How Trump's paranoia and conspiracy theories become US policy....
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/12/politics/trump-conspiracy-theories-jeffrey-epstein/index.html
The mind of Donald J. Trump. So normal. Well, conspiracy thinking has overtaken the popular imagination, and he's not the brightest:
1. Sen. Cruz's dad involved in JFK murder.
2. Justice Scalia may have been murdered.
3. Joe Scarborough involved in intern's death.
4. Clinton aide's death not a suicide.
5. Obama not an American citizen.
6. Sen. Rubio not eligible to run for president.
7. Sen. Cruz not eligible to run for president.
8. Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.
9. Muslim Americans celebrated on 9/11.
10. Millions voted illegally in 2016.
11. Global Warming a Chinese hoax.
12. Vaccines cause autism.
13. Windmills cause cancer.
14. Death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico was a lie.
15. Russia did not interfere in 2016 election.
16. The Clinton's are behind Epstein's death.
This is, nevertheless, a fun list. Why would anyone believe any of these things. OK, here's a few reasons....
1. Someone dug up some old pics, and did some superficial research on Cruz's dad. It showed the dad with some others who figure somehow in the events..... yah, no fingerprints on rifle, no bullet unique to the barreling pattern of that rifle. Just maybe someone who could have talked to someone involved..... yah, some people have questions. Trump found the pic and raised the question.....
2. Scalia, so far as people understood, died suddenly and some people wondered why. No information. No investigation was done. "may have been" is a statement that asserts possibility, not fact. Who knows.
3. I don't know anything about Joe or the intern. Statements like this need some reasoning. Red does not even give reasoning for his thinking here. Damn wonk.
4. I think there's some kind of count on suicides among Clinton associates.... some huge number, like in the sixties. The Clintons appear to be a suicide statistical cluster. A lot of scientists who notice statical clusters of say, cancer deaths or heart attacks, will propose research studies on the question, and get grants from NIH. A lot of ordinary folks just think something stinks.
9. There were reports about this, by people in the hood, so to speak. Of course, it was only aired on a few radio programs. Stuff was out there, about how the Israelis cleared out their offices before the planes came, about how in some NY clusters of muslims, it was known something was going to happen. No big guvmint investigation to determine the facts, or what investigation was done didn't address these rumors...... but again.... something some Americans had heard.
10. Probably the truth, if you consider California's voter registration practices and ballot collection practices. Hardly a system that could be audited. Nobody really policing voter registration drives. And pretty much the trend in a lot of predominantly dem areas. Nobody even comparing population stats with voter turnout in some places. As a statistical rule, in a binary ballot issue where Americans are concerned, voting that runs greater than 85% one way is pushing the credulousity limit. Maybe in Utah, the Mormons all vote for Mitt, but most Americans just don't really run like lemmings all the same way. There have been no really thorough efforts, anywhere, to prosecute voter fraud.
A more serious issue would be the ideological mindset of political wonks influenced by Marx, or various "community organizers" who actually believe it a moral good to use whatever tactics they can for their "cause".
5. Well, this is an outright strawman, Red. No one I know of has exactly said he was not "An American Citizen". I think the birthers were talking about whether he was born on US soil or to parents who were already US Citizens. Obama was a bit wonky about publishing his birth certificate. Some say he was born in Kenya or some where else. Some say his parents were communists. Some found pics of him in Indonesia as a schoolboy. I had not heard where Trump asserted this theory, but here in the US I believe it was started by Hillary Clinton. Political rhetoric, for whatever it's worth.
6 and 7. born to parents with possible foreign citizenship. No proofs given about US citizenship of parents, to that time, nor to the present that I know of. Fun stuff. Making other candidates go get birth certificates and prove their eligibility. Wonder why nobody really cared. Oh, yah. Obama didn't care either.
8. Looks like the facts have been brought to the public that a FISA warrant was issued on a Trump campaign aide, and the surveillance of phone conversations of the entire Trump campaign team was actually done. uh.... no damn hidden microphone in an office planter with a little tropical sorta plant like in the old days. Just recording every damn phone call via US government agency personnel. On a trumped up fake dossier paid for by Hillary through her law firm. Was Obama involved in the scheme..... a real possibility because he used Brennan literally as an errand boy to do stuff normally done by other government personnel.... like go talk to Putin as say a State Department or Embassy official normally would do, to get Putin to pull some troopes outta Syria. Now who the hell would ever expect Putin to be so open to the head of our CIA? oh, yah. Brennan lived in Moscow for years, and was someone Putin would talk to.
