One of the easiest ways to pick out the crazy conspiracy nuts is to look for the phrase “false flag.” A false flag is a staged event designed to shift blame and optics and “control the narrative,” and conspiracy buffs pretty much assume every single thing they read in the news is somehow a false flag, because conspiracy nuts are all convinced they’re living a kind of Truman Show life where the world is working very hard to fool them specifically.

This is amusing when the crazy person is someone in your office or local bar. It’s less funny when they’ve been elected to your state legislature, as Stella Tremblay was in New Hampshire. In the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, conspiracy theories were flying around suggesting that the attacks were yet another false flag staged by the government in a complex plan to take away our civil liberties … somehow. And Stella Tremblay went ham on this conspiracy theory, wondering out loud and in a very official manner whether the government should be investigated over these very reasonable and not-at-all insane ideas. As Esquire reports, this did not end with Tremblay being carried around the state legislature while her fellow lawmakers cheered her as a hero. Instead, she was officially rebuked, offered a weak apology, immediately fell back on the “just asking questions” strategy, and doubled down on the conspiracy. Tremblay wound up resigning.

Nothing inspires belief in conspiracy theories among politicians like losing. In 1998, Hillary Clinton’s husband, Bill, was in the midst of his second term as president of the United States — but he was also embroiled in a little something you might recall: the impeachment process.

While the criminal charges brought against him didn’t stick very well, the investigation and impeachment dug up some dirt on Bill, including his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. As the embarrassing details piled up, it’s easy to see why people began describing Bill’s presidency using words like “beleaguered.”

As The Washington Post reported, instead of looking inward (and possibly consulting a divorce attorney), Hillary defended her husband and supported his denial of the affair. She decided that a “vast right-wing conspiracy” was to blame for everything. She didn’t offer any details of the supposed conspiracy, and of course, the fact that Bill did indeed have sexual contact with Lewinsky eventually came out. Although, if there was a vast conspiracy to destroy the president, it wasn’t vast enough — Bill Clinton survived his impeachment, served out his final term, and went on to a lucrative speaking and consulting career.

Donald Trump likes conspiracy theories. He likes them so much it’s hard to keep track of just how many he’s supported either implicitly or explicitly, though some have tried. But picking one to highlight isn’t all that difficult, because there is one conspiracy theory that more or less defines Trump as a politician: birtherism.

As you might recall, birthers believe that former president Barack Obama is not a true citizen of the United States and thus was not eligible for the presidency. The conspiracy theory comes in several varieties, ranging from those who simply think Obama should have been disqualified to those who believe he’s some sort of sleeper agent, infiltrating the White House to destroy America from within. Or something.

As The Atlantic reports, the birther conspiracy was more or less what put Donald Trump on the national stage. In alliance with Fox News, Trump came out swinging as a vocal supporter of the idea that Obama wasn’t a true American citizen, despite a complete absence of evidence (and the huge amount of evidence demonstrating otherwise). Trump weaponized one of the crucial aspects of any good conspiracy theory: the impossibility of disproving it, since it’s just a “theory,” a loose conjecture. No amount of evidence matters, because supporters can just pivot to a slightly different position or simply imply that the evidence against the theory is somehow not good enough. And as the 2016 election shows, it certainly worked well for Trump.

The anti-Semitic mind is a bizarre place where the Jewish people are simultaneously subhuman and yet somehow all-powerful. And it’s a quaint tradition among dictators with failing states to blame everything on a Jewish conspiracy, because anti-Semitism remains a popular hobby all over the world, so bringing up Zionist plots is usually guaranteed to get an enthusiastic response from at least some of your people.

All of this explains why the embattled president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has suddenly embraced conspiracy theories concerning a Jewish plot to topple his government and take over Venezuela, as reported by the Anti-Defamation League. As Venezuela sinks into truly epic chaos and Maduro’s rule is under serious stress, he’s seizing on the whole “evil plot by those conniving Jews” angle like a drowning man. He’s linked it with anti-American sentiment, charging that the supporters of rival Juan Guaidó are controlled by CIA agents serving both American and “Zionist” interests.

It’s not working — Maduro remains spectacularly unpopular, which isn’t surprising considering the economic mess Venezuela is in. (Its inflation rate is close to 20 percent.) What is surprising is Maduro’s durability. Despite his crazy conspiracy theories, obvious incompetence, and unpopularity, he’s still president, and it looks like he will be for a long, long time. Guess the Zionists aren’t that powerful after all.

Anyone familiar with classic conspiracy theories has heard of the Bilderbergers. If you’re not lucky enough to have encountered someone who wants to talk to you for hours about them, the basic idea is that the Bilderbergers are a secret group of globalists who infiltrate governments and seek to form a single world government, trampling our rights in the process. As Politico notes, this conspiracy theory gets a boost from the fact that there really is a Bilderberg group. It’s an invitation-only meeting drawing the rich and powerful each year to discuss world events. It’s essentially a club for the powerful to share ideas and perspectives.

Senator Rand Paul is a libertarian who often traffics in weird conspiracy theories, and the idea that the Bilderbergers are trying to erase American sovereignty — with the cooperation of traitors in our own government — is a favorite of his. Worse, as Mother Jones reports, when Paul was asked about the theory before his election to the Senate, he claimed that everything he knew about it he’d learned from Alex Jones, noted huckster and crazy person.

When Paul became a senator, he suddenly stopped talking about the Bilderbergers, which means he either decided conspiracy theories are bad for his political career … or they got to him.