Don’t Spread Baseless Conspiracy Theories About The Assassination Attempt

Lying to yourself and others is a tactical and moral error.

As everyone probably knows, Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt yesterday. And, to no one’s surprise, social media is not covering itself in glory in the aftermath.

Of course, many on the right are already floating rabid conspiracy theories arguing with no evidence that the shooter was somehow radicalized by Democrats who pointed out (accurately) that Trump is a threat to democracy.

But progressives have not been particularly sober or responsible either. Some commenters are insisting (with little historical evidence, and no polling) that Trump being shot at assures him of victory in November. Even more irresponsibly, many people who should know better are speculating—utterly without evidence, or, I should say, in the face of all the evidence we have so far—that the shooting was a false flag operation, which must have been organized by Trump himself.

The incentives to believe this nonsense are obvious enough. Trump remains a terrifying threat to democracy and an evil man. People do not like to admit that bad things can happen to bad people, because they do not want to sympathize or express any level of concern for bad people who are threatening them. False flag conspiracy theories allow you to turn the victim into the perpetrator, which is a lot more comfortable when the victim is someone as horrible as Trump.

Beyond that, uncertainty is very uncomfortable and unpleasant. The election has huge stakes; an assassination attempt is frightening and destabilizing, and its hard to tell how, or if, it will change the course of the campaign or of the country. Nobody wants to wait for partial and possibly unsatisfying answers.

In that context, peremptorily rejecting official information, and insisting you have already figured out the exciting and validating plot, is very tempting. It appeals to our sense of naïve cynicism—the gullible belief that if you believe nothing reported by mainstream or valid sources, you can never be gullible. Just presume it’s all some scam, and you can dispense with the anxiety of uncertainty. Fool yourself first and you don’t have to worry about anyone else doing it. Sometimes the easiest mark is the mark who’s desperate not to be a mark.

Again, I get it. I also, personally, myself do not want to sympathize in any way with Trump; I also, personally, myself am nervous about the future, which is, now as always, notoriously hard to predict. But rushing to despair and/or to conspiracy theories (which are in many cases I think a variation of despair) is both a moral and tactical failure.

It’s a tactical failure for the obvious reason that you can’t act effectively to change the status quo if you’re deluding yourself about the status quo. Convincing yourself that Trump is automatically going to win now, and/or convincing yourself that Trump controls all, even unto the assassination attempts on his person—both of those are essentially calls for hopelessness and surrender. People present arguments and stances like this as bravely anti-establishment. But announcing that the establishment is all powerful isn’t opposing the establishment. It’s declaring you’re giving up because the anxiety and fear of dealing with actual events is too much for you to face.

Which is part of where the moral failure comes in. Retreating into paranoia and denial rather than standing up for ourselves and others is wrong and harmful. The people hurt and injured by the shooter deserve better than to have their suffering waved away by those who feel that said suffering makes them uncomfortable. And the people Trump promises to harm—Black people, trans people, women, journalists, political opponents, Democrats—deserve better than to be told their situation is hopeless and the battle is already over.

In Aliens, Bill Paxton’s character at one point, as the alien monsters close in, shouts, famously, “Game over, man! Game over!” He says that because he’s scared, and he doesn’t want to keep being scared. He wants to convince himself the worst has already happened so he doesn’t have to keep thinking about, and working to forestall, the worst. And he says it because there’s some sense of control in giving up that you don’t have if you keep trying.

Fighting fascism is an uncertain, terrifying business. Conspiracy theories offer certainty. But you can’t plan, or act, or offer needed solidarity in an uncertain, changing situation if you’ve already retreated into a web of nonsense.

For once, the Democratic party leaders have it basically right. They’ve all been tweeting that political violence is wrong and must be repudiated—and that’s it.  They haven’t been speculating about the identity of the shooter (still not reported in most outlets at the time of writing.) They haven’t been spinning possible motives. They are for the most part trying to honor the victims by waiting for more details, and trying to honor their duty to their constituents by waiting till they have actual information before deciding on the best way to proceed with the efforts to defeat fascism at the ballot box.

There will be more details about the shooter over the next few days (there may already be by the time you read this.) We’ll also have a sense pretty quickly as to whether the shooting has caused some sort of massive rally round the flag effect and boosted Trump’s poll numbers. The best thing to do until then is just wait—and keep on working and donating and speaking up for politicians and organizations who are working to defeat Trump and to help those he targets. Fascism and conspiracy theories thrive together; we should work to resist both.