McCain is a Manchurian Commie Plant, Obama is a Muslim fifth columnist, and Hillary a crazed Lesbian homicidal maniac.
We are good at spreading conspiracies.
Have you heard where Jack Ruby hired Oswald to off JFK to get RFK off the backs of the mob? Now it all makes sense...
I think that before the Civil War, most people actually believed the conspiracies you mentioned and others as well.
Southerners certainly believed that Lincoln would take away their slaves