Posted on 03/03/2017 9:42:19 PM PST by TigerClaws
The finals weeks of the recent presidential campaign saw several conspiracy theories turned into political weapons.
Let’s define ‘conspiracy theory.’ Ironically the C.I.A. invented the designation to denigrate plausible explanations for world events which contradicted their political agenda. As a theory, they may be proven or disproven.
Some definitions (Wikipedia) suggest they present a false theory. That ignores that some cospiracy theories (Gulf of Tonkin, for example) have later been proven true.
Leftists have been the primary creators of conspiracy theories with J.F.K. assassination being the most popular. Leftists rejected that a ‘lone wolf’ killer, who had previously attempted to kill the rightwing Gen. Edwin Walker, acted alone. It had to be mobsters, the C.I.A., or (as the recent film JACKIE speculates) the John Birch Society. Regarding his film J.F.K. Oliver Stone famously said to the effect, “To destroy the old myths we have to create new ones.”
9/11 is the latest popular conspiracy theory. Instead of radical Islamic terrorists, ‘truthers’ (including presidential advisor Van Jones) blamed the C.I.A. and Dick Cheney wanted to take us to war. Videos speculating about the conspiracy received millions of hits on YouTube.
The DNC and Hillary were exposed for collaborating with each other to defeat Sanders and with MSM figures to slant coverage. These were Wikileaks-proven ‘conspiracies’ that spread like wildfire on the net.
From there Trump supporters engaged other weaponized conspiracy theories, which grew exponentially such as Spirit Cooking and Pizzagate.
Again, the truthfulness or accuracy of the theory may be in question, but it can do political damage because of the legitimate questions which are raised. Visuals help. A good conspiracy lets the reader draw their own conclusions and encourages them to do their own research. It then becomes crowd sourced and spreads more widely.
They can be quite damaging. John Podesta, Hillary’s campaign manager, was denying several days before the election that he was a practicing Satanist. Certainly not the way to close strong.
The John Podesta/David Brock response to the WCTs that were so effective in defeating Hillary was to create one of their own against Trump in the last weeks of the election and in the weeks that followed Trump’s win.
Their weaponized conspiracy theory is:
1. The DNC hack was perpetrated by Russians. There was a Cyrillic alphabet code found on the DNC computers. (Of course, this likely means it'd be less they did the hack as pros would hide their tracks.)
2. The Russian hack was because they wanted Trump to win thinking Trump would be their patsy. There’s a close relationship between Trump and the Russians (fiancially or they are likeminded in other ways.)
3. The hack led to Trump winning.
4. Therefore, the Russians hacked the election results handing Trump the win.
#4 -- That's the key summary sentence the MSM marching orders contained.
Washington Post has been the primary ‘source’ of the WTC with other media outlets quickly following their lead. Some obvious leaps in logics and outlandish allegations. There’s poll evidence against allegation #3, but the truth doesn’t matter as it’s a conspiracy theory.
Beauty of a conspiracy theory is that it can NEVER be refuted if it's a created correctly. The fact that someone is denying it is... you guessed it... proof of the conspiracy. Russia is a major world player and any connection between anyone on Trump’s team and Russia now results in calls for resignation and is pointed to as proof of the conspiracy.
There's zero proof the Russians were involved in the DNC leaks. Most likely it was their own incompetence. Podesta's password was 'password' and he didn't bother to change it even after Wikileaks published his password. He also lost at least two Blackberry phones during the campaign and fell for one ‘Phishing’ email scam. Hillary had a homebrew server, which was likely hacked by several foreign actors.
Leftists want to create a narrative and manipulate public opinion. To them there is no Truth (capital T) and there's only manipulation and spin.
Is there any way Trump could disprove the theory? Essentially no. It’s speculative to decide how much the DNC/Hillary emails damaged her campaign. At the time, the MSM told us the emails were “baked in.” The fact it can never be disproven means it’s a conspiracy theory.
Again, the truth of the WCT doesn’t matter. The assertion raises doubt and creates connections. Trump/Putin. Trump has that Eastern European wife. He wants to be a dictator like Putin.
Now that Russia is white/Christian/anti-gay pride parades, they're the 'go to guys' as villains in all movies these days. It's always Russian mobsters. What interest group can complain? They’re a convenient patsy.
For whatever reason, Hillary wanted to go to war with Russia (she said) by establishing a ‘no fly’ zone in Syria. She said we should retaliate militarily for the hacking. This despite handing the evil Russians 20% of our uranium in exchange for Clinton foundation money and her husband doing speeches for big bucks to Russians.
In fact, as far back as Obama’s first published work in college he was an apologist for the Soviet Union, calling for our disarmament. We all remember the “I will convey this to Vlad” promise he made once re-elected.
Keeping up with the Left’s attitude toward Russia takes effort.
I don't think it's sticking to Trump, but that conspiracy theory has been THE go-to tactic from the left since Trump won the election. It's non-stop.
A real WTC gets the public involved. You’d see Reddit threads and various boards popping up to explore it, as we see to this day with J.F.K. and 9/11. I'm not seeing any real play outside the MSM and liberal echo chamber of the Russian nonsense.
Trump should call out the Russian conspiracy theory as a conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.
He should then stay on message about building the wall, tax reform, healthcare, and what Americans actually do care about.
For a conspiracy theory to be believable (whether it is true or not), it has to have a motive that makes sense. If you think I shot JFK, then you need to explain what my motive was.
Motive seems to be lacking in the Trump/Putin/Russian theories.
OTOH, the motive for the democrat elite to be rabidly attacking Trump is clear. They are guilty of serious crimes and will stop at nothing to keep from being found out and/or imprisoned. It’s not just a matter of losing power for 4-8 years or of falling off the gravy train. It’s a matter of having egregious crimes exposed that will permanently end their careers and likely put them in jail. This explains the hysteria, the hostility, the irrationality, and the willingness to commit additional crimes (including murder) to cover up what they’ve been doing.
The problem comes when WCT’s blow up in the lab. There is no basement at Comet Pizza.
Your comments are right on the money. And, I believe the threat to peace and freedom is so great from the democrats that while the party is down, we need to drive the stake through the heart to end the misery.
Breitbart is now calling the Russian nonsense a “conspiracy theory.”
!!!
Thanks to those who commented.
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