"I'm Not a Conspiracy Theorist, But...": Knowledge and Conservative Politics in Unsettled Times.

This article examines conspiracist thinking among U.S. conservatives during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on how it serves as an epistemological practice that helps adherents navigate "unsettled insecurity"—periods of uncertainty and chaos—by reinforcing conservative values such as anti-elitist skepticism, individualism, and social traditionalism. Drawing on fifty in-depth interviews with predominantly right-leaning gun sellers conducted between April and August 2020, the study highlights how conspiracist thinking provided a tool for asserting control and certainty amid conflicting information about the pandemic, while also enabling epistemological individualism (valuing personal and experiential knowledge over elite sources) and epistemological othering (discrediting political opponents as gullible or manipulated). The findings suggest that conspiracist thinking is embedded in conservative political culture as a bottom-up, meaning-making strategy rather than a fringe psychological trait, and that it aligns with gun culture's emphasis on self-reliance and control. The article concludes that addressing conspiracism requires sociological approaches that bridge everyday experiences with broader social realities, rather than solely relying on fact-based corrections.