Title: The Political Economy of Alternative Realities

We build a model in which a politician can persuade voters of a false alternative reality that serves to discredit the intellectual elite. In the alternative reality, elite members conspire to criticize the competence of a politician whose ideology they dislike. If believed, the alternative reality inverts the effect of the elite's message, so that criticism helps the politician. This force leads to reduced accountability, distrust in experts, and bad policies that invite elite criticism. Alternative realities feature conspiracies which solve a collective action problem, evolve in response to evidence, and create demand for new media that reinforce them.