A grueling trip by @annamerlan and @ashleyfeinberg, indefatigably guided by @scoutstout, through Trumpist paranoia https://t.co/VAiFa7poxz
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) March 31, 2017
There are, to be sure, some genuine nutball beliefs outlined here (such as Mick Mulvaney’s apparently sincere conviction that bitcoin is superior to the machinations of ‘the Fed’). But most of the ‘conspiracies’ outlined by Merlan & Feinberg are much more a case of ‘let’s see how much manure we can feed the rubes to keep them panicked and stupid’:
Donald Trump is not the kind of man who is willing to go along with accepted facts. From his subjective valuation of his business portfolio, through his bird-dogging of Barack Obama’s birth certificate to his tantrums about the deceptive sparseness of his inaugural crowds, Trump has pursued his own rages and fixations about the real truths—the best truths, the most powerful and shocking truths, the truths the haters and losers don’t want you to know—all the way to the highest office in the land.
Along the way, naturally enough, the Trump movement has become a magnet for a population of true believers. What they believe matters less than that they believe it fiercely and defiantly, without regard for mainstream consensus or factual reality.
Paranoia is the natural complement to narcissism: If you’re the most important person in the world, of course you would be the target of conspiracies. Thus Alex Jones, a man who claimed that the Pulse nightclub shooting was orchestrated by the government and that the Sandy Hook massacre was all a hoax, acts as an unofficial advisor to the President. The White House Chief Strategist made a name for himself hawking right-wing propaganda films before making a bigger name for himself running our very own American Pravda. And the president’s other appointments include an army of conspiracy theorists and nutjob-adjacents, so that our highly persuadable and often hysterical chief executive will never want for imagined enemies to rage against.
To help you navigate the vast assortment of conspiracy theories to which Trump’s staffers subscribe, we’ve compiled a bestiary of crackpot beliefs, pseudo-scientific ideas, and anything otherwise insane that’s come out of the mouths of his cronies and hangers-on who have boldly stood up for what they believe in. And what they believe in is truly something to behold…
‘What they believe in’ is ‘Whatever gives us the most leverage,’ adjusted as necessary. These (mostly) men are nihilists, Donny! — we can’t let them scare us into stress-induced heart failure.
Late Night Oooga-Booga Open Thread: “The Conspiracies of Trumpland”Post + Comments (52)