Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Professor Lisa Bortolotti explains how and why conspiracy theories thrive in the wake of shocking events.
Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump conspiracy theories have been, perhaps expectedly, doing the rounds on social media, changing slightly in narrative depending on which side of the political spectrum you fall on. But what does this tell us about ourselves and how conspiracy theories work?
Recent research on the factors contributing to the rise in conspiracy theories found that it is common to associate the tendency to believe them with extremism at the right end of the political spectrum, and with deprivation of political power. But the reactions to the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania seem to tell us a different story. Almost immediately after the event, a member of Congress, the Republican Mike Collins, suggested that President Biden was behind the attack, attracting millions of views on social media; and Elon Musk blamed the Secret Services, hinting that apparent security gaps at the venue may have been deliberate.
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Democrats and people nurturing anti-Trump feelings have also dwelled in conspiracy theories about the shooting. The most common theory is that the shooting was too staged to be real and that it must have been faked by Trump to gain more sympathy and support before the presidential elections in November. So there seems to be a tendency to develop creative explanations of the event on both sides of the political spectrum, and the people involved in spreading doubts about the official account of the event have been politicians, influential people, and members of the general public, not just the powerless and marginalised.
Although they may remind us that nobody is immune from conspiracy theories, the conspiracy theories emerging in the aftermath of the Pennsylvania shooting are not atypical and exemplify the accounts of conspiracy theories that we find in philosophical and psychological research. There is one significant event, made more relevant to people’s lives by the imminent presidential elections: Donald Trump was the target of a shooting while delivering a speech to his supporters. There is one official explanation telling us that the person shooting was someone acting on his own—but such an explanation took some time to emerge, so there was room for people to speculate and come to their own conclusions before the official account was confirmed and shared.
These ingredients are sufficient to cause the proliferation of alternative explanations that we like to call conspiracy theories: these typically emerge to account for an event of some significance (Princess Diana’s death, or the COVID pandemic) and they conflict with an official explanation (Princess Diana didn’t die in an accident, she survived and went into hiding; the Covid pandemic was no accident, the Chinese government created it in a lab). When the causes of the event are not immediately clear, people jump to conclusions and fill the gaps with stories that are meaningful to them, helping them restore control over an uncertain reality, and matching their pre-existing beliefs and values. In the case of the attempted assassination of Trump, anti-Trump social media users hypothesised that the attempt was staged and fake, whereas Trump supporters identified the people responsible for the attack with their political enemies.
There is one official explanation telling us that the person shooting was someone acting on his own—but such an explanation took some time to emerge, so there was room for people to speculate and come to their own conclusions...
Conspiracy theories, however, are not merely alternative explanations that respond to our needs. They carry some negative connotations: in the eyes of the people who do not endorse the conspiracy theory, the conspiracy theory is both implausible and unshakeable.
It may not be implausible to the people fabricating or promoting it, but it is implausible, often wildly implausible, to someone who believes the mainstream media and the official account of the event. This mostly depends on the fact that the conspiracy theory is not as well supported by evidence as some of the available alternatives and does not fit with other things we know about the situation. A common reaction to left-wing and right-wing conspiracies about the Pennsylvania shooting is to ask for evidence. What makes us think that the assassination attempt was staged? What reasons do we have to believe that Biden was behind it?
A conspiracy theory may not be impossible to dislodge from our minds once we endorse it, but it will have the appearance of an unshakeable belief because no amount of counterevidence or counterargument will persuade us to abandon it and accept the mainstream account. Partly, this is because having an original theory about a major event can make us feel unique and special and we do not want to give that up. Partly, this is because we mistrust the sources of information that are behind the mainstream account, so the official explanation feels flaky to us.
We can tolerate a lot of incredulity and sanction for a theory that confirms our prior beliefs, especially if it confirms our suspicions against corrupted sources of power and privilege. And once we find an intriguing theory that makes us feel smart and special and dispels our feelings of helplessness and uncertainty, why give it up?
Implausibility and unshakeability sound like very undesirable features for a theory to have, but in the context of conspiracy theories they shed some light on the role of identity in how we form and maintain conspiracy theories. It is important to recognise that conspiracy theories are not random things that we believe for no reason, but they feed on our beliefs, values, and commitments. The theory “makes sense” to us and vindicates our perspective on the world, often making us feel better connected with the social groups we already belong to. If I never trusted Trump, it makes sense that I consider him capable of staging an assassination. If I am a supporter of Trump, it makes sense that I suspect his political opponents to be behind the attack.
We can tolerate a lot of incredulity and sanction for a theory that confirms our prior beliefs, especially if it confirms our suspicions against corrupted sources of power and privilege. And once we find an intriguing theory that makes us feel smart and special and dispels our feelings of helplessness and uncertainty, why give it up? Giving it up would be an option if we received unbiased evidence that the theory is false, but all the evidence thrown our way seems to come from the very source of power and privilege we have suspicions against. So, it counts for nothing in our eyes.
This brief journey in the mind of a conspiracy theorist shows us that our theories say just as much about us as they say about the world surrounding us. Some conspiracy theories may turn out to be true, but their implausibility and unshakeability make them imperfect attempts to find some order in a very chaotic world.
Professor of Philosophy
Biographical and contact information for Professor Lisa Bortolotti, Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham.
