Respectfully, I think calling "The Great Reset" a 'crank subject' is itself a sign of conspiratorial thinking, or in the least, misleading/false information. I often see people label discussions of "The Great Reset" in this way, but that ignores the reality that the World Economic Forum literally branded their 2020 meeting as "Great Reset" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Reset). If the WEF isn't a familiar name, it's because you might have heard it previously referred to as "Davos", a meeting of many powerful and influential people.
When such a group meets to discuss society-wide changes and pushes their positions publicly, I don't think that's a "crank subject". That's simply a legitimate story that others may wish to discuss and raise concerns about. Critique about WEF/Davos isn't new - it has been described as an undemocratic forum previously, because it's a set of powerful people deciding how they want to shape the world outside of any national or international political process. This isn't conspiratorial thinking, it is literally the way the WEF is set up and operates. See the following paper for a critique, which mentions that WEF members downplay the importance of this forum and that their public exposure hides all that takes place privately: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?re...
"Crank subjects" are not subjects that are themselves fundamentally outlandish or unreal: they're subjects picked up by cranks and integrated into conspiratorial worldviews. Davos is a real summit that happens every year; it's also a crank subject because cranks integrate it into their NWO and similar theories.
Your own Wikipedia link says this neatly:
> According to The New York Times,[1 1] the BBC, The Guardian, Le Devoir and Radio Canada, "baseless" conspiracy theories spread by American far-right groups linked to QAnon surged at the onset of the Great Reset forum and increased in fervor as leaders such as U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau[1 2] incorporated ideas based on a "reset" in their speeches.[1 3]
> Davos is a real summit that happens every year; it's also a crank subject because cranks integrate it into their NWO and similar theories.
Well, I think they're only partly wrong: Of course Davos has always (since long before it was called the "WEF") felt like it's all about "the world order"... But it's made up of the rich and powerful -- so why would it want a new world order, when the old / current one is that the rich and powerful run the world?
I'm trying to understand what specifically makes a worldview conspiratorial for you. Are you disagreeing that the "Great Reset" involves implementing particular ideological views and political positions? Would you agree that people are allowed to disagree with those positions? And that those who disagree with those positions are allowed to call attention to powerful people pushing those positions? Personally I don't see any of those as being "cranky" or "conspiratorial" as much as just regular political engagement.
Regarding the quote from Wikipedia - I don't agree with how that portion of the article is written or sourced. It is debated on the Talk page, and is a reflection of a growing bias in Wikipedia (https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/). That section starts off by mentioning QAnon, then says Trump amplified QAnon, and never makes a connection between all of that and "Great Reset" (it's a sort of "guilt by association" argument). Additionally, it lists out a number of right-leaning TV personalities and claims they were pushing a conspiracy theory, but none of the source articles they reference show any false claim from those same people. From those sources, it looks like these people complained that the pandemic is being exploited as a political opportunity to introduce and push various left-leaning political positions. That seems not only very reasonable to me, but also easily provable.
From my perspective, I am seeing people take the very small number of people who are suggesting the pandemic was a planned crisis with certain political goals in mind, and using that to discredit others who are not claiming it was planned but just disagree with the political opportunism and the political goals.
When such a group meets to discuss society-wide changes and pushes their positions publicly, I don't think that's a "crank subject". That's simply a legitimate story that others may wish to discuss and raise concerns about. Critique about WEF/Davos isn't new - it has been described as an undemocratic forum previously, because it's a set of powerful people deciding how they want to shape the world outside of any national or international political process. This isn't conspiratorial thinking, it is literally the way the WEF is set up and operates. See the following paper for a critique, which mentions that WEF members downplay the importance of this forum and that their public exposure hides all that takes place privately: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?re...