I love a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone. Not so much the 9/11-was-an-inside-job kind of gibberish: Internet Philosophers (and/or basement-dwellers) who use national tragedies as fodder for their anti-American fantasies are almost always repulsive people.
I’m talking more about the fun conspiracy theories.
Did you know the moon isn’t real? And neither are birds? And somewhere on the Internet, I’m pretty sure I read a compelling, well-researched theory about how the American Indians were actually the real Indians — and those “Indians” in India are the fake ones — but alas, I can no longer find it online.
(Must be a government cover-up.)
Of course, some conspiracies turn out to be true. That’s a fact. And it’s the gleaming North Star of Hope for every conspiracy junkie.
Was JFK killed by a lone gunman? Was everything 100% on the level? Does Occam’s Razor still apply? I… don’t know.
But for the most part, it’s far wiser to be skeptical of these conspiratorial claims. After all, Occam’s Razor isn’t an absolute; it’s a more-often-than-not observation. And more often than not, the answer isn’t malice — it’s stupidity. It’s ineptitude. It’s people acting selfishly or carelessly and making mistakes.
Think of it like this: Only Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton were material participants in their conspiracy to have an affair behind Hillary’s back. It wasn’t a large, sprawling conspiracy like murdering JFK in Dallas or hiding aliens at Area 51 — all of those would necessarily involve dozens of different participants. Capturing a spaceship, kidnapping E.T., and locking him up in Nevada for 50 years is NOT a one-man job!
But even in a low-key conspiracy like Clinton and Lewinsky, the truth quickly got out. Like Ben Franklin wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac hundreds of years ago, “Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” People like to talk. And Monica told all.
Still, despite all the logical reasons to be skeptical of unfounded conspiracies, the media’s been ultra-gullible about every fringe, wacky, borderline-insane conspiracy theory about Donald Trump:
There’s one about him peeing on mattresses. Or that he’s a Russian spy. Or that he’s financially enslaved to the Saudis. Or that he’s a secret druggie. Or there’s a secret tape of him using the N-word. Or that he wears a diaper. Or that he called dead American soldiers “suckers” and “losers.”
Or countless others.
Hmm. Even when Joe Biden — the sitting president — was in an advanced state of mental decline, the mainstream media suddenly stayed silent: Don’t wanna say something we can’t definitively prove!
Hmm. How odd.
The media likes to complain about Republican misinformation, but The Old Gray Lady doth protest too much: They’re the number one traffickers in untested, unknowable (and unlikely) conspiracy theories.
It goes like this: They make an observation that’s accepted as gospel within the liberal community. Something like: Donald Trump cares too much about optics. (After all, think of all the comments he’s made about peoples’ appearances.) Therefore, we can take this trait and contort it to ridiculous proportions:
“Trump” has five letters. “Vance” has five letters. (Hey, “Pence” also has five letters!) Therefore, Donald Trump — who, as we ALL know, cares too much about optics — is such a loon, he’ll ONLY choose a running mate whose last name has the same number of letters as his own last name… so it’ll look good on a campaign sign! Can you believe that!
What an ego! What a madman!
They’ll find someone to substantiate this new conspiracy theory — usually a fired low-level aide with an axe to grind. “Oh, sure. Donald Trump used to confide all his deepest, darkest thoughts to me during the 17 minutes I worked there. He told me, ‘Only choose a veep with a five-letter name! Otherwise, I’ll sell our nation’s secrets to Russia.’”
The media would then contact an estranged relative of Donald Trump (most like Mary Trump, who’s been featured, literally, in HUNDREDS OF STORIES by Newsweek alone… as well as PBS, NPR, The New York Times, Politico, USA Today, NBC, ABC, yada yada.) And she’d regale the interviewer with her long-winded, completely unfounded theory about how Trump’s horrible psychology compels him to only choose running mates with five-letters.
She’s just “following the science,” you know. Completely objective.
About a week later, someone in the media (who’s slightly smarter than the industry average) will make an observation: “Hey, Nikki Haley’s last name has five letters, too. So why didn’t he pick her?”
Which will trigger a new round of stories: The answer (of course) will be sexism.
And the next week, another media outlet will figure out that “Putin” is also five letters. Which will trigger another cycle of “Trump is a Russian agent” stories.
Rinse and repeat.
Bruce Banner’s secret is that he’s always angry. The mainstream media’s secret is that they can keep ANY wacky, ridiculous, coocoo-for-Coco Puffs conspiracy alive for as long as they want, simply by reporting on other outlets. A reporter over here writes a story; the reporter over there writes about that reporter’s story; so on and so forth.
It’s incestuous and self-consuming, but it allows storylines to propagate.
And thus, a new anti-Trump conspiracy is born.
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