I think both sides are right
When you have a persistent conspiracy theory I suspect that both sides are right.
For example, let's use the Pandemic and the Vaccine.
On the one hand the argument is that you need to trust doctors. They have studied for years and spent years healing people, they know more than you. That is a valid point and I feel quite confident that in the majority of cases that is true. However, you could say the same thing about bankers, but we know some of them are crooks. You could say the same thing about lawyers and we know some of them are crooks.
So on the other side there are those who are skeptical and they say that mandating an experimental vaccine was unnecessary. This is based on the fact that many people had a very, very small chance of dying from Covid. Sure it was deadly if you were elderly or had health issues. But if you were young and healthy there was no reason to mandate it. Also, many people had already had Covid and that is considered the best vaccine so there was no need to take the vaccine. Also, it was actually dangerous to people who had recently recovered from Covid. These were all valid points.
Arguments for the vaccine were that it was safe and effective. But they never provided you with the research to prove that it was safe and effective. Simply saying that it is does not make it so, and not providing the evidence that it was so actually violated laws regarding mandating an experimental vaccine. But they supported this argument with the fact that we have mandated many vaccines and that they have been proven to be safe and effective. That is true, but didn't change the facts that this particular vaccine has not been proven to be safe and effective and they have violated the law in not providing that proof. Suppose a cop was on trial for shooting an unarmed man. Would you care if they brought out evidence saying that most cops do not shoot unarmed men? What has that got to do with the question.
Another argument was that we need everyone to get the vaccine so that the pandemic can be stopped. That was a bizarre argument. Never in human history has a pandemic been stopped with a vaccine. Perhaps they mean "eradicated"? They often refer to polio. The reason we had a polio epidemic is because kids were swimming in infected water holes. The way the epidemic was stopped was by testing the water in water holes and putting up signs warning of danger. An epidemic is always the result of unclean practices, stop those practices and the epidemic stops. Many years later we eradicated Polio with the vaccine. The easiest way to stop the Covid Pandemic is to take the temperature of people entering a public place. If they have a temperature don't allow them in. If you do that this will favor the least virulent strains of the virus and you will quickly see it and other viruses become less virulent. You have created a situation that will favor less virulent strains over the more virulent ones.
Those of us who knew science knew this, so why were we accused of being "anti science"? That was simply slander and instead of causing me to rethink my conclusions it made me question even more this vaccine. All of the arguments being put forth were in one of three categories. One was they were giving a true argument that did not directly apply to this vaccine, a second was they were making unsubstantiated claims about the vaccine, and a third was they were making false claims. This told me the people pushing this did know science, no doubt about that, but that they were liars. They were good liars. I don't mean morally good, I mean effective, persuasive, and believable liars. These liars were pushing for something that was illegal. They wanted to mandate an experimental vaccine without following the laws concerning doing that.
Why would they do that?
To make things worse a lot of conspiracy theories were thrown around. It felt like the JFK assassination all over again. So this gave those who thought the conspiracy theories were stupid a lot of stupid theories to mock and ridicule. The problem was the people pushing the mandate were lying and were behaving in a way that was criminal. I don't need to know why. Imagine Walter White is spending $200,000 on his cancer treatment. He says he is getting money from his billionaire friends. But when I ask the billionaire they tell me they have not given him $1. I don't need to know why he is using the Billionaire as an alibi, the fact that he is points to something criminal. Maybe he robbed a bank, maybe he is a drug dealer, or maybe he counts cards at the black jack table. Regardless of what the reason is I don't want to be his alibi. Why should I get dragged into his criminal behavior?