BlueAnon's Silly Trump Assassination Conspiracy Theories

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ABOUT: Rebecca Watson is the founder of the Skepchick Network, a collection of sites focused on science and critical thinking. She has written for outlets such as Slate, Popular Science, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. She's also the host of Quiz-o-tron, a rowdy, live quiz show that pits scientists against comedians. Asteroid 153289 Rebeccawatson is named after her (her real name being 153289).

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[legendaryfrog]

"That explanation is boring and confusing"
99% of all conspiracy theorists right there.

[CatherineKimport]

I heard someone say "Live your life in such a way that if you ever get shot in the ear on live television, nobody's gut reaction is 'ugh, I bet that was staged'"

[peterpodgorski]

Conspiracy theories are evidence people would rather believe politicians are competent and evil, than simply incompetent. Somehow incompetence is more frightening...

[davidcomito]

Just because you can think up a scenario that sounds plausible enough to be the plot of a movie doesn't mean that it gets to magically become the real story.

[Killroy]

Common tendancy to attribute opportunism to premeditation

[picahudsoniaunflocked]

I'm a lefty & I hate the way a lot of us were anti-science about GMOs.

[gail_blue]

“He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured.” [Donald Trump on John McCain]

[davexmit]

A hairdresser nicked my ear once, and it bled like a mf. Then a few days later there was barely evidence of a cut. Ears bleed badly.

[Robert-ywms]

I was reading a debunking of the conspiracy theories earlier and kept thinking "I bet Rebecca Watson is making a video about this" 😅

[VinnieGer]

Sigh, I hate having to be responsible and not go for the funny (this was staged because trump is a wrestling nerd) option.

[IRGeamer]

+1 respect for calling this out. I've been doing it in various comment sections but I have now been falsely reported for harassment for trying to prevent our side from wilfully legitimizing the "fake news" lie.

Baseless assertions for the purpose of de-legitimizing the opposition and propping up your narrative... Not even once... Not even to prove a point... Not even to support the moral side… Unless you don’t care at all about being part of the problem.

"If you hate something, don't you do it too.”
- Eddie Vedder "Not for You"

[SomniRespiratoryFlux]

My take on the whole thing is probably best echoed by Steve Shives' video on the topic, which, to paraphrase: Would I put it past Trump to stage something like this? Nah, not really. Is there enough fishy to be worth investigating? Sure. Is there evidence it was staged? Not really, and thus everyone not in a position to do the actual investgating should shut up. And it seems at least as likely, if not way more likely, that it was just that the guy whose whole life was built on pissing people off got someone pissed off enough to try to go after him. Which isn't to justify it at all, but still.

[Shampyon]

My fave argument against this being a conspiracy is Trump's personality. We can take an honest look at the man he is and ask ourselves, if Trump were to plan a fake assination attempt:

1. Would Trump allow himself to appear vulnerable for even a moment, just to make a point? From what I know of Trump, I believe he would engineer a situation where he is the unscathed hero who destroyed an enemy.

2. Would his assassin be a White Christian Republican son of a Libertarian, who once donated to a Democrat cause that attracted many Never Trump Republicans? From what I know of Trump, the assassin would be presented as an unequivocal leftist, migrant, queer person, or other such marginialised person.

3. Would Trump miss the opportunity to set up a press conference with the other victims of the shooter if he had foreknowledge? From what I know of Trump, he wouldn't. Skipping those opportunities seems more like the act of a man who was probably shaken by a brush with death, coping by diving back into familiar comforts like golfing in his own tightly controlled property.

[andrewcawdell]

Whether Donnie "took a bullet" or a shard is debatable, but there is a good chance he also took a shart.

[Sam_on_YouTube]

FYI, Smarter Every Day released a video yesterday that appears designed to spread misinformation on creationism. I don't know his beliefs or his intent, but I know what he has done and said both in past videos and this new one that really shook a lot of his fans.

He has never hid the fact that he's personally religious. But tons of religious people who are also well educated, intelligent, and scientifically curious as he seems to be still believe in evolution. And the ones who do good science communication do not try to spread antiscientific aspects of their personal religious beliefs as if they were based on science. Mark Rober is a devout Mormon, but you don't see him talking about engineering of golden tablets sent from God. If a creator wants to talk about their religious beliefs, great. But this video from Destin didn't do that. It was using really cool science to misinform about an antiscientific religious belief of his.

Here's what happened. He read a book by a creationist on irreducible complexity of flagella evolution. And he went and talked to some scientists about really cool cutting edge science on how flagella motors work. I don't know if he read the book first or started reading it after he already planned to talk about it. He didn't say in the video.

Either way, the video starts by saying the complexity and the necessity of every component raises real philosophical debate about the origin of life. It, in fact, does not. It is cool science and an interesting debate within evolutionary theory, but mainly because flagella don't fossilize, so we have to piece the evolution together by looking at extant organisms as well as lab experiments and simulations. Regardless, his video wasn't about evolution, it was about the molecular machinery, very cool science. Everything between the intro and the outro was great, as his videos always are.

Then, in the outro, he used more intelligent design buzz words, both sidesed the "debate" recommended a book by a creationist, and told people to look into it further. And in response to critical comments he told people to read the scientific papers. Anyone who doesn't already know this stuff who tries to look up papers using the buzz words he used, especially that author, will find creationist papers that appear, to a lay audience, to be scientific. But to anyone who knows the field, they are junk.

It was deeply disappointing from one of my favorite science communicatirs. I urge other science communicators and skeptics, who share a lot of his audience, to speak out about this.

[hiigguys]

I heard the him hit by shrapnel theory too. I believed it too because I thought it was so unimportant a detail. What did it matter if a bullet or shrapnel clipped him, he was still shot at and almost died. Who would be so petty to think that distinction matters? Apparently a lot of people.

[PrixyPurple]

As I said in my family group chat. Let’s assume incompetence over conspiracy until we have evidence to the contrary.

[davidcomito]

People can believe God pushed Trump out of the way but we should note that he didn't push Trump all the way out of the way.

[tinkywinky]

Rebecca, please save us from the Christian media machine's insane take on the Paris Olympics opening ceremony!!!

[BardovBacchus]

TBF, I think it is understandable that many didn't want to take anything at face value when it comes from a serial lying 'reality' TV celebrity and a party that regularly talks about false flag attacks. However, evidence is needed to take that position any further, in my not so humble opinion. I'm skeptical of the obvious, but that's all I can say. Thankfully, it may be a moot point now.