The ghosts of Trump’s conspiracy theories have come back to haunt him |
The ghosts of Trump’s conspiracy theories have come back to haunt him
The most durable political conspiracy theories aren’t spun out of thin air — they’re spun out of moments that make no earthly sense.
History is full of these head-scratchers. Take the old “stabbed in the back” myth in post-World War I Germany: The country essentially sued for peace, while the average German thought victory was imminent. Quitting seemed apropos of nothing. Out of that disconnect came a fantasy explanation and, eventually, catastrophe.
You don’t need such a dramatic historical example to get there, either. A more modest version arrived in 2012, when Mitt Romney (R-Utah) lost to Barack Obama. Fox News viewers, marinated for months in Dick Morris’s televised assurances that Romney had it in the bag, were suddenly slapped in the face by a reality that didn’t comport.
Is it any wonder that Republican voters radicalized in the very next presidential election?
This, of course, brings us to Donald Trump, whose first real collision with his own supporters came over the Epstein files. Here was a conspiracy theory he’d elevated during his campaign — transparency and accountability, the whole nine yards — only to appear to suppress it once he took office.
That’s the kind of reversal that makes people reach for explanations. And it didn’t help that the surrounding circumstances were even more suspicious.
Epstein gets a sweetheart deal from the Bush administration. He dies mysteriously in custody. Trump’s attorney general says she has the client list sitting on her desk, then says the client list doesn’t exist. Ghislaine Maxwell gets moved to a facility that sounds less like prison and more like a retirement villa.
None of this proves anything, of course — but it certainly looks curious.
From there, the imagination fills in the blanks with whatever narrative best justifies the confusion. In Epstein’s case, that meant whispers about intelligence agencies, Israeli kompromat and shadowy financial dealings.
More recently, Trump’s decision to attack Iran created a similar kind of cognitive whiplash, especially among his “America First” supporters. This man vigorously campaigned against “forever wars” and warned that his rivals would drag the country into global conflict. Now his actions seem to point in precisely that same direction.
Then came statements from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) about how Trump was goaded into attacking Iran because Israel had already decided to attack Iran, and Iran’s retaliation would put U.S. troops who had massed in jeopardy.
As was the case with the original “stabbed in the back” myth, conspiracy theorists have a bad habit of eventually blaming Jewish people for everything. But thinking Israel was at least partly responsible for the Iran war doesn’t require much fever-swamp thinking.
They had clear strategic reasons to want Iran further weakened. And when officials like Rubio and Johnson openly suggest that such pressure existed, and when you add in Benjamin Netanyahu’s frequent meetings with Trump, you don’t need a conspiracy to explain why people might raise an eyebrow.
Of course, the latest entry in the conspiracy-theory hall of fame comes courtesy of Joe Kent, who — until this week — served as Trump’s counterterrorism chief. Kent arrives with baggage over past associations with white nationalists, which complicates one’s standing as a sober-minded analyst. But that doesn’t mean he’s not right about Iran.
Kent resigned his post because, as he wrote, “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.” But it was comments he made on Tucker Carlson’s podcast that really made tongues start wagging.
Without making any direct accusations, Kent raised questions about Charlie Kirk’s murder, pointing out that Kirk “advocated heavily” against a war with Iran. Kent recounted bumping into Kirk at the White House. Kirk “looked me in the eye, and he said very loudly … Joe, stop us from getting into a war with Iran,” Kent told Carlson.
Here’s where things get wild. Kent seems to suggest that it is at least plausible that Kirk was murdered by someone connected with Israel — perhaps someone who wanted to get him out of the way so they could persuade Trump to go to war with Iran, or someone who wanted to send Trump a signal that he would be wise to play ball.
“When one of President Trump’s closest advisers who is vocally advocating for us to not go to war with Iran and at least rethink our relationship with Israel, and he’s suddenly publicly assassinated and we’re not allowed to ask questions, it’s a data point,” he continued.
Here’s the thing about “data points.” One or two might be a coincidence. A handful might be misinterpretations. But we are witnessing a multitude of suspicious data points, and once they start to look like a pattern, people start seeing what they want to see.
If nothing else, we are confronting a dynamic that could possibly be described as ironic. Trump, the man who made a political career out of weaponizing conspiracy theories like birtherism against his enemies, now finds his presidency embroiled in them.
Karma, as they say, is a bitch.
Matt K. Lewis is a columnist, podcaster and author of the books “Too Dumb to Fail” and “Filthy Rich Politicians.”
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