Ooh baby, that’s hard to change
I can’t tell them how to feel
Some get stoned, some get strange
But sooner or later, it all gets real
Walk on, walk on – Neil Young, “Walk On” (1974)
We had a presidential election. Donald Trump won. Again. This time, by a lot.
I’m not an expert in political trends and forces, and I don’t have the training to dig through the data and explain why it happened or what Democrats could have done to stop it. The country has veered hard to the right for a lot of reasons, some economic, some based in fear, and some just because America veers to the right when things get tough. Books will be written about why Trump won and Harris lost, and I’m not the person to write them.
But I am something of an expert on disinformation and conspiracy theories. This was an election that was utterly infused with them, just as Trump’s entire political persona is based in them. I’ve written a lot, and will write more, about how we got here. But I want to take a little time while my mind is still a sleep-deprived jumble to write about what might happen in the conspiracist sphere during a second Trump term.
Trump won by exploiting the Appeal to Fear and Appeal to Tradition
While Trump’s 2024 campaign was sloppy, undisciplined, and borderline incompetent at times; he had a message and he stuck to it. The message was that bad people are out to get you, things used to be better, and I will fix it. He appealed to the fear and nostalgia of his audience, and it worked. Migrants will rape you unless you vote for Trump. Want eggs to be cheap like they used to be? Vote for Trump. It’s simplistic, but it works. And it will always be more compelling than trying to explain that no, you won’t be raped by a migrant and eggs are more expensive for a variety of complex reasons. Fear and nostalgia are always going to be powerful weapons to use against people looking for answers and certainty. Which, to be fair, can be pretty much everyone.
Public acceptance of conspiracy theories is here to stay
I don’t know that conspiracy theories have ever not been part of our life, but the public’s acceptance of them and feeling of safety in spreading them is a Trump-era phenomenon. The few Republicans who openly embraced conspiracy theories usually lost badly in elections, and became figures of mockery. With Trump in office again, and taking a host of conspiracy theorists and disinformation peddlers with him, we will be inundated with lies, garbage, hoaxes, fakery, and conspiracy theories. It’s never going away, and it’s going to keep getting worse. We have to know how to spot it, how to push back, and understand why it’s so powerful for getting a message across.
Conspiracy content creators might struggle during Trump 2.0
Having said all that, I can see a falloff in content from some of the big names in the conspiracy world. The reason is that inherently, conspiracy theories come from people who don’t have power. Trump has power, and will likely be surrounded by toadies who will do whatever he wants. Not only that, but Trump is entering office a second time in a very different environment than 2016. That was an election he squeaked his way to winning, against an opponent who had a thirty year industry of bullshit working against her, and with a cloud of scandal due to Russian interference. This time, Trump is coming to office with something close to a mandate, including a likely win in the popular vote. There’s no “steal” to stop, no “Russiagate” to engineer disinformation about, and no need for something like QAnon to explain why Trump isn’t “locking her up.” The deep state, it would seem, has been broken. The urgency for creating conspiracy theories won’t be there – unless Trump’s agenda bogs down and he doesn’t do certain things his conspiracist followers expect. Then the conspiracy theories will flow.
Trump might not pardon the January 6th felons
One thing his flock absolutely expects are large scale pardons of those in prison or with felonies for their actions on January 6th, 2021. Obviously, Trump will make the federal charges against himself go away. And he’s said he was going to pardon the “political prisoners” of January 6th and do it on “day one.” But why bother pardoning people like Proud Boys head Enrique Tarrio or chief Oathkeeper Stewart Rhodes? He has no use for these people anymore, there’s nothing they can do for him, and he never lifted a finger to defend them or pay for their defense in the first place. All they can do is eventually turn on him or blab to the media, becoming one more nuisance to deal with. Ultimately, Trump doesn’t need the Oathkeepers or Proud Boys anymore. He has a mandate from the American people, so why bother cleaning up any loose ends from the past election? Don’t be surprised if Trump lets these people rot.
American will not be “made healthy again”
Trump has promised to allow unelected bureaucrat health czar Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to “go wild” on lunatic public health initiatives that come straight out of InfoWars: removing fluoride from tap water, “banning” vaccines, and presumably waging a holy war against seed oils. I don’t expect any of this to happen in a meaningful way. Kennedy himself has merely said he would “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” a recommendation that said water systems would likely be free to ignore. It’s also fairly ludicrous to imagine Trump “banning” vaccination, given that there are no federal vaccination mandates for school attendance. It’s entirely a state issue. The best Kennedy likely could do is try to countermand CDC recommendations on vaccination – which is certainly bad, but nothing that’s going to send parents over the Canadian border looking for bootleg polio shots. Of course, another global pandemic could hit, and Kennedy could be right there making sure to hamstring vaccination efforts for that, but he’s already been doing that for COVID.
Trump’s alliance with Elon Musk and RFK Jr. might splinter
It might be a long time before we know how important Elon Musk’s money and disinformation spreading were to getting Trump back in office. But while Trump has touted Musk as a czar of cutting the government’s budget to go along with RFK Jr. being the czar of making us healthy again, don’t be surprised if this strange alliance shatters fairly quickly. These are three men with huge egos who are used to getting what they want – and only one will be the president. Trump has feuded with both before, and if things go south with “banning vaccinations” or Musk’s “Department Of Government Efficiency,” the knives might come out. Like the J6ers rotting in prison, Trump finds people useful until they’re no longer useful. Or Musk might just get bored and wander off to go dig tunnels or play video games.
The left wing grift machine will sputter out
This is more of a personal grievance for me, but my sincere hope is that if there is a “resistance” to a second Trump term, it’s based on facts and organizing, and not unbridled hopium and grift. Any liberal content creator who spent the last eight years screaming about how “the walls are closing in” on “the former guy” who is “going to prison” because “Mueller’s got this” should be shamed and mocked to the point of digging a hole and crawling into it. Sure, I believed Harris would win and that Trump was running a tired and sloppy campaign. She didn’t win, and I can own it. We move forward in the world that exists. The idea that magical sealed indictments will finally send Trump to oblivion should be well-understood by now to be fiction. It always was.
Whatever happens, it’s going to be a dark and strange time for America. We have to stick together, stick to the facts, and try to stay as hopeful as we can. Every day he’s in office is one day closer to him no longer being in office.
Mike Rothschild 