A theory about conspiracy theories

 Recently, someone I follow on Dreamwidth had a long and quite wonderful rant about classism and vaccines. This lead to them talking about one Rudolf Steiner and his classist, racist, antivaxx writings, which had the effect of making the upper echelons of German society lean in an antivaxx direction. 

Being the sort of person I am, I started thinking "Gee, that would make a great conspiracy theory - Steiner was deliberately trying to weaken or wipe out the upper classes in Germany." 

Then I started thinking more broadly. 

What about Stalin? He did huge amounts of damage to Communist Russia, what if he had been put in the role on purpose? Torquemada? Pol Pot? Hitler? And what about some of the modern 'influencers'? 

It all sounds like the basis of a great 'hidden history' series of stories. So what sort of people would do such a thing? And why? 

And that's when it hit me. This is how conspiracy theories start. Looking for someone to blame for all the things that are most easily explained by, as my friend on Dreamwidth put it  "the perfectly ordinary combination of evil and stupid."