Those who believe – and promote – lunatic conspiracy theories almost always pay the price, sooner or later, for their deeply-held delusions and/or lies. It’s happening right now in the White House.
Let’s go back in time: Radio/internet broadcaster Alex Jones, among others, claimed repeatedly the 2012 shooting deaths of 26 people (mostly children) at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax. He claimed it was staged by “actor” parents in an effort to gain public momentum for gun-rights restrictions. In a lawsuit, Jones was ordered to pay millions of dollars. He still runs his show; he still has a legion of gullible watchers/listeners.
Flash forward: Trump and his enablers, to garner and shore up their “populist” support, have been doubling down for years on their long-cherished conspiracy theories about the “Deep State.” Far-Right paranoid advocates, with Trump’s explicit rah-rah encouragements, have claimed federal government agencies have been run by “lunatic leftist” Democrats and movie stars and other “elites” who indulge in sex-trafficking of children and other vicious crimes. They were all, MAGA radicals alleged, part of serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s social circle. It was claimed Hillary Clinton ran a children sex-traffic operation out of a pizza joint in Washington, D.C. After that incendiary lie was announced via fake internet news, one gullible man with a gun drove to that pizza parlor to save the day. He saw no enslaved trafficked children there, so thankfully he did not shoot anyone.
Such dangerous, explosive conspiracy theories have been championed by many of the most hard-core MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters who were promised by Trump if re-elected, HE and HE Alone would release documents that would prove their cherished conspiracy theories to be true. He said he would release by an executive order if necessary all details of the criminal files of notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a former pal of Trump’s.
Hurray! Trump was re-elected. But oops! No Epstein files were released. Many MAGA adherents were outraged the promised revelations were not forthcoming – ones that would prove the perverted crimes of the Democratic Deep State, the very conspiracy theories they’d nurtured for so long. U.S. House Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia, a long-time Qanon conspiracy adherent and power opportunist, is one of Trump’s most loyal ring-kissers. She fumed her phone was ringing off the hook by furious MAGA folks.
Trump and his Cabinet officials were like deer caught in the headlights (headlines) as they stumbled-stammered to try to explain the lack of total disclosure. It was almost comical as they desperately tried every lame tactic to fool their MAGA base that they had fooled so many times before. They tried distraction tactics, like Trump accusing Obama of treason, treason, treason!
Here’s the double bind now:
One: Trump might have had some implicit approval or involvement in Epstein’s pedophilic crimes. There is no reason yet to presume that.
Two: Documents might prove there is absolutely no evidence Epstein’s crimes had anything to do with the long-held conspiracy theories that Democrats and movie stars were part of a Deep State sex-trafficking ring. Imagine how that utter lack of evidence, so long encouraged slyly by Trump, would wilt those MAGA conspiracists’ desperate hopes.
Conspiracy theories spring up quickly when all too many people are convinced that if some far-fetched theory they hear about is not reported in “lamestream/mainstream” media, then it MUST be TRUE. Thus, the crazier the theory the truer it must be.
The lesson? Be careful what conspiracy theories you weave and believe. They just might do you in, bite by bite.
