We Marinate in Conspiracy Today.Who's to Blame? Partly, Donald Trump.
By: Michael Tomasky (The New Republic)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
History should bother to record the dark irony that the apparent third (or fourth, or maybe fifth) assassination attempt against Donald Trump came at the end of a month when the conspiracy theory that the first high-profile attempt was staged by Trump and his people barged its way into the news cycle. That would be the shooting in July 2024 involving gunman Thomas Crooks in Butler, Pennsylvania. If you've ventured down this rabbit hole, you're familiar with some of the details: that Trump's ear, which we were told at the time was singed by a bullet, seems miraculously and mysteriously to have grown back; that a crane just happened to be there to hoist a large flag into place just in time for the iconic "Fight!" photo; and more.
This conspiracy is being peddled not on the left but by figures on the right who've turned against Trump: for example, Tucker Carlson and Joe Kent, who recently resigned as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center in protest of Trump's decision to go to war with Iran. Butler conspiracy theories arose literally within hours of the shooting, but over these past couple of weeks they've really taken hold in certain corners of the right.
With conspiracy so thick in the political air, it shouldn't surprise us then that conspiracy theories are already whipping around about Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Dinner too. Suspicions about the shooting that interrupted the annual party at the Washington Hilton emanate mostly from the left, though some right-wing figures are raising questions too.
For the record, these theories all seem ridiculous to me. There have been conspiracy theories about presidential assassinations, certainly the successful ones, since forever. John Wilkes Booth, as we know, was part of a conspiracy, a small circle of men and women; but there were some who alleged a wider Confederate plot. It always has been and always will be the case that for some people, normal, factual explanations for large and cataclysmic events will never suffice.
It's always been true. But why does it seem so much worse today? Is it, in fact, worse? Yes, it is. True, it's hard to outdo the Kennedy assassination in terms of sheer volume of conspiracy theories. But the difference between those conspiracies and today's variants is that there was no razor-sharp ideological edge to the JFK conspiracies. No one advanced the grassy knoll theory for reasons of partisan advantage; it was about mystery. But today, conspiracies almost exclusively serve a partisan purpose—whether it's clashes between ideological opponents or factional infighting, it's always about advancing a cause.
Both sides have played this game. In some corners of the left, there were for example a few conspiracy theories around George W. Bush and September 11—it was an inside job, the Mossad did it, he knew about it. And in 2004, a few people bought the story that that election was rigged, although it's worth noting that the leading theoretician of that cause was none other than Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who hasn't turned out to be much of a liberal or Democrat—but he has been a conspiracist par excellence,whose woolly beliefs are being transformed into public health policy to the detriment of the nation.
If you're looking around for culprits for our culture's march into these swamps, you need to look elsewhere. You might start with so-called Christians like Jerry Falwell, who appeared in and helped distribute the 1994 film The Clinton Chronicles, which trafficked in several conspiracies about Bill Clinton, up to and including the idea that he had people murdered (because they were about to tell the world about his secret drug-running operation, you see; no, I'm not making this up).
Clinton conspiracy-mongering was an industry. I was about to add the adjective "cottage," but it was more than that; a McMansion, at least, or a respectably sized strip mall. A lot of it was set in motion by a group of dishonest reactionary cranks down in Arkansas like the late Larry Nichols, whom I interviewed in Little Rock back in 1992 and whose very juicy "leads" I decided not to pursue. These folks were usually angry that Clinton had ethically not appointed them to some patronage post they didn't deserve. Then, knowing what Goebbels knew about accusing your foe of that which you yourself were doing, they called Clinton unethical, and it stuck. I could go on and on and on about all this. It's not that Clinton never did anything wrong. He did. But as Yogi Berra might have put it, about 70 percent of the stuff about him—and Hillary—was 90 percent made up.
Then there were the conspiracy theories about Barack Obama. The birther theories are only the most obvious in this category. You may have forgotten some of the more baroque ones—the cocaine-fueled homosexual affair, the general idea that he wanted to bring America to its knees, peddled by the hustler Dinesh D'Souza.
Of course, one other person figured prominently in these Obama theories. What was his name again? Oh, right: Donald Trump. Remember when he was going to produce proof that Obama was born in Kenya? He never got around to that, somehow. He did, however, find the time to charge that Obama was spying on him during his first campaign—a "crime" Trump referred to as "the biggest political crime in American history, by far." Again, I could go on, and on. And of course there are the added Trump conspiracy theories that were not about Obama: the "deep state," the "rigged election," the Hunter Biden fantasies, and so on.
There's another difference between left and right here. On the left, yes, as I noted, there are some conspiracy theories, but by and large, if there's no proof, liberal and mainstream news organizations don't give them much oxygen, and Democratic politicians generally don't go around repeating them. But on the right, many media outlets relentlessly promote these conspiracy theories, and politicians repeat them without any regard for whether they're true. Ask the Haitians of Springfield, Ohio, about that one.
We marinate in conspiracy these days. It's mostly because of the way the right has played hardball since Bill Clinton's time. But to a considerable degree it's because of Donald Trump himself.
I'm sure most of America is grateful that the sitting president wasn't assassinated. Love the incumbent or hate him, that would be a traumatic national event. But he would be quite mistaken to expect an outpouring of sympathy from a country that strongly disapproves of the job he's doing, and where 55 percent of the people, according to last week's Fox News poll, consider him mentally unfit to serve as president. He is still prosecuting a deeply unpopular war, building massive detention camps, and proving both incompetent to manage the economy and impotent to impact gas prices. Cole Tomas Allen didn't change any of that.
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Most conspiracy theories are nonsense. Those who believe in conspiracies like to think they are on the inside of an unraveling and it gives them a slight personal importance. Who wouldnt like to know something most people dont?
...have an aversion to truth. Usually, it's a truth they don't like, such as "You're not the center of the universe" and "You and your religion are no more special than any other person on the planet". That's one that is almost impossible to convince a meathead MAGA of. They just love thinking of themselves as special and believing that their God will come and wipe out all their enemies, who in their minds include pretty much anyone that doesn't look like them and worship like they do because at heart, many are just massive ignorant bigots.
In my mind there is a good reason that the last event smacks of conspiracy. I get that it was an event full of journalists, and that cameras would be there, but the footage we see on the news begs the question, who the fuck is just standing there filming the chaos, taking time to pan around and zoom in and out on action that is identical to any Hollywood film set? In the midst of chaos and active shooting in a crowded ball room, there are folks acting as if this was harmless enough not to dive for cover with everyone else. It reminds me of home improvement shows where the host is filmed from the inside of the house, knocking on the door, where the homeowner opens it and everyone pretends that they are meeting for the first time. It’s just a given that mindless viewers will be too engrossed in the story to realize that there’s a production crew that has been inside setting up for an hour or two, while the scene is being rehearsed over and over and staged so that the lighting is perfected.
The two biggest in my lifetime were:
The Russia/collusion hoax which lives on to this very day. A lie that defies silver bullets and a stake through the heart.
The other would be the Tawana Brawley hoax. Created by the nation's great racist Al Sharpton (now a leftist news commentator)
Your understanding of what happened concerning the "Russia hoax" could be written on a fingernail.
I only know that it was a lie that people within our government ran with to try and get rid of a President the people elected.
Some still love to be read fairy tales which confirm their beliefs.
That is a lie. How does it feel to know you apparently believe another one of Trumps lies? How does it feel to have been bamboozled by a dumb ass convicted felon and accused child rapist? Though it's likely much easier to just avoid any feeling or even thinking by ignoring the facts and doubling down on Trumps lies than to answer such questions honestly so I won't expect much.
I count 3 here that still believe it.
There is some similarity about Trumps endless whining about the "Russia hoax" and his endless whining about the 2020 election.
By repeating falsehoods a thousand times he is able to convince the weak minded that he has discovered some great plot against HIM. It is a form of brainwashing , for sure. Your hero John Durham investigated the Russia hoax for three years and came up with nothing. Not a single indictment of any consequence whatsoever.
If you want to be brainwashed by Trump , have at it.
Believe what? Facts?
Fact: Russia did interfere in the 2016 election and did hack US citizen email accounts and released some of those emails with the express intent of helping Donald Trump win. These are facts not in dispute and were confirmed by the Republican led Senate investigation that also concluded that the investigation was warranted. Senate panel finds Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election | PBS News
Fact: There was ZERO evidence of any widespread voter fraud or widespread illegal immigrant voting in the 2020 election which Trump LOST. No matter how many times the loser Trump or his loser supporters claim the election was stolen it will not make their lie any less of a lie. Exhaustive fact check finds little evidence of voter fraud, but 2020's 'Big Lie' lives on | PBS News
As for your other story, I had to look it up because it was such an old case. It was so old, almost 40 years ago, no doubt only really old racists would still be outraged over it. They still likely think "How dare that girl misrepresent white supremacists back in the 1980's after we'd all gone into hiding! We were behaving and she had to go and pretend to have things done to her that the white supremacists hadn't done to anyone in years!".
make sure all the brains come back...trmp is known to run off with stuff
That is always the fall back to the real meaning of the Russia/ collusion hoax. Trump did not collude with Russia to fix the election, and the Mueller team knew it from day one. BTW Although Russia interfered to hurt Hillary, China interfered to hurt Trump. That came out recently. We also know that the hoax was promoted by government officials:
"The Clinton Foundation raked in hundreds of millions of dollars of squirrely foreign contributions while she was secretary of state and revving up her presidential campaign.
The Durham report found that “senior FBI and Department officials placed restrictions on how [the Clinton Foundation investigation was] handled such that essentially no investigative activities occurred for months leading up to the election.”
On top of that dereliction, “the FBI appears to have made no effort to investigate . . . the Clinton campaign’s purported acceptance of a [illegal] campaign contribution that was made by the FBI’s own long-term [confidential human source] on behalf of Insider-I and, ultimately, Foreign Government.”
Top FBI officials also saved Hillary Clinton by scorning the federal statute book and treating her pervasive, perpetual violations of federal laws on classified documents as a harmless, unintentional error.
Shortly after FBI chief James Comey announced no charges against Hillary, “Clinton allegedly approved a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to tie Trump to Russia as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server,” according to the Durham report.
CIA chief John Brennan briefed President Barack Obama and other top officials on “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016, of a proposal . . . to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.”
The Clinton campaign helped bankroll the notorious Steele dossier, which made sweeping, unsubstantiated, and salacious accusations against Trump.
“The FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia,” the report noted.
As FBI analysts began to recognize that the Steele dossier was a hoax, FBI bosses ordered “no more memorandums were to be written” analyzing its claims.
The FBI subsequently used the unverified Steele dossier to snare a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, paving the way for special counsel Robert Mueller and his two years of antics.
The FBI’s profound bias in the 2016 presidential election has been undeniable for almost five years.
A June 2018 inspector general report exposed top FBI agents’ venomously anti-Trump messages and machinations.
But that report did nothing to curb the FBI’s power to meddle in the 2020 presidential election by playing “hide and seek” with the Hunter Biden laptop that could have demolished Joe Biden’s presidential chances."
Durham proves that Hillary and the FBI tried to rig the 2016 election
Fact: There was ZERO evidence of any widespread voter fraud or widespread illegal immigrant voting in the 2020 election which Trump LOST. No matter how many times the loser Trump or his loser supporters claim the election was stolen it will not make their lie any less of a lie.
Trump's opinion nor yours of the 2020 election has anything to do with the Russia/Collusion hoax.
You are wrong. He nor Christ could ever get anywhere with a DC jury, but his report was damning.
Neither I nor the vast majority of people on the left claimed there was "collusion" with spelled out 'tit for tat' between Trump and Putin. What I have posted on many times which conservatives here continue to call a "hoax" are the facts of the Republican led Senate investigation that found justification for the investigation. It's something certain dipshits can't seem to admit and continue to claim it a "hoax" with no valid reason for the investigation, which of course is a BIG FAT LIE. But again, it's not like I expect any of them to be honest, that would be like sticking a snake down your shirt and not expecting it to bite you.
That was regarding the topic of the seed which is conspiracy theories and is of course an obvious example of how rightwing conservatives believe shit that isn't true. The Russians did interfere with our elections and Trump lost the election, two facts that some really stupid witless morons apparently still refuse to accept and instead continue to 'marinate in conspiracy theories' like the wastes of space they are.
BULL SHIT. For two years democrats and the media were saying exactly that.
I believe that's what you heard.
None the less the Russian spy network was established here in the early 40's before we were actually "committed" to World War Two.
Nothing that FDR did surprised the Soviets, they always had advance knowledge.
They split an atom before us because they were not cautious, they were stealing the work from our scientists in real time while we measured and recalculated
and arranged safe testing.
They have been influencing and fixing elections since FDR, Churchill and Stalin carved up Eastern Europe at Yalta and the Crimean.
The internet was the best thing that ever happened to Putin. A return to the good old days.
Skullduggery, bots and a willing American public to believe the most ridiculous conspiracies.
Trump loves Putin. Putin is the aggressor in the Ukraine and Trumps wants them to cut a deal with Putin that would be unacceptable to any American.
The sanctions were recently lifted from Russia.
Does that make sense?
They lie as easily as they breathe, rewrite history as they see fit and cannot be trusted. it's just who they are.
Please don't confuse them with Trump supporters, the Russians are much smarter.
Some conspiracy theories are very entertaining.
But I'm going all in on this "conspiracy theory" about the attempted "assassination". I believe it was all staged
By who? In other words, the secret service, the DC police, the perpetrator, and most of the people at the dinner were all in on it. That does not sound likely to me.
Thank you for helping our readers understand conspiracy theories.
Ask the camera guys.
It's a work in progress. Have patience, Young Padawan
It was all staged so Trump could finally claim an Emergency and move DHS funding for his new ICE secret police force.
My point has been made.
Okay, you keep telling yourself whatever you need to.