Within an hour of an assassination attempt on his life a few weeks ago, Donald Trump said that it wouldn’t have happened inside his new White House ballroom. A Fox News reporter, who sounded as if she was about to reveal a plot, lost connection live on television. Before the event, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had said that “there will be some shots fired tonight in the room”. (She was talking about comedic, not ballistic, shots.) Chatter that Trump had staged the attack began spreading online. Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett posted that “maybe it’s fake… who knows…”.
Was the shooting all part of a false flag operation in his war against the planning authorities? Or is he just a wily opportunist who turned a security breach into some good PR for his unpopular renovation of the East Wing? It’s too late for such questions. In online folklore, the shooting has been chalked up as a potential fake attack.
Conspiracies are their own currency in Trumpland. What’s curious is that both sides are partial to florid theories about dark nefarious forces. The conspiracies you will find in Maga are far more extravagant. Look at Tucker Carlson and others “raising questions” about why we don’t know more about Trump’s various wannabe assassins. Anti-Semitism is also a fecund source of conspiracy theories on the right.
But on the left, Trump’s various assassination attempts have brought about rumours of “false flags” and rigged investigations. When the Butler assassination attempt is brought up in liberal conversation in Washington, more often than not they will suggest it was either staged or not as it seems. One mainstream journalist told me once that they thought Q-Anon was created by the intelligence services to discredit Trump. Flash a questioning look and you will be dismissed as a naive European.
This is surprising because conspiracy theories are usually seen as the preserve of those far down the political pecking order. A low-status preoccupation; the kind of thing “deplorables” believe in. At a Trump campaign rally in 2024, I spent an hour talking to a woman about the Illuminati, the elites who started both world wars to slaughter ordinary people and the impending Second Coming. She spoke as if she had this world-altering knowledge that could save me. If I didn’t see the light, then my life would be in danger. There was fear in her eyes.
In my experience, the more time you spend with powerful people, the less conspiratorial you become. Their very human foibles clearly preclude the vast coordination most conspiracies require. But these conspiracies are now entering “respectable” political debate. They have become a version of fables for a society that is divided and constantly online. Elites dabble in the odd baseless theory out of curiosity, a genuine suspicion or a sense of helplessness in the face of their thwarted expectations. Conspiracies often serve as allegories for real injustices. What is interesting is that the social taboo around spouting them has been weakened. Like any social convention, it only has any effect if everyone observes it.
It is common for people to think their enemies are more powerful than they actually are. We like to find hidden motives where none is necessary. Is Palantir trying to use artificial intelligence to allow governments to surveil citizens? Well, you don’t need a grand diagram with Peter Thiel at the centre of a hundred red arrows to know the answer because Palantir have repeatedly posted on social media that this is what they do. The conspiracy, more often than not, is front and centre – and searching for ulterior motives distracts from what is happening in reality.
America has always been saturated in conspiracy. It is as part of the national culture as owning a gun: the high-minded might look down on it, but it isn’t going anywhere. In 1951, the communist-hunting senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, said: “how can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster?” In The Paranoid Style in American Politics Richard Hofstadter gave this as an example of “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy”. It’s a sign of the times that Penguin will publish the book as a Modern Classic at the end of May.
McCarthy was seen as a crank by many on both sides of the aisle. JFK, a family friend, was wary of being associated with the demagogue. Now the President himself fires off lies with abandon. Few doubt he would lead a plot to stay in power given the chance. Remember he told an official in Georgia to “find” the votes he needed to win the state in 2020. Trump and the Maga movement operate in a different league of conspiracy theories. But he has lent that type of thinking the sheen of the presidential seal. They have climbed the respectability scale, and have become a feature of the Washington scene.
[Further reading: Trump will find no magical solutions in Beijing]
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