A pro-Trump wellness influencer and a suburban Democrat share a conspiracy theory - how did it spread so far?

Wild Mother - the online alias of a woman called Desirée - lives in the mountains of Colorado, where she posts videos to 80,000 followers about holistic wellness and bringing up her little girl. She wants Donald Trump to win the presidential election.

About 70 miles north in the suburbs of Denver is Camille, a passionate supporter of racial and gender equality who lives with a gaggle of rescue dogs and has voted Democrat for the past 15 years.

The two women are poles apart politically - but they both believe assassination attempts against Mr Trump were staged.

Their views on the shooting in July and the apparent foiled plot earlier this month were shaped by different social media posts pushed to their feeds, they both say.

I travelled to Colorado - which became a hotbed of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen - for the BBC Radio 4 podcast Why Do You Hate Me? USA. I wanted to understand why these evidence-free staged assassination theories seemed to have spread so far across the political spectrum and the consequences for people like Camille and Wild Mother.

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

  • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.winEnglish
    85·
    3 months ago

    Wild Mother - the online alias of a woman called Desirée - lives in the mountains of Colorado, where she posts videos to 80,000 followers about holistic wellness and bringing up her little girl. She wants Donald Trump to win the presidential election.

    Bingo! That’s all my squares filled for Wackadoodle Bingo

    • Influencer
    • Holistic Wellness
    • free space
    • Disseminating personal info of offspring
    • Donald sycophant
  • Optional@lemmy.world
    68·
    3 months ago

    Already sceptical that something did not add up, Camille turned to X for more answers.

    sigh

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
    511·
    3 months ago

    “Hey, let’s talk to two people whose only qualifications are a shameless willingness to post whatever crazy shit enters their skulls about their conspiracy theories.”

    “Should we also talk to ballistics experts and mental health professionals to get a sense of how reasonable it is to think that these plans were staged?”

    “Too expensive, I’m already flying first class and staying in five star accommodations in Denver.”

    • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
      6·
      3 months ago

      The article isn’t focused on questioning the expertise of ballistic experts or debating whether events were staged. Instead, it assumes that any reasonable reader isn’t a conspiracy theorist. Surely you know that?

      The real focus is on the spread and impact of conspiracy theories. The headline highlights a specific example where individuals from two different political backgrounds and towns arrived at the same conspiratorial conclusion, despite receiving information from entirely different sources and completely different justifications.

      If your aim is to understand how conspiracy theorists—an increasingly widespread group—come to adopt and believe these theories through their media consumption, then these individuals are entirely appropriate subjects for interviews.

    • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
      42·
      3 months ago

      I wouldn’t either. What I would find doubtful is him trusting in the marksmanship of that rando kid that tried at his outdoor rally, to miss instead of accidentally tagging him.

      The second guy just generally reeks of crazy dude.

      • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
        111·
        3 months ago

        The part that gets me is how utterly unbelievable it is that the Secret Service did not secure a nearby roof with a clear line of site to where Trump would be speaking and then allowed a kid with a rifle to climb up there during the speech and they didn’t notice? Cops noticed. Audience members noticed. But the Secret Service didn’t? They just didn’t notice a huge gaping hole in their defenses while guarding a former president and current candidate? I know the saying is that you shouldn’t ascribe to malevolence what can be adequately explained by incompetence, but come on. Incompetence just cannot do this kind of heave lifting.

        • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
          14·
          3 months ago

          They frankly don’t have the manpower to secure every rooftop, that’s not a reasonable expectation. He was spotted earlier on the roof supposedly, but they can’t simply start shooting at every guy on a roof. A guy on a roof at a public gathering is not a confirmed threat.

          Now if they saw his rifle because he had lifted it, instead of keeping it laid down, that would look suspicious to me.

          • Boddhisatva@lemmy.world
            9·
            3 months ago

            They frankly don’t have the manpower to secure every rooftop

            That could certainly be the case but they were working with other law enforcement agencies and have already admitted that they did not give clear instructions to local police that the rooftop needed to be secured.

            While there were discussions before the rally about how the AGR building and a nearby property were going to be secured, Rowe said there should have been more clear direction about what the Secret Service needed. He noted that on the day of the rally, there were issues identified with respect to the line-of-sight to Trump that were not brought to the attention of supervisors.

            Also,

            He was spotted earlier on the roof supposedly, but they can’t simply start shooting at every guy on a roof. A guy on a roof at a public gathering is not a confirmed threat.

            No, but a guy on a roof with a rifle, particularly a rifle pointed at the target you are supposed to be protecting, sure as hell is a confirmed threat. Had they been paying attention to that roof, they certainly would have shot him before he got any shots off. Just like the agent in Florida started shooting immediately when he saw a rifle barrel sticking through the fence at the golf course.

            • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
              2·
              3 months ago

              Yes, if a rifle is sighted. He crawled up to the peak of the building, he was not particularly visible. If you watch the video, the secret service snipers were already scanning that direction with motivation, so they were aware something might be up. Likely looking for visual confirmation of a gun.

              There was not much time between when he peeked the roof and when he started firing, partially because an officer comes the roof and saw him, which rushed the shooter. If the police officer hadn’t dropped off the roof when the shooter turned to him, that might have prevented the shooter. But I don’t necessarily feel your average cop has enough training to move towards danger with a high likelihood of being shot in that situation.

              More important, in my opinion, is the fact that the secret service snipers do/should have that type of training and FLINCHED AWAY FROM THEIR SCOPES/RIFLES AND HAD TO RE-ACQUIRE THE SHOOTER after he had already started shooting. That was the most insane part to me, and definitely cost them several vital seconds. Their training definitely didn’t show in that moment.

              Don’t even get me started on them letting Trump have a photo op before the area was secured with his head and chest fully exposed, unmoving, and perfectly silhouetted seconds after an assassination attempt or the 5’5 agent hiding behind the podium and then pretending to give body coverage to someone a foot taller than they were. Not like the upper chest and head are vital areas or anything.

              Lots of huge mistakes that day. It’s no wonder the head of the secret service resigned.

            • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
              11·
              3 months ago

              Agreed. But until a rifle is sighted all you could do is call it in and have someone go check it out. You also wouldn’t want to just focus in and watch the guy when you’re supposed to be watching an entire area for any potential threats.

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
        8·
        3 months ago

        He could have told someone to do it, and then completely forgot about the entire thing. He doesn’t need to be told the details.

        But I think only him getting shot it the ear was fake. That’s a perfect spur of the moment thing to act like a victim.

        • nfh@lemmy.world
          14·
          3 months ago

          A really minor grazing could draw blood as seemed to happen at the first attempt, but heal within several days, which explains all the evidence I’ve seen.

          Dramatically exaggerating a minor wound to maximize the benefit to him seems exactly what Trump would do in that situation.

      • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
        52·
        3 months ago

        That’s operating under the assumption that Trump was actually shot and it wasn’t just a blood pack. His ear looked perfectly normal a few days later.

        Plus there’s the fact that he was spotted by security with his rifle like 20 minutes before he started shooting.

        • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          3 months ago

          Spotted earlier with a rangefinder, not a rifle. You also wouldn’t need a big chunk of your ear missing or something to make a little bit of blood splatter. A graze could do it, and could easily be covered up a day later by some makeup or his usual orange bodypaint.

          The evidence just isn’t very convincing.

          • orclev@lemmy.world
            51·
            3 months ago

            Ultimately that’s the problem, the evidence isn’t very compelling either way. Could it have happened exactly the way Trump claimed? Yes, it’s certainly possible, and Trump also isn’t likely to sign off on someone actually taking a shot at him. On the other hand that gaping hole on the secret service security perimeter is very suspicious, and Trump is exactly the kind of person to fake an assassination plot to drum up support. Lastly the bleeding ear (which Trump hammed up considerably in the following days) could be explained either by a very small graze or a blood pack.

            It’s just a very weird situation with lots of upsides for Trump but one possibly very bad downside if things go wrong. Trump is a natural born grifter so it’s very easy and tempting to assume anything shady and beneficial to him that he could have had a hand in, he did.

            • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
              4·
              3 months ago

              Ok but this feels like ascribing a level of competence to trump and his team that feels unrealistic. Without evidence in favor of it I’m hesitant to consider conspiracy especially considering where conspiratorial thinking has led a lot of people

            • Carrolade@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              3 months ago

              While yes, it is theoretically possible some blood pack was the culprit, I’d think that’d have shown up in some photos by now. He was surrounded by people recording him after all.

              I also don’t find the security hole to be very suspicious. I think overall people give the Secret Service far more credit than they deserve. It’s not some foolproof organization with unlimited resources and no history of big fuckups. It’s a moderately staffed organization with a whole bunch of different duties that stretch their resources, and that is prone to occasional failures and people not taking the job sufficiently seriously. I recall a bunch of them getting drunk and hiring prostitutes while overseas a number of years ago?

              Really I don’t find it that weird at all, the simplest explanation seems to fit all the evidence perfectly well. People just don’t like boring answers when there are exciting alternatives.

            • Asidonhopo@lemmy.worldEnglish
              2·
              3 months ago

              I don’t subscribe to the fake attempt for the first one but Trump did appear on the WWE (was it still WWF then?) and he did have Hulk.Hogan at the convention. If anyone knows how to use fake blood or how to cause a scratch that bleeds profusely for the crowd, it’s those guys.

    • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      3 months ago

      I don’t think Trump and his team are competent enough to do that in an untraceable way, without getting caught. That would require reaching out to a bunch of folks anonymously, KGB-style, and bringing them all along until one or two decide to just do the thing already.

      I wonder who could pull that off?

      • odelik@lemmy.today
        1·
        3 months ago

        /conspiracy-hat

        Putin is getting the mentally unstable to commit fake assisnation attempts on Trump.

        /rational-hat

        Trump has just made people that are prone to poor rational thinking and emotional outbursts ravenous for some sort of internal war to begin. His continued rileing of his base and supporters on fictional doomsdays approaching has finally gotten people that are on edge to finally toppled off that edge and commit their crimes.

    • aname@lemmy.one
      2·
      3 months ago

      Not even trump is dumb enough to order his ear to be shot with öive rounds.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 months ago

      He’s the type, but I also think of the reichstag fire. Fascists don’t need to fake attacks against them, they need to call the shot then continue escalating at a reasonable pace. Either they get attacked and can clamp down or they just walk their way into what they wanted.

  • chakan2@lemmy.worldEnglish
    225·
    3 months ago

    What kind of a bizzaro story is that. Two nutjob online influencers have an opinion.

  • Soup@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    2·
    3 months ago

    And to think, on the day of- I was saying that shit was fake as a three dollar bill and got my comments removed.