I would add that it's mostly tribalism and avoiding cognitive dissonance. Democrats were calling for Desantis' head because he was thought to be cooking the numbers. Republicans are calling for Coumo's head because he was cooking the numbers. In general, people ignore things that don't fit, and seek out things that do fit, their existing world view.

> Democrats were calling for Desantis' head because he was thought to be cooking the numbers. Republicans are calling for Coumo's head because he was cooking the numbers.

Except, rational people can see that someone being 'thought to cook the numbers' and someone 'cooking the numbers' are wholly different things and only one 'side' worthy of condemnation in this instance.

There is a theory that the term 'conspiracy theory' and the stigma around it was invented by government agencies to discredit unsavoury leaked information and to discredit whistleblowers. This category allows information to be mixed in with obvious misinformation to taint the reputation of the whole category so that status-oriented people would be primed to distrust the entire category.

A similar approach can be used to discredit anything.

Are you implying that the NY Times is promoting conspiracy theories?

Rather implying that these were called conspiracy theories until no longer convenient to hide them.