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From false claims of a “staged” assassination attempt on Donald Trump to a viral joke about his running mate having sex with a couch, American liberals are promoting wild conspiracy theories ahead of the election. The liberal and left-wing distortion of reality—termed “BlueAnon,” a play on the QAnon conspiracy cult—is creating information chaos on social media platforms.
Researchers note this trend highlights how Americans on both sides of the political spectrum are susceptible to outlandish conspiracy theories, turning to partisan influencers for information amid distrust of mainstream media. Shortly after former president Trump was hurried off stage with blood on his ear following a shooting at a Pennsylvania rally earlier this month, unsubstantiated claims emerged online suggesting the incident was “staged.”
Some users on the Elon Musk-owned platform X doubted the injuries by sharing a digitally altered image that appeared to show a burst ketchup packet tucked into his shirt collar. “It’s always a con and a grift,” wrote an X user named “Liberal Lisa in Oklahoma,” using the hashtag “Trump is not fit to be president.” AFP fact-checkers confirmed the image was altered. Other posts falsely accused Trump, who narrowly survived a volley of gunshots that killed a bystander and wounded two others, of staging the assassination attempt with fake blood capsules.
Despite being debunked, the claims seemed to resonate with voters. A recent poll by Morning Consult found that roughly one in five voters, including some Trump supporters, found it “credible that the shooting was staged and not intended to kill” the former president. “It’s definitely dark that many leftists are clinging to the idea that the shooting was fake,” Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy theory expert, told AFP. “It’s a bending of reality,” he said. “It means that nothing that comes out in social media in the first minutes can be trusted.”
Misinformation has also targeted Trump’s vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, with false claims that he wrote about having sex with a couch in his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy.” Last month, President Joe Biden’s poor performance in a prime-time debate with Trump led to unsubstantiated claims that the 81-year-old Democrat had been secretly drugged before the show. Many also criticized the mainstream press for tough coverage of Biden’s struggles with age, with some even calling it an “internal coup” in favor of Trump.
Timothy Caulfield, a misinformation expert from the University of Alberta in Canada, told AFP, “The left-leaning conspiracy theories and misinformation have always been there, but they’ve been drowned out by the off-the-rails noise on the right.” He added, “The recent debate debacle and assassination attempt created space—and a perceived need—for explanations that satisfy the liberal narrative. And the algorithms that control social media feeds amplify the segregation.”
The baseless theories, which continue to circulate in liberal circles despite being widely debunked, make it harder for ordinary users to distinguish fact from fiction. Many platforms have reduced trust and safety teams and scaled back content moderation efforts that were previously used to control misinformation. This includes X, where Musk—who recently endorsed Trump—reinstated hundreds of censored and banned users from the 2020 election cycle after purchasing the site in 2022.
Surveys show that Democrats now have a far more negative view of X and are increasingly moving to Threads, a platform launched by Meta to compete with X. Conspiracy theories have gained traction among liberals on Threads ahead of the election.
“The general disposition toward conspiratorial thinking is not a particularly partisan phenomenon. It’s something that sort of afflicts everybody,” Adam Enders, associate political science professor at the University of Louisville, told AFP. “It’s all just mental gymnastics to bring your beliefs in conformity with the world. And a reasonable way to do that would be to change your beliefs in light of evidence.”
