Less Suspicious

Excélsior has an interesting poll today comparing reactions to the crash that killed Blake Mora to the one that killed Mouriño. The publicly available evidence for each strongly suggested an accident, yet in 2008 Mouriño, 33 percent said they thought the crash was an intentional act, with just 28 percent calling it some kind of accident. However, this time, just 22 percent thought the crash was no accident, compared to 40 percent who said it was. The pro-accident numbers might have been slightly juiced by the fact that Excélsior had more categories that could be broadly defined as an accident this time around, but that's still quite a shift.

In 2008, I mentioned that at least virtually no one was wildly claiming that Calderón was behind the crime. That reaction was, and this one is, progress. I also think it demonstrates that a widespread belief in conspiracies is linked to an authoritarian system with no free press. The more that era fades into the rear-view mirror, the less the conspiratorial mindset will dominate.