was a view of America that was propagandized at the time. It was inconceivable (particularly to industrialists who were relying on a "return to normalcy" to shore up national morale after the nightmare of total war) that America could emerge from WWII, get the Good End, and yet still have all of these problems. So, as instructed by our elites, we pretended they didn't exist, slowly building the powderkeg that exploded in the 60s and 70s. It's a testament to its strength as a Big Lie that it still lives past its nominal reconciliation. I'll add climate change denial (energy companies) and public health concerns about smoking (cigarette companies) to the list. >But the closest thing we’ve had in living memory to a Big Lie is the lie of a stolen 2020 election. Iraq, as it turns out, does not have WMDs, though I imagine that the proportion of American flag kitsch-to-population remains higher than pre-2003. I'm a little concerned that you're so adamant that we've not experienced this seemingly common phenomenon. Perhaps we need to discuss "American Exceptionalism"?