Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

[bsm2]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

1) it's LAPSE not Lap (doubt you could run a lap .. only with your mouth)

2) FAUX news is just that... FAKE NEWS .. there are plenty of other GOOD conservative news groups out there.

3) did you READ the Transcript and the Complaint ( the guidelines changed 1 day before the "complaint"... and there is another quirky item. The complaints are SUPPOSED to be in the complainants OWN words... It HAS been determined that DUE to the legalize wording, this was written with aid of a lawyer..

4) isn't it suspicious that they are ALWAYS anonymous/un-named people doing the complaining?

5) According to the laws of our country (due process for one) the accused has the right to know who the accuser is and to be able to QUESTION said informants.

6) Mad Max Waters has been calling for "Impeach 45" even BEFORE he took the oath.

7) NanNan said she doesn't care if the proceedings DESTROYS the Dem/Socialist party.. their main objective is to un-do the 2016 election of a duly elected President.

8) always copy and pasting a section of an article from an unnamed source, ( biased ) does NO GOOD for your argument.

try BSM.. but do READ and post the SOURCE of you info. you make yourself look stupid ( natural for you) when you post the crap you do, thinking that the LARGE fonts make your point more valid.

Nice Try Buddy Doesn't Change the FACTS on TRUMP He's GONE!
Better luck next Time
Got to love this one 5) According to the laws of our country (due process for one) the accused has the right to know who the accuser is and to be able to QUESTION said informants.

NOT if it's a Whisleblower SO SORRY! and why would you need to know? if the FACTS support claim of illegal actions.

You can Google Right? Guess NOT!
WOOT!! WOOT!!

[Phil B.]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

Nice Try Buddy Doesn't Change the FACTS on TRUMP He's GONE!
Better luck next Time
Got to love this one 5) According to the laws of our country (due process for one) the accused has the right to know who the accuser is and to be able to QUESTION said informants.

NOT if it's a Whisleblower SO SORRY! and why would you need to know? if the FACTS support claim of illegal actions.

You can Google Right? Guess NOT!
WOOT!! WOOT!!

up yours the FACTS (as you put it) are NOT out.... and the ones that are have been SOOO perverted by the loonie left are so screwed .. if you believe it.. then you're a bigger fucking fool than I once thought/believed.

just wait you'll b crying in November just like you did in 2016!

now fuck off jackass!

[Jaws]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

Where does BSM get his twisted news.

I have a 100 dollar bill I will bet that he wont be successfully impeached.

[Phil B.]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

Where does BSM get his twisted news.

I have a 100 dollar bill I will bet that he wont be successfully impeached.

I'll see that bet and raise you $1,000!

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A SITTING PRESIDENT REMOVED FROM OFFICE DUE TO IMPEACHMENT

-=EVER=-!

re: "Where does BSM get his twisted news." his mom repeatedly dropped him on his head to shut him up... WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE NOW WHEN WE NEED HER?

[slimslob]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

Where does BSM get his twisted news.

I have a 100 dollar bill I will bet that he wont be successfully impeached.

He has already answered that He uses Google, the most left leaning search engine in the world.

[bsm2]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

He has already answered that He uses Google, the most left leaning search engine in the world.

Spoken by One of the 3 Stooges Larry Moe and Curly I forgot the 4th Stooge Shemp

Hilarious Oh NO not the large font Enjoy

Donald Trump's baseless Joe Biden conspiracy fantasy should make Americans feel sick


President Donald Trump has a thing for conspiracy theories. It was bad enough when he was, we all assumed, cynically spreading them in an effort to manipulate people. But his efforts to get Ukraine to dig into an absurd theory about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden suggest he may actually believe them, which is worse.
The one about Biden isn’t even a proper conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory takes a few well-known facts and tries to create a colorful story by filling in the “gaps” with wild speculations.
But Trump's "theory” couples made-up “facts” with nonsensical leaps of “logic.” It makes no sense even if you assume the made-up parts are true. To judge by the way it has been presented on TV, it seems mostly to consist of shouting “Hunter Biden!” and “$50,000 a month!” over and over again.
Apparently, Trump believes that Biden, while vice president, used the U.S. government to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired, supposedly to benefit his son Hunter. The president's allies have called this supposed plot “extortion.”

Finally, and most critically, none of this matters. Trump may have suspected Joe Biden of corruption, but when the president pressured a foreign government to investigate an American citizen and political rival, he engaged in actual corruption.

[Phil B.]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

Spoken by One of the 3 Stooges Larry Moe and Curly I forgot the 4th Stooge Shemp

Hilarious Oh NO not the large font Enjoy

Donald Trump's baseless Joe Biden conspiracy fantasy should make Americans feel sick


President Donald Trump has a thing for conspiracy theories. It was bad enough when he was, we all assumed, cynically spreading them in an effort to manipulate people. But his efforts to get Ukraine to dig into an absurd theory about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden suggest he may actually believe them, which is worse.

*** Intel Community Uploaded Altered Whistleblower Form 2 Days Before Complaint Released to Public

this was when trump was newly elected GOP Rep. Gaetz Digs Up Audio of Schiff Telling 'Ukrainian Politician' He'll Accept Dirt on Trump

Watch Pelosi Condemn Trump Based on Transcript, But She Hasn't Even Read It

but no the MSM doesn't lie nor make things up Whistleblower's Attorneys Blow Whistle on ‘60 Minutes' for 'Literally Making Stuff Up'



https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fra...-practices-act


Finally, and most critically, none of this matters. Trump may have suspected Joe Biden of corruption, but when the president pressured a foreign government to investigate an American citizen and political rival, he engaged in actual corruption.

*** quid pro quo?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keXx0zxTarE&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3B3YeJsCgdE2dX_J4rE2WmOXyNMPw1akiUbFI-RlwKAQTLBw1tw3PBvmg

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/09/27/flashback_2018_joe_biden_brags_at_cfr_meeting_about_withholding_aid_to_ukraine_to_force_firing_of_prosecutor.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjXAxzddS4o

sorry BSM haven't got any more time to do your fucking research for you tonite

[bsm2]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

sorry BSM haven't got any more time to do your fucking research for you tonite

All the Best News from WESTERN JOURNAL RIGHT WING NUT JOB FAKE NEWS SITE!
RIGHT BIAS
These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.

Hilarious

Trump involved Pence in efforts to pressure Ukraine’s leader, though officials say vice president was unaware of allegations in whistleblower complaint
President Trump repeatedly involved Vice President Pence in efforts to exert pressure on the leader of Ukraine at a time when the president was using other channels to solicit information that he hoped would be damaging to a Democratic rival, current and former U.S. officials said.


Trump instructed Pence not to attend the inauguration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in May — an event White House officials had pushed to put on the vice president’s calendar — when Ukraine’s new leader was seeking recognition and support from Washington, the officials said.


Months later, the president used Pence to tell Zelensky that U.S. aid was still being withheld while demanding more aggressive action on corruption, officials said. At that time — following Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelenksy — the Ukrainians probably understood action on corruption to include the investigation of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.



Officials close to Pence insist that he was unaware of Trump’s efforts to press Zelensky for damaging information about Biden and his son, who had served on the board of an obscure Ukrainian gas company, when his father was overseeing U.S. policy on Ukraine.


Pence’s activities occurred amid several indications of the president’s hidden agenda. Among them were the abrupt removal of the U.S. ambassador to Kiev; the visible efforts by the president’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to insert himself in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship; as well as alarms being raised inside the White House even before the emergence of an extraordinary whistleblower complaint about Trump’s conduct.


Perhaps most significantly, one of Pence’s top advisers was on the July 25 call and the vice president should have had access to the transcript within hours, officials said.




Trump’s deployment of Pence is part of a broader pattern of using both executive authority and high-ranking officials in his administration to advance his personal or political interests — even in cases when those subordinates appear not to know that another agenda is in play.


Officials close to Pence contend that he traveled to Warsaw for a meeting with Zelensky on Sept. 1 probably without having read — or at least fully registered — the transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with the leader of Ukraine.


White House officials said that Pence likely would have received the detailed notes of the president’s call in his briefing book on July 26.The five-page document also should have been part of the briefing materials he took with him to Warsaw to prepare for the meeting, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.




But officials said Pence and his staff weren’t aware that the call had provoked alarm inside the White House — even though his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, had been monitoring it. It’s also not clear whether Pence failed to read the White House account of the call in his briefing book or read it and found it unremarkable.


A Pence aide disputed the notion that the vice president was poorly prepared for his meeting with Zelensky, and pointed to the eventual outcome — that the Trump administration ultimately released the aid — as a sign of a productive meeting. The White House Counsel’s Office did not alert the vice president’s office to the existence of the whistleblower complaint until the day before it became public, the aide added.

[Phil B.]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

All the Best News from WESTERN JOURNAL RIGHT WING NUT JOB FAKE NEWS SITE!
RIGHT BIAS
These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.

Hilarious

see just like ANY Dem/socialist .. IF you don't believe/like what is being said.. FAKE NEWS!
unlike when trump proves ( via their OWN admission/tapes for prove otherwise ) you call that a lie/conspiracy.. doesn't matter if HAS been proven.

Me thinks the reason you cut/paste .. don't give link or source is: the site most of the time is giving opines based on their lies (see WB attorney link in my last LINK BASED post)

try for your search engine use DuckDuckGo.. the searches aren't based on Google algorithms. They has been scolded (google) by congress and in some countries have been fined for the biased listing of importance.. or some aren't even allow in the list.

Zuckerberg has also been in hot water many times... 37 REQUIRED visits to house and senate hearings in the first half of this year. and Fakebook has also been spanked for their biases towards conservative/patriot/gun/christian groups/pages... have had to make restitution to several conservative sites ( Prager U and Hillsdale College ) for their totally biased banning/removal of said g/p.

SIDE NOTE: I don't think that the actions of many of the 'dems' in congress are in line. Mad Max calling for 'her' people to harass/call out/keep them from pumping gas/you're not welcome here. Talib for printing campaign T's saying " Impeach the Motherfucker" (some letters ****'d out) Harris saying he should be JAILED after impeachment.. Waters said jail is too good. Omar/Talib wanting to 'visit Israel' but full intentions were to go to Palestine to spread dis-information about Israel.. Omar from Somalia .. lied about her "husband/brother" relationship ... total anti-Semite/Anti-American beliefs AFTER we brought her and her family here .. paid for their living .. and now wants US to pay all her outstanding debt.
When most of our ancestors came here they had to prove: the were not sick... could support themselves (no hand outs) no criminal record in home country..had to have a sponsor..couldn't get in trouble for a period of 3 years.
NOT shipped to a point in the country FOC.. paid/fed/housed/medical etc for FREE like we do now!

[bsm2]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

see just like ANY Dem/socialist .. IF you don't believe/like what is being said.. FAKE NEWS!
unlike when trump proves ( via their OWN admission/tapes for prove otherwise ) you call that a lie/conspiracy.. doesn't matter if HAS been proven.

Me thinks the reason you cut/paste .. don't give link or source is: the site most of the time is giving opines based on their lies (see WB attorney link in my last LINK BASED post)

try for your search engine use DuckDuckGo.. the searches aren't based on Google algorithms. They has been scolded (google) by congress and in some countries have been fined for the biased listing of importance.. or some aren't even allow in the list.

Zuckerberg has also been in hot water many times... 37 REQUIRED visits to house and senate hearings in the first half of this year. and Fakebook has also been spanked for their biases towards conservative/patriot/gun/christian groups/pages... have had to make restitution to several conservative sites ( Prager U and Hillsdale College ) for their totally biased banning/removal of said g/p.

SIDE NOTE: I don't think that the actions of many of the 'dems' in congress are in line. Mad Max calling for 'her' people to harass/call out/keep them from pumping gas/you're not welcome here. Talib for printing campaign T's saying " Impeach the Motherfucker" (some letters ****'d out) Harris saying he should be JAILED after impeachment.. Waters said jail is too good. Omar/Talib wanting to 'visit Israel' but full intentions were to go to Palestine to spread dis-information about Israel.. Omar from Somalia .. lied about her "husband/brother" relationship ... total anti-Semite/Anti-American beliefs AFTER we brought her and her family here .. paid for their living .. and now wants US to pay all her outstanding debt.
When most of our ancestors came here they had to prove: the were not sick... could support themselves (no hand outs) no criminal record in home country..had to have a sponsor..couldn't get in trouble for a period of 3 years.
NOT shipped to a point in the country FOC.. paid/fed/housed/medical etc for FREE like we do now!

Me thinks your just a NUT CASE or maybe just duped into believing any right wing conspiracy theory. Getting your news from Western Journal Fake NEWS Site. etc.....

No worries As it's only a matter of time.


Trump Was Repeatedly Warned That Ukraine Conspiracy Theory Was ‘Completely Debunked’


Thomas P. Bossert, President Trump’s first homeland security adviser, said he was “deeply disturbed” that Mr. Trump had urged Ukraine to investigate Democrats.



Trump was repeatedly warned by his own staff that the Ukraine conspiracy theory that he and his lawyer were pursuing was “completely debunked” long before the president pressed Ukraine this summer to investigate his Democratic rivals, a former top adviser said on Sunday.
Thomas P. Bossert, who served as Mr. Trump’s first homeland security adviser, said he told the president there was no basis to the theory that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the 2016 election and did so on behalf of the Democrats. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Bossert said he was “deeply disturbed” that Mr. Trump nonetheless tried to get Ukraine’s president to produce damaging information about Democrats.

[bsm2]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

Trump Is Falling Almost 1 Million Jobs Short Vs. Obama
Over 29 months Obama added almost 1 million more jobs than Trump

Trump entered office on January 20, 2017, and starting with February 2017 he has been President for 29 months. Total job growth during that time has been 5.613 million or 194,000 per month with those results being helped by the tax cut.


Working back from January 2017, Obama’s last month in office, there had been 6.423 million jobs added or 221,000 per month. The difference for the 29 months is 810,000 more jobs or 27,000 more per month than Trump.


Note that back in January this year the total difference was only 194,000, which means over the past five months it has increased by 616,000. And looking at the next six months with Obama’s job numbers of 188,000 to 327,000 per month, the gap should only increase and cross 1 million.

Not the best economy ever

The underlying economy is weaker than perceived when you look at March quarter’s GDP numbers and railroad traffic taking a significant downward move over the past month. If the economy continues on this path it could enter a recession when few are forecasting one with one reliable indicator foreshadowing a downturn in the next 6 to 18 months. It could become a self-fulfilling prophecy as almost 70% of CFO’s are predicting a recession by the end of 2020.

[Copier Addict]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

see just like ANY Dem/socialist .. IF you don't believe/like what is being said.. FAKE NEWS!
unlike when trump proves ( via their OWN admission/tapes for prove otherwise ) you call that a lie/conspiracy.. doesn't matter if HAS been proven.

Me thinks the reason you cut/paste .. don't give link or source is: the site most of the time is giving opines based on their lies (see WB attorney link in my last LINK BASED post)

try for your search engine use DuckDuckGo.. the searches aren't based on Google algorithms. They has been scolded (google) by congress and in some countries have been fined for the biased listing of importance.. or some aren't even allow in the list.

Zuckerberg has also been in hot water many times... 37 REQUIRED visits to house and senate hearings in the first half of this year. and Fakebook has also been spanked for their biases towards conservative/patriot/gun/christian groups/pages... have had to make restitution to several conservative sites ( Prager U and Hillsdale College ) for their totally biased banning/removal of said g/p.

SIDE NOTE: I don't think that the actions of many of the 'dems' in congress are in line. Mad Max calling for 'her' people to harass/call out/keep them from pumping gas/you're not welcome here. Talib for printing campaign T's saying " Impeach the Motherfucker" (some letters ****'d out) Harris saying he should be JAILED after impeachment.. Waters said jail is too good. Omar/Talib wanting to 'visit Israel' but full intentions were to go to Palestine to spread dis-information about Israel.. Omar from Somalia .. lied about her "husband/brother" relationship ... total anti-Semite/Anti-American beliefs AFTER we brought her and her family here .. paid for their living .. and now wants US to pay all her outstanding debt.
When most of our ancestors came here they had to prove: the were not sick... could support themselves (no hand outs) no criminal record in home country..had to have a sponsor..couldn't get in trouble for a period of 3 years.
NOT shipped to a point in the country FOC.. paid/fed/housed/medical etc for FREE like we do now!

What does any of this have to do with donnie trying to extort favours out of the President of Ukraine?

[bsm2]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

Enjoy Just a Matter of Time

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Trump’s call with Ukraine president manifests criminal and impeachable behavior

The House of Representatives has begun to gather evidence in an effort to determine if President Trump has committed impeachable offenses. The Constitution defines an impeachable offense as "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."


The president need not have committed a crime in order to be impeached, but he needs to have engaged in behavior that threatens the constitutional stability of the United States or the rule of law as we have come to know it.


Has Trump committed any impeachable offenses?


ANDREW MCCARTHY: DEMS AND MEDIA FRIENDS FALSELY PORTRAY TRUMP'S UKRAINE CALL – IMPEACHMENT NOT JUSTIFIED


A CIA agent formerly assigned to the White House – and presently referred to as the "whistleblower" – reported a July 25, 2019 telephone conversation that Trump had with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. That conversation manifested both criminal and impeachable behavior.


The criminal behavior to which Trump has admitted is much more grave than anything alleged or unearthed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and much of what Mueller revealed was impeachable.


What has Trump admitted?


The whistleblower’s revelation caused the White House to release a near-verbatim summary of the conversation between the two presidents. By releasing it, Trump has admitted to its accuracy. In it, Trump asked Zelensky for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, who at this writing is Trump's likely Democratic opponent in the 2020 presidential election.


Trump also admits to holding up $391 million in aid to Ukraine – $250 million in the purchase of already approved and built military hardware and $141 million in a congressionally authorized grant. This is aid that Trump's own secretaries of state and defense, his own director of national intelligence and director of the CIA, and his own National Security Council unanimously asked him to release.


Trump has also admitted to accusing the as-yet publicly unnamed whistleblower of treason, and suggesting that the whistleblower and those who have helped him are spies and ought to be treated as spies were in "the old days" (Trump’s phrase) – that is, by hanging.




The president’s allusions to violence are palpably dangerous. They will give cover to crazies who crave violence, as other intemperate words of his have done. His words have already produced offers of "bounties" in return for outing and finding the whistleblower.


Trump also suggested that his impeachment would produce a second American Civil War. This language is a dog whistle to the deranged.


All of Trump's admissions need to be taken in context. In 2014 and 2015, Russian troops invaded Crimea, then a province of Ukraine. They took over government buildings and held a sham referendum, which had been declared unconstitutional under Ukrainian law by Ukrainian courts.


The troops dispersed the courts, and the Russian government annexed Crimea. What was a part of Ukraine five years ago today houses Russian troops and Russian tanks eyeing Kiev, Ukraine's capital.


More from Opinion
Rep. Andy Biggs: Adam Schiff deserves House censure – Trump-hating Dem unfit to lead impeachment inquiry
Gregg Jarrett: Trump did NOT commit an impeachable offense on call with Ukraine’s president – Here’s why
It is easy to see why all of the senior members of the Trump administration involved in security – all of them – advised the president to release the military hardware, which was ready to be shipped, and the foreign aid, which Congress had appropriated.


Trump rejected that advice. Instead, in the Zelensky phone call, he told the Ukrainian president that he needed a personal "favor." The clear unmistakable inference is that the $391 million in aid would be held up until the favor was delivered. The favor he sought was dirt on Biden.


Now, back to impeachment.


Federal law defines as criminal the solicitation of aid – anything of value – for a political campaign from a foreign national or foreign government, whether the thing of value arrives or not.


Federal law also prohibits bribery and attempted bribery, which is defined as withholding the performance of an official duty conditioned upon the personal receipt of a thing of value, whether the thing of value arrives or not.


The law further prohibits intimidating witnesses, which is defined as the use of language designed to deter witnesses from giving testimony, whether the intimidation is successful or not.


The whistleblower has also alleged that senior administration officials attempted to dissuade Trump from asking for the favor from Zelensky. The whistleblower’s sources relate – and reporting now reveals – that a debate took place in the White House before the telephone call was made.


Should the aid be held up? Should the president ask for dirt about Biden from his Ukrainian counterpart? If Biden did anything criminal, shouldn't the Justice Department get involved? Should the transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call be hidden? Was the president warned in advance that asking Zelensky for a personal campaign benefit could be criminal or impeachable? Does anyone in the White House tell the president what he doesn't want to hear?


Can the president put his own needs and wants above the nation's? In a word: No.


The president has taken an oath to enforce federal law, not break it. He cannot lawfully impose conditions – conditions that benefit him alone – as a prerequisite to compliance with the law.


Is violating campaign finance law by involving a foreign government in an American presidential campaign an impeachable offense? Yes, it is.


The expressed intention of those who wrote the Constitution and those who wrote the campaign finance laws 200 years later – and the lesson of the post-2016 election and Mueller-investigated angst in America – was to keep foreign governments out of the American political system.




For heaven's sake, Trump was just investigated by Mueller for two-and-a-half tumultuous years for allegedly bringing the Russian government into the 2016 election and now he has attempted in one phone call to bring the Ukrainian government into the 2020 election! Does he understand the laws he has sworn to uphold?


It was to remedy just such reckless, constitutionally destructive behavior that impeachment was intended.

[Jaws]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

BSM, please watch this.


YouTube

[bsm2]

Re: Just how Crazy is Donald Trump!

BSM, please watch this.


YouTube

Already A Dis-proven conspiracy theory Just to distract from President Trump's real CRIMES. It's not ME it's Him.
All the President’s Conspiracy Theories
Normally, conspiratorial thinking is a weapon for the weak. But Trump’s GOP wallows in paranoia even when it controls the White House.

If Donald Trump and his supporters weren’t so fond of conspiracy theories, the Ukraine scandal would never have unfolded as it did. In a now infamous July 25 phone call, Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look for evidence that the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike had hidden the Democratic National Committee’s server in his country, perhaps to conceal evidence that Russia hadn’t actually hacked the 2016 election—a right-wing media fantasy that Trump’s own former homeland-security adviser has called “completely debunked.”


And over the past week, Trump’s defenders have spread one conspiracy theory after another about the intelligence-community insider who exposed the call. Stephen Miller, Breitbart, and Fox News have all called the whistle-blower an agent of the “deep state”—a phrase, popularized by Alex Jones, suggesting that a cabal of spies secretly run the government. (The conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer once likened this notion to believing in the tooth fairy.)


On its face, this descent into self-delusion isn’t surprising. In the Trump era, Republican conspiracy theorizing has grown omnipresent. Trump himself has suggested that Antonin Scalia might have been murdered, climate change is a Chinese hoax, Ted Cruz’s father was involved in John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Clintons may bear responsibility for the murder of Jeffrey Epstein, and wind turbines cause cancer. In 2016, more than three-quarters of Trump supporters said Barack Obama was “hiding important information about his background and early life.”


But dig into the academic research on conspiracy theories, and you realize how odd the current environment actually is. Until Trump, scholars assumed that holding the White House inoculated parties from conspiracism. They viewed conspiratorial thinking as a weapon of the weak, which couldn’t seriously threaten the republic because its adherents wielded so little influence in government.


That’s what makes today’s GOP so unusual and so dangerous. Never before in modern American history has a political party been this paranoid and this powerful at the same time.


In their book, American Conspiracy Theories, which tracks paranoid thinking in U.S. politics from 1890 to 2010, the University of Miami political scientists Joseph Uscinski and Joseph Parent conclude that “conspiracy theories are for losers.” Such theories, they argue, are “most likely to issue from domestic groups who fail to achieve power, objectives or resources.” This makes sense. The more dispossessed you feel, and the less you identify with the people running the government, the easier it is to imagine them hatching a shadowy plot to screw you. Studies in the late 1980s and early 1990s, for instance, found a “widespread belief, particularly in the African American and gay communities, that the AIDS epidemic was a deliberate conspiracy by government officials.” At the time, many black people and gay people felt deeply alienated from the Reagan and Bush administrations. (Not to mention that the federal government had in fact spread disease among African Americans in the past.)


As people feel more empowered, however, their political paranoia tends to fade. “Large winning groups,” note Uscinski and Parent, “feel less anxiety, more in control and less need for conspiracy theories.” After their side wins the White House, partisans generally see fewer nefarious plots. Colin Dickey, who is writing a book about conspiracy theories, noted last year in The New Republic that after Barack Obama won the White House, the percentage of Democrats who told pollsters that 9/11 was an inside job fell by half. “When a Republican occupies the White House, conspiracy theories swarm around Republicans and capitalists,” Uscinski and Parent write. “When it is a Democrat’s turn, conspiracy theories dog Democrats and socialists.”


Adam Serwer: Trump’s inner circle keeps violating the Stringer Bell rule


Yet in the Trump era, that’s no longer true. While Democrats’ susceptibility to conspiracy theories may have risen since Trump’s election, the GOP’s doesn’t appear to have gone down. The percentage of Republicans who believe Obama wasn’t born in the United States, Dickey notes, has not fallen since Trump took office. “Today,” write the political scientists Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum in their 2019 book, A Lot of People Are Saying, “conspiracism is not, as we might expect, the last resort of permanent political losers but the first resort of winners.”


The best explanation is that even though a white male Christian Republican holds the presidency, many white Christian Republican men still feel persecuted by those in power. Trump and other top Republicans fan this belief constantly. Earlier this year, Vice President Mike Pence told students at Liberty University that, while “throughout most of American history, it’s been pretty easy to call yourself Christian,” today “you might be shunned or ridiculed for defending the teachings of the Bible.” Trump called the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation battle a “very scary time for young men.” During Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham exclaimed, “I’m a single white male from South Carolina, and I’m told I should shut up.”


This persecution of white male conservatives is largely fantasy. Republicans control the White House; until last fall they controlled both houses of Congress; they enjoy a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. In 2018, 95 percent of America’s Fortune 500 CEOs were men. In 2016, when The New York Times compiled a list of the 503 “most powerful people in American culture, government, education and business,” 92 percent were white.


Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum: Conspiracy without the theory


But white male income has stagnated in recent decades, the country has grown more racially and religiously diverse, and gender norms have changed. And this has helped Republicans convince their supporters that they are America’s real victims. Republicans, according to polling this year by the Pew Research Center, are more likely to say that men face a lot of discrimination than they are to say women face a lot of discrimination. They’re more likely to say that whites face a lot of discrimination than to say blacks or Hispanics do. And they’re more likely to say evangelical Christians experience discrimination than Muslims do.


This itself reflects a detachment from reality. And it has made many Republicans susceptible to the conspiratorial thinking that, in the past, was reserved for groups that really were on society’s margins. But while the truly dispossessed rarely had much capacity to make the government an agent of their paranoia, Trump and his supporters do. That’s what makes the current situation so frightening. When Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate CrowdStrike, he made a conspiracy theory the basis of American foreign policy.


The real danger isn’t the Republican Party’s fantasies themselves. It’s the realities that Trump and the GOP can use those fantasies to create.