For those of us on the left, it’s difficult to understand how anyone can believe that Donald Trump would be a decent president. We struggle to find anything meaningful or worthwhile in his dangerous rhetoric. His incoherent ramblings leave us bewildered at best and horrified at worst.
Now we have some data to help clarify what Trump’s supporters are drawn toward. RawStory is reporting on a direct link between belief in unfounded conspiracy theories and support for Donald Trump.
The social media analytics company Demographics Pro found that Twitter users who talk about a “New World Order” are 4.2 times more likely to be Trump supporters than Clinton voters. These people believe that there is a secret plan by a powerful elite group across the globe to create an authoritarian global government.
Propaganda from the New World Order. The SUN causes our planet to warm and to cool not man you idiots. https://t.co/MdvEOcRiS8
— #JobsNotMobs VOTE @GOP Nov 6th! (@HouseCracka) August 16, 2016
Another group of Twitter users employs the hashtag #FalseFlag to talk about the theory that the U.S. government was behind the shootings at Sandy Hook and the Pulse Nightclub. Of those who use that hashtag, 32 percent also follow Donald Trump on Twitter, while only 10 percent follow Clinton.
LAID OUT IS A BLOOD BATH .. NEED YOU TO PANIC .. DON'T TRIP IT'S A FALSE FLAG .. pic.twitter.com/fuhydYrrsb
— REPENT (@BENNYREVIVAL) August 14, 2016
The website InfoWars is also a believer in and promoter of conspiracy theories. They have famously written about the attacks of 9/11 as an inside job by the government. They are currently pushing unfounded theories about Hillary Clinton having a secret brain illness or injury.
Unsurprisingly, Trump followers are roughly four times more likely to follow this site than Clinton followers.
So what’s behind the attraction to these crazy theories, and how does it relate to a belief in Donald Trump?
The RawStory article doesn’t go into any explanation, but I think that one can be found. A recent report by the website Right Wing Watch looked at how many Trump supporters eagerly believe the outrageous and unfounded remarks of the candidate.
Astonishingly, 69 percent of Trump supporters believe that if Clinton wins the election, it will only be because of some form of cheating. Worse still, although Donald Trump himself admitted that the video of the U.S. delivering $400 million to Iran does not exist, a full 47 percent of his supporters believe that they have seen it.
What is going on here?
Perhaps some Americans are so confused by the complexities of national politics and economics that they are desperate for simple answers. Perhaps after feeling powerless for too long, people are flocking to someone who tells them what they want to hear.
If we listen to Trump, it’s easy to believe that we are not at fault for our own poor economic decisions. If we believe the conspiracy theorists, bad guys are out to get us. It’s a similar theme. Trump says that we don’t have to work hard to achieve incremental change; he will fix everything on day one.
Conspiracy theories convince us that it isn’t our lack of education, our laziness, 0r our unwillingness to get involved in local issues that has caused us to land at the low end of the economic scale, it’s that secret cabal at work against us.
This is both frightening and thought provoking. In the 1930s, frustrated Germans were looking for an easy answer and a savior, too. Look where that led.
This video may explain the connection more clearly.
Featured image by Christian Cable via Flickr, available through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
