- Joined
- Jun 18, 2018
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"OK, so President Trump’s name is in the Jeffrey Epstein files. But who put it there? Could it possibly have been Barack Obama from his prison cell? Or a tranquilized Hillary Clinton? Oh wait, maybe it was etched onto the documents by Joe Biden’s magical autopen. Or is that mixing up different scandals? It’s so hard to keep up with the latest wild notions circulating in the capital and beyond. Washington is awash in conspiracy theories these days, a cascade of suspicion and intrigue promoted or denied in the Oval Office, ricocheting around Capitol Hill and cable news and propelled at warp speed across social media.
No commander in chief in his lifetime has been as consumed by conspiracy theories as President Trump and now they seem to be consuming him. They have been the rocket fuel for his political career since the days when he spread the lie that Mr. Obama was secretly born overseas and therefore not eligible to be president. More than a decade later, Mr. Trump is coming full circle by trying to divert attention from the Epstein conspiracy theory with a new-and-improved one about Mr. Obama supposedly committing treason.
...“There have been other conspiratorial political movements in the country’s past,” said Geoff Dancy, a University of Toronto professor who teaches about conspiracy theories. “But they have never occupied the upper echelons of power until the last decade.” “The president’s repeated discussion of multiple conspiracy theories, most recently about the 2016 election, has no parallel in American politics,” said Meena Bose, director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency at Hofstra University. “Presidential allegations that have no factual basis undermine public confidence in the political system and present dangerous challenges to constitutional principles and the rule of law, particularly if they are not subject to checks by other institutions.”
Link
Tyrants thrive on government by conspiracy theory.
No commander in chief in his lifetime has been as consumed by conspiracy theories as President Trump and now they seem to be consuming him. They have been the rocket fuel for his political career since the days when he spread the lie that Mr. Obama was secretly born overseas and therefore not eligible to be president. More than a decade later, Mr. Trump is coming full circle by trying to divert attention from the Epstein conspiracy theory with a new-and-improved one about Mr. Obama supposedly committing treason.
...“There have been other conspiratorial political movements in the country’s past,” said Geoff Dancy, a University of Toronto professor who teaches about conspiracy theories. “But they have never occupied the upper echelons of power until the last decade.” “The president’s repeated discussion of multiple conspiracy theories, most recently about the 2016 election, has no parallel in American politics,” said Meena Bose, director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency at Hofstra University. “Presidential allegations that have no factual basis undermine public confidence in the political system and present dangerous challenges to constitutional principles and the rule of law, particularly if they are not subject to checks by other institutions.”
Link
Tyrants thrive on government by conspiracy theory.
