Trump likes conspiracy theories

[lpetrich]

Trump’s Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham saw him go full authoritarian - Vox

President Donald Trump has been known to dabble in conspiracy theories — be it that Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya, that global warming is a hoax created by China, or that Bill and/or Hillary Clinton had child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein murdered in prison.

But his latest whopper — that his political opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, is secretly being controlled by a roving band of black-clad violent extremists who like to fly on commercial airlines — is more than just another conspiracy theory. It’s also disturbingly reminiscent of a disinformation tactic commonly deployed by dictators around the world to discredit legitimate political opposition.

On Monday, Trump told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham a wild story he’d heard about a supposed plane full of “thugs” who had traveled together on a commercial flight to an unnamed American city to stage protests during the Republican National Convention. These same thugs, in Trump’s telling, are secretly pulling Biden’s strings from the “dark shadows.”

These are “people that you’ve never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows,” Trump said. “They’re people that are on the streets. They’re people that are controlling the streets. We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that.”

Is he desperate to get the conspiracy-nut vote?

From Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, strongmen have long used the threat of terrorists at home and abroad — real or imagined — to claim they alone can safeguard their countries.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Trump likes BS, and the more he has to throw around, the harder it is to stay on topic on any number of real issues his administration is suffering from.

It is also a tactic of despots to justify their actions on the homeland, like sending unmarked Federal Agents out to Portland to pull people off the streets.

 

[southernhybrid]

Trump likes anything that gives him attention. If those who believe in conspiracy theories adore Trump, then Trump will praise the conspiracy theory. At least that's how I see it. Trump likes QAnon because its followers think that Trump will save the world from a cabal of pedophiles. If Trump wasn't the savior in this stupid theory, he would despise QAnon. It's all part of his extreme narcissism. The man isn't capable of rational thinking as he is too consumed with his own power and the attention he receives as a result of his power. I think Trump already has most of the conspiracy nut vote. I know one personally. She has become totally manipulated by the Trump cult to the point where anything dear leader says must be right. This is an educated woman I'm talking about, so it's wrong to imply that only those who lack much formal education are members of the Trump cult.

 

[ideologyhunter]

I have relatives like that!!! People who know stuff. They can name the secretary of defense. They can explain investment strategies. They know technical jargon from work and they can speak in grammatical sentences (better than Orangey.) But...they...see...Trump...as a....credible...dependable...leader.
My powers of analysis just fail me here.