Trump’s conspiracy theories poison the mind

One morning, the president experienced severe stomach cramps. Since he had a milkshake for breakfast, he decided it was because his milk was poisoned. In fact, he was crampy all day, and the next, so he figured it must be a conspiracy and that all the milk was poisoned.

“America’s milk has been poisoned! This is an outrage! It’s a vast conspiracy to give me cramps!” he proclaimed to the nation and pointed to his distended stomach as proof.

Soon the president devoted all his energies to complaining about his cramps and warning the nation that they couldn’t trust their milk. “They poisoned all the milk! No cramps if milk not poisoned. Cows have been compromised! Stop drinking milk now!”

The president’s closest friends and supporters rallied to his side, pledging to protect him from cramps and expose the conspiracy. “We know that tens of thousands of cows have conspired to produce poison milk. We will pursue every legal avenue available to us to make sure this milk is eradicated from the nation’s diet, and hold those responsible for this outrageous crime accountable,” they shouted, filing lawsuits in states where chocolate milk was more prevalent that white milk.

The strange thing was people were still drinking milk and no one else was reporting cramps. Millions of Americans were eating ice cream, yogurt and cheese and living cramp-free. What’s more, no one was coming forward to report on attempts to poison the milk or the cows. Such a vast national conspiracy would involve thousands of accomplices, but no one was testifying that they witnessed deliberate acts of poisoning.

Nevertheless, in the absence of any real evidence of the plot, the president was relentless in his insistence that the nation’s milk supply was no longer trustworthy. “Milk is poison! We have ironclad proof !”

Millions of Americans followed the president’s proclamations faithfully and were convinced that if the president stated that the milk was poisoned, it must be poisoned; otherwise the president would have to be lying. That possibility was unthinkable!

So they followed the president’s commands and stopped drinking milk, and insisted that everyone else stop drinking it, too. Further, they accused people who continued to drink milk of being co-conspirators

and enemies of the state who took pleasure in the president’s crampy tummy.

The people responsible for regulating the dairy industry in their states felt compelled to publicly affirm the safety and health of their milk. “We have no evidence of our milk being poisoned. In fact, we’re absolutely confident that our milk is safe for consumption.”

The president blasted these people as dupes of the conspiracy and questioned their personal loyalty to him. His followers threatened to kill them.

The president called politicians in several states that contained large portions of chocolate milk-drinkers and told them to kill their cows and replace them with cows he personally selected. Some agreed, some disagreed, but secretly they all continued to drink milk.

The threats on the part of the president and his supporters became more and more extreme. People began to be afraid to be seen consuming dairy products in public. In some districts, schools were forced to remove milk from their menus, and children could only drink soda products that the president, or members of his family, had a financial interest in.

In time, the dairy industry began to feel the pressure of the boycotts. Milk consumption dropped drastically in some states, to the point where farms that had been in families for generations went out of business, and farmers had to kill their herds and sell off their homesteads. Cheese, yogurt and ice cream producers also felt the pain and had to shut down plants and lay off employees.

Still, no one was dying of poisoned milk, yet dairy products in America suffered such serious losses that people wondered if they would ever recover, and if they would ever be able to eat ice cream in public again.

Because, you see, the president was right. There was a conspiracy and it succeeded — only it wasn’t a conspiracy to poison milk, but rather to poison minds.