Donald John Trump sports the sort of vita that seems impossible, and so extensive and preposterous that it would even boggle Kurt Vonnegut’s mind.
Former U.S. President; real estate mogul; philanthropist; television star; golf guru; McDonalds pitchman and two-time SNL host, just to name a few that come from the top of my dome.
After his debate with the current Vice President and his Democratic opponent, Trump clearly has another title to add: connoisseur of conspiracy theories.
During the debate, Trump spoke about strange non-issues, such as taxpayer-subsidized “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison” and infanticide, as well as the one talking point that seemed to be the talk of the universal watercooler the next day: Haitian migrants stealing and eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.
My Wednesday morning/afternoon routine is pretty well-known among my feline brood, to the point that they don’t even try to barge into my home office as I’m churning out brilliant screeds, like what you have in front of you. I’m a singular-minded fellow, and focus is key, you see.
However, after that Tuesday night debate, I made sure that my pointy-eared tribe knew they weren’t at risk of any intruders, of Haitian origin or otherwise, coming in to kidnap them, but they could huddle in my office while I worked, if they were still frightened. Still, my old orange boy Wee and my sweet Siamese kitty, Lefty, guarded my chonky boi Scooter.
Now I get the appeal of conspiracy theories, I really do. Most folks think that they are harmful to those who spread them, as well as those who are around them, and that’s where I’m going with this particular dispatch.
However, on the other side of the coin, there is a theory in the psychology community that posits of how conspiracy theories are actually beneficial in that they give the perceiver’s worldview meaning and purpose in a rewarding manner.
A paper by Jan-Willem van Prooijen goes so far as to state that part of that benefit is conspiracy theories can “defend a fragile ego by perceiving themselves and their groups as important.”
There is strength in numbers, sure, and everyone seems to have an axe to grind. I get that.
I have a friend who is fond of saying “the more bizarre it sounds, the more likely it is to be true.” Now, as a pragmatist, albeit one who dabbles in various creative mediums, I can appreciate, and sometimes laugh, at a good conspiracy, but rarely do I find any of them even remotely plausible.
Being in the news business, one tends to be a magnet for such “information.”
Once, I encountered a gentleman who told me that the biggest threat to U.S. security was the Amish – that they’d secretly been creating rocketships for generations, flying to the moon and strip-mining its uranium to sell to the Chinese.
Now I’m no expert on the Amish, but it would seem that space exploration kinda runs counter to their value system.
Another time, many years ago, a former neighbor tried to convince me that then-president Barack Obama was releasing torrents of mind-controlling drugs into the nation’s water supply in order to control and enslave the population.
I can laugh at those, but there’s not a lot left to laugh about when a candidate for the highest office in the land spreads a baseless theory, which results in death threats and bomb scares to a community, most of whom, according to reports, are here in our country legally.
It would be irresponsible and dangerous for any politician, at any level, to be spouting off nonsense about pets being stolen and eaten, but to have a candidate for the office of the United States Presidency to do such demonstrates a need to refocus. Namely that focus needs to be placed upon actual issues affecting our nation.
Trucking in such rhetoric is beneath the office of the President, and hanging out with conspiranoid internet talking heads such as plastic-faced Laura Loomer is also not doing Mr. Trump’s campaign any favors.
Whoever his advisers are should seriously rethink the current strategies and tone down the strangeness and divisiveness.
To her credit, in Kamala Harris’s debate performance, although she did not provide the “how” to many of the promises she made, and in spite of her standard neo-liberalism, she did speak to the commonalities we share as Americans, in spite of differences in opinions on whatever – be it policy or favorite college football team. Nor do I recall Harris putting forth any strange views borne of a dark corner of the internet.
Maybe in some alternate dimension, some of these things that require a tin-foil hat to understand are taking place, but in the here and now, most Americans just want to live in a world without constant dread and fear-mongering; one that they can raise they kids and grandkids up in with a sunny look toward the future.
