They all find a hook that will work on someone. I think a lot of it is driven by anxious paranoia about stuff out of their control. A super smart person might laugh at shit like flat earth and the lizard people but be utterly terrified of imminent and totally economic collapse and be an easy target for the gold merchants. That's a big one on a lot of conservative media. They know their marketing angles. Protect your family, protect your future, buy a heavy metal you can't eat or use in any practical way that the government has seized in the past and likely will do again if shit really fucks up. People buy loads of it. I've always thought, if I really thought that the economy was gonna collapse and gold was the answer, I'd be fucking buying gold from people not selling it. Obviously they don't believe their own pitch.

Same with health stuff. Prey on people's insecurities and fears. Literally the snake oil pitch from forever ago.

I think liberals and conservatives tend to fall for different sorts of scams but the underlying reason for it is the same, fear. Conservatives are fearful of some kind of collapse and will buy all sorts of useless crap that promises stability. Liberals, ironically, are kinda the same except their scams usually focus less on maintaining ability and more on some novel way of improving yourself. Afraid you are a racist, well better by the bonefied anti racist training so you to can learn the secrets of not being a racist. Did you know that just talking normally to a black person might be racist, omg!