Trump supporter and hater: We both think he staged shooting plots
Trump supporter and hater: We both think he staged shooting plots
A pro-Trump wellness influencer and a suburban Democrat share a conspiracy theory - how did it spread so far?
Wild Mother - the online alias of a woman called Desirée - lives in the mountains of Colorado, where she posts videos to 80,000 followers about holistic wellness and bringing up her little girl. She wants Donald Trump to win the presidential election.
About 70 miles north in the suburbs of Denver is Camille, a passionate supporter of racial and gender equality who lives with a gaggle of rescue dogs and has voted Democrat for the past 15 years.
The two women are poles apart politically - but they both believe assassination attempts against Mr Trump were staged.
Their views on the shooting in July and the apparent foiled plot earlier this month were shaped by different social media posts pushed to their feeds, they both say.
I travelled to Colorado - which became a hotbed of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen - for the BBC Radio 4 podcast Why Do You Hate Me? USA. I wanted to understand why these evidence-free staged assassination theories seemed to have spread so far across the political spectrum and the consequences for people like Camille and Wild Mother.
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Wild Mother - the online alias of a woman called Desirée - lives in the mountains of Colorado, where she posts videos to 80,000 followers about holistic wellness and bringing up her little girl. She wants Donald Trump to win the presidential election.
Bingo! That's all my squares filled for Wackadoodle Bingo
- Influencer
- Holistic Wellness
- free space
- Disseminating personal info of offspring
- Donald sycophant
Already sceptical that something did not add up, Camille turned to X for more answers.
sigh
“Hey, let’s talk to two people whose only qualifications are a shameless willingness to post whatever crazy shit enters their skulls about their conspiracy theories.”
“Should we also talk to ballistics experts and mental health professionals to get a sense of how reasonable it is to think that these plans were staged?”
“Too expensive, I’m already flying first class and staying in five star accommodations in Denver.”
The article isn't focused on questioning the expertise of ballistic experts or debating whether events were staged. Instead, it assumes that any reasonable reader isn't a conspiracy theorist. Surely you know that?
The real focus is on the spread and impact of conspiracy theories. The headline highlights a specific example where individuals from two different political backgrounds and towns arrived at the same conspiratorial conclusion, despite receiving information from entirely different sources and completely different justifications.
If your aim is to understand how conspiracy theorists—an increasingly widespread group—come to adopt and believe these theories through their media consumption, then these individuals are entirely appropriate subjects for interviews.
I honestly wouldn't put it past him to fake an assassination attempt to get attention.
I wouldn't either. What I would find doubtful is him trusting in the marksmanship of that rando kid that tried at his outdoor rally, to miss instead of accidentally tagging him.
The second guy just generally reeks of crazy dude.
The part that gets me is how utterly unbelievable it is that the Secret Service did not secure a nearby roof with a clear line of site to where Trump would be speaking and then allowed a kid with a rifle to climb up there during the speech and they didn't notice? Cops noticed. Audience members noticed. But the Secret Service didn't? They just didn't notice a huge gaping hole in their defenses while guarding a former president and current candidate? I know the saying is that you shouldn't ascribe to malevolence what can be adequately explained by incompetence, but come on. Incompetence just cannot do this kind of heave lifting.
I don't think Trump and his team are competent enough to do that in an untraceable way, without getting caught. That would require reaching out to a bunch of folks anonymously, KGB-style, and bringing them all along until one or two decide to just do the thing already.
I wonder who could pull that off?
/conspiracy-hat
Putin is getting the mentally unstable to commit fake assisnation attempts on Trump.
/rational-hat
Trump has just made people that are prone to poor rational thinking and emotional outbursts ravenous for some sort of internal war to begin. His continued rileing of his base and supporters on fictional doomsdays approaching has finally gotten people that are on edge to finally toppled off that edge and commit their crimes.
He’s the type, but I also think of the reichstag fire. Fascists don’t need to fake attacks against them, they need to call the shot then continue escalating at a reasonable pace. Either they get attacked and can clamp down or they just walk their way into what they wanted.
Not even trump is dumb enough to order his ear to be shot with öive rounds.
The assumption would be that Trump was never actually shot.
What kind of a bizzaro story is that. Two nutjob online influencers have an opinion.
I doubt he staged it, but he definitely hammed it up when his ear got tickled by that bullet.
“My ear was shot…”
No, it wasn’t.
And to think, on the day of- I was saying that shit was fake as a three dollar bill and got my comments removed.
Why won’t the media just let me ignore Trump?
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MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United Kingdom
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