Lunatic conspiracy theories can get people into serious trouble, making them promote and/or commit crazy and even violent acts against others.
Radio “star” Alex Jones for years pushed the vicious ongoing lie that the slaughter of children at Sandy Hook school by a killer using an AR-15 assault rifle was a hoax, that it did not happen. Jones lost an expensive lawsuit (justice served!) because of his relentless slanders.
In 2016, a gunman entered a pizza place in Washington, D.C. He had been convinced by utterly false five-alarm online accusations that Bill and Hillary Clinton were operating a child sex ring from that pizza joint. The man pointed his rifle at an employee and fired. The employee escaped.
The U.S. Capitol riot and insurrection attempt on Jan. 6, 2021 was sparked into an explosion of violence by gullible people who entertained grab-bag “Qanon” conspiracies, including one that the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen” – the Big Lie promulgated by loser Donald Trump. Many of those attackers are now doing prison time.
Attorney Sidney Powell spewed crackpot conspiracy theories galore in a pathetic effort to “prove” the election was stolen. The plot, she lied, involved satellites, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (who had died in 2013), a “Deep State” scheme, the Clinton Foundation and rigged voting machines for which she was sued.
In a now-infamous press conference, Powell, Trump attorney/aide Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani (hair dye trickling down his face) all spewed their nonsense, their lies. Nearly two years later, they were among nearly 20 people indicted in Georgia for attempts to undermine the election. In recent months, Powell, Ellis and a few others have pleaded guilty to the charges, willing to testify against other co-conspirators, including Trump.
The latest preposterous theorist found guilty in court is David DePape, the man who broke into the Pelosi home in San Francisco and used a hammer to bash Paul Pelosi, 83, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. DePape could soon be sentenced to a long prison sentence, all because of his violence stoked by his giddy willingness to believe and to embrace just about every crazy social-media theory to come down the pike.
On the night he attacked Mr. Pelosi, DePape was planning to abduct Nancy. DePape testified in court he had intended to tie her up with zip-strips and interrogate her while he was wearing an inflatable unicorn costume. You can’t beat that for “crazy.”
He said he targeted Pelosi because she was leader of the Democrats and part of a “cabal” to destroy America.
DePape said he intended to take a cross-country trip to confront other “targets” on his revenge list. They included Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor; Hunter Biden; George Soros, hedge-fund billionaire; and actor Tom Hanks. Those were just some members of the “anti-American cabal” as cooked up in DePape’s fevered imagination and “inspired” by online messaging. One of the crazy messages was that Tom Hanks was part of a “liberal elite” promoting pedophilia.
According to The New York Times, the impetus for DePape flinging himself headlong into such baseless, dangerous ideas was an online campaign called “Gamergate” that began in 2014, aimed at female critics of the video-gaming business.
Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon is quoted as saying some years back that isolated, mainly white men became tuned in to Gamergate notions and thus, they get “turned on to politics and Trump.”
Gamergate, DePape said, opened his eyes to the truth, and that is why he became a Trump supporter, scornful of any main-stream media.
As these theorists keep paying the price for their elaborately stupid delusions, one must wonder if they also believe the world is flat, the moon is made of blue cheese and Donald Trump was the greatest, most honest of all U.S. presidents who, in their words, “always tells it like it is.”