Here’s the thing. Trump is a lifelong con man, liar, grifter, and cheater. No sentient person takes anything he says at face value. Hence, many think he’s lying about purported assassination attempts.
It’s that simple.
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From the article: “There is an inherent need to assign meaning and purpose to an act that often turns out to have none.”
From the earliest rustles in the savannah grass, mankind has hallucinated answers to the unknown and frightening. A survival trait that does not serve us well, first creating religions, now conspiracies.
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If you’re simple, you mean.
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Honestly, the problem is that a conspiracy theory is the stuff of paranoia unless there actually is a conspiracy in which case it is the evidence of the crime presented at trial.
On the day of the shooting, when I first heard, I dismissed the conspiracy theories on the left because although I totally believe they are capable of a false flag stunt, the timing didn’t make sense. Seemed like they should have waited until the DNC convention. But then I saw the picture. It is just so staged. There is no way that anyone who has watched trump over the years can believe that he would stand up and yell fight fight fight if he were actually under attack. The man is a coward. If had really been in danger, he would have used the secret service as human shields to protect himself.
They immediately started using the image for campaigns. My MAGA neighbor has a giant flag of it in his garage. The iconography of the image is what bothers me. It does not match the man’s character.
Of course, it’s fun for commentators to accuse the left of being prone to conspiracy theories. It allows them to “both sides”things. But if you remember the other conspiracy theory the left believed - the Russia Hoax- it was actually true.
Don’t tell me that Russia hacked the voting systems of states just to see if it could. Like they didn’t change votes. If you were told that a thief broke into all the houses on your street but didn’t steal anything. He just wanted to see if he could do it, you’d probably start going through things in your house a little more closely and you’d probably invest in a better security system and yet - somehow they never did
And it’s always projection- if they accuse you of it- you know they probably did it. Trump is so sure that 2020 was stolen because they stole 2016. Of course. 2024 is all on us. And that’s worse.
Ok. I’ll put away my tinfoil hat and pretend that it’s totally crazy to assume that the trump administration would lie about this or that they have such regard for human life that they wouldn’t sacrifice a few supporters to help their guy out.
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What;s the difference between the 2?
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Smart bird.
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I came here to say that no Trump conspiracy theory handed by Trump to the MAGAts is going to replace the historic interest in what was a world-changing event, the assassination of President Kennedy.
This article cheaply misleads the reader in terms of what is known and not known about the assassination. The author’s “Despite these facts” cites no facts, only the “possibility” that Oswald was the lone shooter. Not supported by actual investigation.
Trump’s election was unfortunately for us a world-changing event without the presidential fraudster making any sacrifice, even if the information we have been given about assassination attempts is true.
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It must be so frustrating being the smartest man in the world.
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A dose of skepticism and healthy level of critical thinking are both useful to getting through life without being snookered, whether by yourself or by others.
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I’m in great awe of your brilliance.
Paranoia, alienation, misinformation, political bias, prejudice, set the zeitgeist for conspiracy theories. Certain members of my family were proto-Maga and believed Reagan was a messenger from God, or at least the greatest President and that FDR colluded with the Japanese in the Pearl Harbor attack. They knew that they lived in a Republic, not a democracy. Thom Hartmann elaborates on the sources of these beliefs which include the John Birch Society and the KKK to name a few.
So the Kennedy Assassination (I lived in New Orleans and knew the son of the author of the “Star Spangled Contract”, who never mentioned the book.)
Then there is the faked moon landing and the UFO’s from Landers California.
Then there is the mother of classic paranoid, schizoid, conspiracy stories: “The Old Testament”.
People sure believe crazy stuff.
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I found the piece a little bewildering from the opening paragraph on.
Just days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, nearly two-thirds of respondents to one poll believed the shooting had been a plot involving multiple people, despite no public evidence.
That poll actually found that 72% of respondents were “pretty much convinced” Oswald was the shooter, and in a separate question 62% indicated they thought other people were involved, so the initial response was more nuanced than is being portrayed here. But besides that, the people responding to this poll had learned that Oswald swore allegiance to the Soviet Union and belonged to “Friends of Cuba,” so the belief that other people (e.g., Russians, Cubans) could have been involved was hardly a matter of conspiracy. Then, of course, the assassin had just been assassinated! The people may have been feeling a wee bit suspicious.
Why don’t people dutifully report that they believe the conclusions of the Warren Report in 2026? Because the 1978 Congressional investigation didn’t believe them. Because Oswald’s connections to the intelligence community became clearer over time. Because of RFK’s assassination. Because Allen Dulles said, “That little Kennedy.. he thought he was a god.”
These stories are supposed to be meta-commentaries about society and belief, but the problem is that the “conspiracy theorists” are too often the ones reading the primary documents while the apparently intellectually respectable rely on superficial and recycled narratives.
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My better angels tell me to put conspiracies out of my mind-they are crazy, nonsensical and likely wrong. Having said that, Trump is always out for revenge on everyone that he sees as doing him wrong. He is eerily silent about all of these attempts on his life. That is so out of character of everything we know about him. So of course I succumb to the conspiracy it was all staged.
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It was the crane lowering the flag for a photograph and a staff member directing photographers to be in the best location for the photo that convinced me. Trump getting a few innocent people killed is his MO in the Caribbean.
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What makes the whole thing suspect is that there was no press conference at the hospital with a doctor testifying and answering questions. It’s inconceivable that a president is “wounded” by gunfire and this kind of transparency wouldn’t happen. The “hospital visit” just came and went. Does anybody have a response to that, or different information?
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How long did the Secret Service shooter have line of sight of the rifle-armed Crooks on the rooftop, a couple hundred yards away? There are more than 1 conpiracy theories out there.
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Just an observation. Look at the photo of the, I assume, secret service agents surrounding TCF. The one directly in the line of fire between the shooter ‘s position and TCF is the only female officer visible. The big hulking men are on the sides and behind. Like I said, just an observation.
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Not clear, but clearly not that long, and he wasn’t looking that direction anyway. The shooter’s rifle was hit by a round from a local cop about four seconds in, and Secret Service sniped him 9 seconds after that.
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Patient confidentiality is real, and trump did not waive it, because he obviously wanted to play up his little boo-boo as much as possible.
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