Conspiracy, the ultimate Trump card
List of adversaries widens to include ‘global power structure’ against him
Donald Trump has indulged in conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birthplace, the FBI’s “rigged” probe of Hillary Clinton, the Federal Reserve’s “political” agenda and whether Ted Cruz’s father was linked to the killing of John F. Kennedy.
With his presidential campaign in full-blown crisis on Thursday, Trump was at it again, putting a new spin on a familiar tactic.
This time, there was a bigger, badder villain — “a global power structure” of corporate interests, the media and Clinton. This time, it was about him. “They knew they would throw every lie they could at me and my family and my loved ones,” said Trump at a rally in West Palm Beach, Fla. “They knew they would stop at nothing to try to stop me. But I never knew, as bad as it would be, I never knew it would be this vile, that it would be this bad, that it would be this vicious.”
On Friday, Donald Trump again claimed that “this whole election is being rigged.”
Trump, speaking in North Carolina, repeated his incendiary claim that the November election was not being conducted honestly. That’s an unprecedented assertion that challenges America’s tradition of peaceful democracy.
The Republican nominee said “the process is rigged” and declared that “the whole thing is one big fix.”
Trump also blasted the media, claiming coverage of him has been biased. His latest target was Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who owns a share of The New York Times.
Trump declared that “we can’t let” Slim influence the election. Trump has also threatened to sue The New York Times over a story featuring two of the women who have accused him of sexual assault.
In the face of mounting accusations from women that he groped and kissed them without their consent, dozens of media outlets carefully vetting their claims and a Clinton campaign eager to exploit worries about his behaviour toward women, Trump decided to lump them together.
“For those who control the levers of power in Washington, and for the global special interests, they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind. Our campaign represents a true existential threat like they haven’t seen before,” Trump said.
“He is not just talking about Obama’s birth certificate. He is talking about himself,” said Mark Fenster, a University of Florida law professor and author of a book about conspiracy theories and American culture. “This now becomes a much more personal enterprise about him.”
A day earlier, Trump appeared to allege, without evidence, that House Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP elected officials who distanced themselves from him were involved in a mass scheme to undermine him.
“There’s a whole deal going on — we’re going to figure it out. I always figure things out. But there’s a whole sinister deal going on,” he said.
While spreading information ranging from the questionable to the outright inaccurate with no evidence — a distinctive feature of his campaign — Trump often qualifies his ideas by attributing them to unnamed “people” he claims are speaking about them.
Some of the ideas he has embraced have been denounced by critics who charged that they were racially or culturally derogatory.
Last year, Trump said he saw “thousands” of Muslims celebrating in New Jersey as the World Trade Center buildings fell during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down,” Trump said on ABC News in November. “I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down.”
Fact checkers found no evidence to support his claim.
Trump said Thursday that the world had reached “a moment of reckoning.” He told his backers that his campaign is “not about me; it’s about all of you, and it’s about our country.” He portrayed the powers he says have banded together to rally against him and his advocates as ruthless and cunning.
“They will attack you; they will slander you; they will seek to destroy your career and your family; they will seek to destroy everything about you, including your reputation,” Trump said. “They will lie, lie, lie, and then again they will do worse than that; they will do whatever is necessary.”