Conservative columnist and commentator Matt Lewis thinks that conspiracies about President Donald Trump have reached a whole new level, and he’s sounding the alarm. Writing for The Hill on Friday, Lewis commented that, for someone known for creating so many conspiracy theories, it has become a “live by the sword — die by the sword” life in the second term of Trump’s presidency. For the past ten years, nothing Trump said or did could bring him down. His conspiracies about former President Barack Obama and false claims that Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets have been mocked, but didn’t bring him down. “To be sure, Trump defenders will note that Democratic conspiracy theories (‘Russia-gate,’ for example) have also been aimed at Trump,” said Lewis. “Yes, but Trump legitimately invited scrutiny, and credible analyses rejected the most extreme conclusions anyway — for example, the existence of a ‘pee tape’ or the notion that Russia somehow manipulated election results or otherwise rigged the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.”There also happens to be the numerous prosecutions and convictions around the Russia scandal, while conspiracy theories are false. Ironically, now Trump is the target of conspiracy theories himself. There are scores of videos from people who think Trump is mere days away from dying. Others think he has dementia. But the real problem for Trump has come from the investigation files around trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. “Trump’s failure to release Epstein files was probably the inflection point. But more recently, the conspiratorial thinking about Trump has metastasized,” said Lewis. After Trump posted an AI photo of himself as Jesus Christ, rumors spread about whether he was the Anti-Christ. Even onetime pal Tucker Carlson posed the question. An evangelical preacher asked whether Trump might be possessed by a demon. That conversation took a turn into a new conspiracy theory. “Inevitably, this theological turn led to interpretations of the 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. Some figures, like Ali Alexander (of ‘Stop The Steal’ fame), turned to the Book of Revelation, suggesting that ‘There is biblical prophecy in Revelation 13:3 apparently about the Antichrist being struck on the head,'” he said. Comedian and podcaster Tim Dillon questioned whether Trump and his allies could have “staged” the assassination “show people how important it was to vote for [Trump] and how far [he] was willing to go for them.”So, it’s clear MAGA hasn’t stopped its crafting of conspiracy theories, just who they’ve pointed to as the new target. Lewis thinks it is indicative of a public that has lost trust in institutions as a whole as well as “common reality.” “And yes, that is a huge problem. But it is also difficult to ignore the cosmic irony: Trump spent years encouraging the very style of thinking that now has people claiming he is the Antichrist who faked his own assassination attempt,” the columnist closed.
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