Although Wirt’s defeat would consign the Anti-Masonic Party to the trash can of history, the entire debacle would actually have a lasting effect on American society some 188 years later. With the emergence of the internet and the rise of conspiratorial thinking as a whole, the idea that the Freemasons have some sinister agenda to rule the world persists.
Along with the other great bogeyman of the information highway, the Illuminati, the Freemasons have been accused of everything from trying to create a one-world government, decrease the population to just 500 million people, are shape-shifting reptiles, or are in league with Satan. The list of their nefarious intentions is quite literally endless.
