The New Statesman: The alarming rise of BlueAnon

[Fiendish Thingy]

https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2024/07/donald-trump-conspiracy-theories-blueanon

I’m really worried about my adoptive homeland, the United States. It isn’t just that a would-be assassin targeted Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday 13 July. Horrifying as the public attempt on the life of one of the two major-party presidential nominees was, it was far from unprecedented in an extraordinarily violent, heavily armed country with a veritable tradition of murdered political leaders. Equally alarming was the speed with which the event became the subject of feverish conspiracy theorising, particularly among liberals who normally mock Trump supporters for doing the same thing.

Behold the rise of “BlueAnon” – the Democratic, upscale equivalent of the right’s QAnon conspiracy theories, according to which an elite cabal of child-molesting Satanists has manifested in the Democratic Party and is out to “steal” elections while destroying the “Make America great again” movement. Now, it seems, it is the left who see covert plots everywhere.

-snip-

Think through what is being claimed here: that Donald Trump, presumably with an assist from the US secret service and security apparatus, staged a shooting that resulted in the death of at least two people, including the attempted assassin, and that almost lodged a bullet in his own temple – all in order to get a polling boost in an election he was widely predicted to win before the events of 13 July. Such claims are no less absurd than those that say Hillary Clinton runs a paedophile ring.

-snip-

The purveyors of these left-coded conspiracy theories laugh at their right-wing counterparts, depicting them as delusional and malignant. And that’s the most depressing dimension of all this. Though one side still claims to be above such behaviour, Americans have reached a point in our national life in which those both sides of the partisan divide immediately resort to spinning conspiracy theories over any historical event.

It’s going to be just that much harder to defeat Trump if we don’t stay firmly rooted in the reality based community, and allow ourselves to be distracted and manipulated by evidence-free conspiracy theories.

[shrike3]

1. There have been conspiracy theories ever since I remember.

JFK. MLK. On and on. There's no BlueAnon, there are just people in every crowd who like to believe in conspiracies.

[BootinUp]

2. So Q Anon is a real thing for years before MSM reports on it, but in one day, there is now an equivalent

on the left. In my opinion you are falling for some major BS propaganda.

That is not to say there are not nutballs proposing CT. But it appears to be an insignificant thing to me.

[rainin]

3. There's no evidence he was struck by a bullet, is there?

Initially there was no evidence he was struck by anything, except his dramatic ear grab and some red goop that could be anything, including blood, but not known to be blood. So we're left to believe that he cares more about the lives of his followers than winning the election. Lol. Only his cult would believe that. He's not above staging an assassination attempt. Be real. He'd do exactly that if it helped him win. It's on those investigating this incident to uncover the whole truth. He does not deserve the assumption that he isn't involved somehow.

[FakeNoose]

7. Or Pootie might have done it for him

... since he's had so much practice in that regard.

[Ocelot II]

4. It's not much different from the 9/11 conspiracy theories.

People were all abuzz with MIHOP/LIHOP speculation. It's the kind of thing that happens when there's a major event involving an adversary and you want to believe the absolute worst about them, so you fill up information holes with "facts" that satisfy what you want to believe. It wasn't sufficient to accept that Bush and Cheney were negligently dismissive of intelligence reports about Al Qaeda, which was bad enough; people wanted to think they'd caused 9/11. We all hate Trump with the fire of a thousand suns, so it's far more satisfying to think the assassination attempt was staged for his political benefit instead of the act of some sad incel kid who craved attention and couldn't find a school in session to shoot up.

[usonian]

5. So the latest conspiracy theory is that the Democrats are conspiracy theory peddlers?

This takes the frickin cake.



Projection to the zillionth degree.

[Skittles]

6. alrighty then

if theories propped up about anything with Trump being STAGED it's because he is a FUCKING CON MAN and everything about him is FAKE - that is HARDLY the equivalent of Q

[Scruffy1]

8. Bullshit is bullshit.

This article is bullshit. No facts or evidence.

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. The evidence is all around you

You haven’t seen the hundreds of posts claiming the shooting was staged?