# Donald Trump is turning liberals into conspiracy theorists **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 10, 2017, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253 "2017-05-10T03:46:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/21 "2017-05-12T14:46:51Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > They are kissing cousins. > > What about post #15? Post #15 is a perfect example of when facts come in that show the Conspiracy Theory wrong, the CT doesn’t disappear. It evolves. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/22 "2017-05-12T14:53:27Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > Post #15 is a perfect example of when facts come in that show the Conspiracy Theory wrong, the CT doesn’t disappear. It evolves. Like Trump’s spreading of the evidence-free CT about Obama’s birthplace years after it was proven false? ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/23 "2017-05-12T14:59:02Z")
OP is somewhat right. The right-wing crazy on my FB feed for 8 years has now been replaced by left-wing crazy. And I don’t mean to imply equivalence – the anti-Obama screeds were, in general, much nastier, less justified, and less factual than the ant-Trump screeds, but there does seem to be a lot of people getting too deep into the weeds with this Russia stuff. Some of it reminds me sov-cit garbage, where they think they just need to dig a little bit deeper to find the right legal words to say that will get Trump impeached. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/24 "2017-05-12T15:45:39Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > Add another CT: the amazing “timing” of the Comey firing that supposedly came hours after the issuance of grand jury subpoenas to Flynn associates. > > Of course, the subpoenas were issued weeks ago. Let’s zoom in on this, since nothing at all in the article you linked to actually comprises a conspiracy theory, to the extent that I’m not convinced you know what a conspiracy theory is (hint: it doesn’t mean “incorrect information about a politician or a bill”). The conspiracy theory we’re talking about is whether the Russian intelligence services conspired to interfere illegally in the US election, and if so, whether American citizens knew or abetted that interference, and if so, whether any of those citizens worked with Trump’s campaign, and if so, whether Trump knew about it. As you can see, there are a lot of different levels here. The first level is almost certainly an accurate conspiracy theory: there’s shitloads of evidence of the conspiracy to interfere in our election, and almost certainly some of those acts were illegal. The second level and the third level have circumstantial evidence to support them, but not much more. The fourth level just has a little bit of evidence; believing that Trump actively knew about the conspiracy at this point requires faith. However, it makes perfect sense for law enforcement to investigate the conspiracy, and if Trump acts in any way to impede that investigation–say, by firing the lead investigator due to his interest in the investigation–that raises some pretty serious issues of its own. Whether or not you’re innocent, you don’t get to obstruct an investigation. Now: were the subpoenas the proximate cause of the firing? That’s unclear. It may well turn out that they weren’t. **But given Trump’s mendacity** –a mendacity [you chortle about in a thread in the Pit](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20202118&postcount=4357), enjoying his ability to obscure the truth and get folks upset over the thoroughness of his dishonesty–it’s absolutely reasonable to examine that possibility. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/25 "2017-05-12T15:53:39Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > OP is somewhat right. The right-wing crazy on my FB feed for 8 years has now been replaced by left-wing crazy. And I don’t mean to imply equivalence – the anti-Obama screeds were, in general, much nastier, less justified, and less factual than the ant-Trump screeds, but there does seem to be a lot of people getting too deep into the weeds with this Russia stuff. Some of it reminds me sov-cit garbage, where they think they just need to dig a little bit deeper to find the right legal words to say that will get Trump impeached. There are the right words to get Trump impeached, the problem is, is that they need to come from the GOP’s base. That might happen, if trump keeps this up, but doing the right thing is up to the republicans now, all the democrats can do is hope that the GOP decides to do so. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/26 "2017-05-12T16:48:19Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > [http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/trump-liberals/](http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/trump-liberals/) > > Conclusion: “By embracing every single tweet or whisper as yet another piece of full-proof evidence of just how terrible Republicans are, Democrats run the risk of appearing like the boy who cried wolf to the public – and in the process taking some steam out of the very legitimate questions they are asking about the Trump administration.” I’d love to them poll self-identified liberals, asking them if they’ve heard of each of these theories, since a number of people have said they haven’t heard of some of these. (I haven’t heard of #3 or #4 until clicking on the link.) The arc for #1 was: first, it was reported as news, and subsequent news reports corrected it. People believed the initial reports because they were standard reporting by standard news media. Most people, liberal or otherwise, who heard about the beer also heard about the corrections, and changed their beliefs accordingly. Some people may still believe the initial reports because they missed the corrections, but unless there are a lot of lefties who believe the original reports _despite having heard the corrections_, this is not evidence for the existance of liberal conspiracy theorists. And #2…well, the distinction between “the AHCA classifies being sexually assaulted as a pre-existing condition” and “the AHCA would allow states to enable insurance companies to classify being sexually assaulted as a pre-existing condition” would be a distinction without a difference in enough places that it’s true enough, AFAIAC. TL;DR: Chris Cillizza continues to be worthless. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/27 "2017-05-12T18:14:03Z")
When conspiracy’s are formed often times they are covering a door that should also be watched. As long as too many don’t fall into believing all these conspiracy’s I do believe that in general conspiracy theories do keep peoples eyes open. I think it also shows how similar the right and left can actually be barring a few differences. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/28 "2017-05-12T18:45:40Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yawn. I will agree that we liberals must be careful about propagating bullshit, but I haven’t even heard of two of those conspiracy theories (#1 & #4) mentioned in the article. (And the other two I didn’t pay much attention to.) Yawn too, I was aware of grumblings from a couple of those items, but I did think that they amounted to a hill of beans. I think that while CNN can point at several falling for those items I think that the observation from a professional fake news creator does hold up, most of those fake news directed to leftists do not have much of a reach because many on the left do check or do not spread them as conservatives do. > **[We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We Learned](https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs)** > > "The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right," says Jestin Coler, whose company, Disinfomedia, is behind some fake news sites. > [@](#): > > During the run-up to the presidential election, fake news really took off. “It was just anybody with a blog can get on there and find a big, huge Facebook group of kind of rabid Trump supporters just waiting to eat up this red meat that they’re about to get served,” Coler says. “It caused an explosion in the number of sites. I mean, my gosh, the number of just fake accounts on Facebook exploded during the Trump election.” > > Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/29 "2017-05-13T13:22:22Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Yawn. I will agree that we liberals must be careful about propagating bullshit, but I haven’t even heard of two of those conspiracy theories (#1 & #4) mentioned in the article. (And the other two I didn’t pay much attention to.) I think that’s the main difference between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives don’t care about spouting bullshit so long as the uninformed, uneducated masses believe it. Liberals only care if the educated and informed masses believe their bullshit! ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/30 "2017-05-13T14:04:58Z")
Of all the crazy conspiracy theories out there, (9-11 was an inside job??? The moon landing was faked???) I’ll believe that Trump’s impartiality and judgement are affected by his Russian interests all day long. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/31 "2017-05-13T19:57:58Z")
When someone like Trump already gives his foes ample ammo, there shouldn’t be a \*\*\*need \*\*\*to to fabricate or exaggerate stuff - which is why doing so is the worst of all strategies. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/32 "2017-05-14T01:11:40Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > [http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/trump-liberals/](http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/trump-liberals/) > > Conclusion: “By embracing every single tweet or whisper as yet another piece of full-proof evidence of just how terrible Republicans are, Democrats run the risk of appearing like the boy who cried wolf to the public – and in the process taking some steam out of the very legitimate questions they are asking about the Trump administration.” What legitimate questions are you referring to? i haven’t seen a legit question yet, just a bunch of whining/ ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/33 "2017-05-14T01:23:18Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > What legitimate questions are you referring to? i haven’t seen a legit question yet, just a bunch of whining/ The conclusion is Chris Cillizza’s. That’s why it’s in quotes. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/34 "2017-05-14T20:14:42Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > What legitimate questions are you referring to? i haven’t seen a legit question yet, just a bunch of whining/ Good lord, conservatives called Hillary corrupt for enticing foreign governments to give to a charity. Trump entices foreign governments to patronize his businesses, and there’s not even a recognition of this being a problem, let alone much worse? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/35 "2017-05-14T22:05:31Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > The conclusion is Chris Cillizza’s. That’s why it’s in quotes. Doesn’t explain why it’s in MPSIMS… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/36 "2017-05-14T22:38:22Z")
The President of the United States, at the very least was, and probably is a Birther. The complete bottom feeder of conspiracy theories. He also has tossed out multiple conspiracies of his own since election (Obama wire tapped me! 3 million illegal voters are why I didn’t win the popular vote! The Parks department doctored photos to make the inauguration crowd look small!). Let’s not mention his cozy relationship with crankmeister Alex Jones. Frankly, liberals would have a lot of catching up to do to get to right wing size and nonsense levels. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/37 "2017-05-16T12:17:25Z")
what surprises me, but it should not have, is that the Democratic reaction to Trump is the same as the Republican reaction to Obama. Leaving aside who was right/wrong-or better yet lets concede that both are wrong, it is sobering to realize how little the truth seems to effect people’s reactions. It is sad and dangerous in today’s world. And it forces me to ask what was really going on 30-50-100 years ago. I can only assume we were as easily misled and thoughtless back then and just didn’t know it. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/38 "2017-05-16T12:27:38Z")
This thread, not necessarily the content in the posts but the thread topic, is an example of how authoritarians use information (and misinformation) to control the message. They counter the purported factually-based characterizations of truth that are presented by news gathering outlets with synthetic truth that play on people’s natural information filters. I’ve said it elsewhere but it’s worth repeating that truth is not necessarily based on facts: it is constructed in the minds of all of us. And probably a good 35% of the population will see Trump’s “truth” regardless of what facts come to light. Trump’s truth speaks to their membership in a micro-culture, their limited perspective beyond their own personal life experiences, and their perceptions of the world based on those experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/39 "2017-05-16T18:57:47Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > I’ve said it elsewhere but it’s worth repeating that truth is not necessarily based on facts: it is constructed in the minds of all of us. And probably a good 35% of the population will see Trump’s “truth” regardless of what facts come to light. Trump’s truth speaks to their membership in a micro-culture, their limited perspective beyond their own personal life experiences, and their perceptions of the world based on those experiences. Nope, sorry, truth is ALWAYS based on facts. Being factual is the very nature of truth. Perception, on the other hand, can be based on any number of things - including perspective and life experiences. What one perceives or believes to be true requires no relationship at all to facts or actual truth. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253/40 "2017-05-17T02:35:29Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > Nope, sorry, truth is ALWAYS based on facts. Being factual is the very nature of truth. Perception, on the other hand, can be based on any number of things - including perspective and life experiences. What one perceives or believes to be true requires no relationship at all to facts or actual truth. Maybe what I meant to say was that “reality” is not based on facts. We each experience our own reality. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/donald-trump-is-turning-liberals-into-conspiracy-theorists/786253.md?page=1)