“Since when did the Secret Service begin to allow pressure on the president to 'wait,' then stand up and punch the crowd?” A user posted on X “Can you blame me for thinking it's fake?”
The shooting threw into overdrive a phenomenon called “Blue Anon” — a play on the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon — which refers to liberal conspiracy theories online. As more Americans lose faith in mainstream institutions and turn to partisan commentators and influencers for information, experts say they are seeing a surge in the production and spread of Blue Anon conspiracy theories. , which is a sign that de facto sectarian warfare is essentially no longer occurring. the right.
“QAnon's paradigm of good versus evil has really captured the anti-Trump movement and you're seeing two sides that feel like they're fighting a war between good and evil,” said Mike Rothschild. , author of “The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything.” “This is coming from influential leftists and the liberal 'resistance' who believe Trump is so deranged that he faked his own assassination attempt to help his campaign.”
The theory was promoted by at least one influential Democrat: Dmitri Mehlhorn, a political adviser to Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, encouraged supporters in an email over the weekend to consider the “possibility” — which is scary in the U.S. And feels weird and funny, but it's pretty normal. Globally – … that the 'shooting' was encouraged and perhaps even staged so Trump could get photos and capitalize on the backlash.
He added: “No newspaper or pollster in America is willing to openly consider the possibility that Trump and Putin put this on purpose. Ask the questions, people.”
On Sunday, Mehlhorn apologized, saying he now regrets the email, which was drafted and sent without consulting team members or allies. In a text to The Washington Post, Mehlhorn wrote: “We must be united in condemning such violence at every opportunity without reservation. Any other topic is a distraction.”
While BlueAnon claims to bear no resemblance to the more extreme elements of QAnon — including false accusations of Satan worship and pedophilia among liberal elites — they echo QAnon's view that Trump is the one to remove. A secret deep state cabal is at work. (The QAnon plot has been repeatedly foiled, but many followers participated in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.)
In the world of Blue Anon, shadowy forces, including the mainstream media, are working to destroy President Biden's candidacy and restore Trump to power on November 5th. Karl Fock, a researcher studying authoritarianism and radicalism at the University of Augsburg in Minneapolis and founder of the Institute of Unrealism, a disinformation research initiative, said that “a more conspiratorial mindset has become more evident in liberal circles over the past eight months.”
Originally coined in 2021 by conservative social media users to mock news coverage, such as the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the term “BlueAnon” has since been coined by people in the political arena. used to describe foreign conspiracies. And denials from Biden supporters. The term took on new meaning and significance last month when Biden's disastrous performance during a prime-time debate with Trump on CNN sparked a battle over Biden's fitness for office, with many Democrats calling 81 It also includes calls for the president to step down.
Social media users with a history of supporting Biden falsely claimed the president was secretly drugged before the debate. (Biden blamed his poor performance on jet lag and a bad cold.) He offered a conspiracy theory that actor George Clooney, a staunch Biden supporter, had convinced the president to drop out of the race after a New York Times op-ed. demanded. As part of a wider revenge plot inspired by Biden's support of Israel in the Gaza war. (The Clooney Foundation for Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) And they claim, without evidence, that ABC News doctored the audio of Biden during an interview with George Stephanopoulos so that he could appear on July 5. It was aired in prime time. The White House hoped that would restore confidence in Biden's power. (ABC News declined to comment.)
Last week, liberal writer and professor Seth Abramson posted in threads on X and his nearly 900,000 followers that he believed the intense media coverage of Biden's struggle was “not organic” and “the closest thing to an internal uprising America has had.” Seen since Trump tried to do it in 2020 at the DOJ.
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“This is Democrat QAnon,” journalist Ken Klappenstein posted alongside a screenshot of a Biden supporter claiming CNN intentionally framed Biden badly during the debate.
While Elon Musk's X remains a hotbed of conspiracy theories and disinformation, experts said Meta's text-centric platform Threads BlueAnon has emerged as a hotbed of conspiracy content. Although Meta has taken steps to actively discourage political debate on the platform, which was launched a year ago to emulate Twitter, the site has emerged as a haven for Democrats who have left Twitter after buying Musk's platform, renaming it X, and reviving it. Accounts of many right-wing influencers.
Chicago photographer Chad Leverens, a Biden supporter, was among those who argued on threads after the debate that Biden should not be the Democratic nominee. He said he was immediately hit by a wave of attacks.
“It was, 'This is elitist,' 'Don't believe the polls,' and 'This is a conspiracy because the deep state doesn't want Biden to be president anymore,'” Leverens said. “It was Trumpism. I felt, 'Oh my God, this has affected everything.'
Meta declined to comment.
Rothschild said that this strand of left-wing conspiracy thinking arises when people are unwilling to accept developments that challenge their worldview or a complex and fast-moving media climate. Struggling to navigate the air. He said the online hyper-partisan environment and low public trust in the media could make this leap easier.
“What you're seeing now is an intense conspiracy by both political parties in America,” said Imran Ahmed, founder and chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hatred. “Conspiracy theories provide an easy story that people can tell themselves that gives them a reason not to engage with reality as it is.”
On Sunday, right-wing social media accounts were pushing their own conspiracy theories about the Trump rally shooting.
On X, Trump's true social and pro-Trump message board Patriots.win, the shooting was described without evidence as a botched execution by shady Democrats or by the “deep state” to preserve its grip on Washington. Presented as “Internal Employment”. Some right-wing posters with millions of online followers shared theories that the Secret Service's failure to prevent the attack was premeditated, or that the agency was distracted by weak or divergent measures. Musk himself questioned whether the mistake was “intentional.”
Right-wing influencers and provocateurs, including longtime Trump associate Roger Stone, shared names and photos alleging that the shooter was actually an anti-Trump protester, an “Antifa extremist” or — in a strange twist. – was an Italian soccer journalist. He also widely shared a video of an online troll who said he fired the shots because he hated Republicans, and that he survived the attack. Conservative conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich also alleged that the shooting was part of an FBI conspiracy to inspire “copycat attacks”.
Leftist accounts focused primarily on conspiracy theories that the shooting was staged. Hours before the news broke, dozens of influencers posted to the effect that two people were dead — a rally-goer and the suspected shooter — and others were injured.
But some prominent anti-Trump accounts suggested the deaths were part of the show. “I can totally see Trump 'sacrificing' one of his cult followers to make his 'assassination attempt' more realistic and believable,” tweeted pro-Democrat influencer @LakotaMan1 to his half million followers. Wrote more than X followers. On Sunday morning, she posted a photo of Trump after the shooting with the caption: “Fake blood. A reverse.[down] American flag. I'm not buying it. So perfect.”
While Facebook, YouTube and TikTok have taken steps to curb the spread of QAnon content in recent years, by suspending prominent accounts and blocking related hashtags and search results, conspiracy theorists still X and Rumble. As platforms are flourishing. Ahmed predicted that taking on Blue Anon would also be an uphill battle.
Early Sunday, as more details emerged about the tragedy, at least one Biden supporter recognized what was happening and tried to back off. “My knee-jerk reaction to the shooting of a Trump rally appears to be a miscalculation,” wrote the woman, whose Threads profile identifies her as a “strong dame.” “Trump has completely shattered any possible trust or faith in him as a person that I immediately questioned the validity of this incident. I was wrong.”
But other users with a history of posting pro-Biden messages seemed unsatisfied.
“Trust your instincts,” one user responded. There is no limit to what Trump will do to secure the November election.
Drew Harwell, Michael Shearer and Ennis Morris contributed to this report.