RETURN TO THE TOP FOR MORE CONSPIRACIES
When done right, exemptions can be effective because they remove the fear of government overreach that the conspiracy theories theorists rally around.
Exemptions need to be carefully calibrated so that they’re not too easy to get — someone should need to have a firm conviction and be willing to expend some effort to get one.
Anti-vaccine sentiment is often grounded in a belief that your own interests or your community’s interests are not being well-addressed by the government.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
CHINA
COVID-19 was a novel virus
MEDICAL RACISM
SCHOOL LOCKDOWNS
The Tuskegee experiment involved researchers monitoring hundreds of Black men with syphilis without actually treating their disease. Even after an effective treatment — penicillin — became available in the 1940s, researchers continued the study until 1972, at which point more than 100 men had died from syphilis or complications of the disease.
The experiment, rooted in the racist idea that Black men’s bodies were fundamentally different from white men’s, is often cited as an explanation for vaccine hesitancy in Black communities.
Racism in medical settings continues to this day, with discrimination being a major driver of numerous health disparities, including the high rates of maternal mortality among Black Americans.
Some parents distrusted the government’s guidance because they disagreed with the decision to close schools. Today, there is broad acknowledgment among public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly halt the spread of COVID, while the academic fallout for children has been sizable and long-lasting. However, vaccines and vaccine mandates were key in getting schools reopened.
There is evidence that China withheld or delayed sharing important information related to the COVID-19 outbreak with the World Health Organization and the international scientific community.
The US and other governments issued a joint statement criticizing the WHO report on COVID-19 origins for its “lack of access to complete, original data and samples” from China during the investigation.
US intelligence agencies concluded that China vastly understated its COVID-19 cases and deaths, with lower-level officials lying about the numbers for fear of punishment. The agencies were unable to obtain more accurate data despite best efforts.
As a result, some medical advice evolved and changed as more was learned about the virus. Recommendations like sanitizing packages as a precaution at the beginning of the pandemic were then found to be unnecessary. Meanwhile, mask mandates and lockdowns were not considered necessary at the outset but were later found to save lives.
KERNEL OF TRUTH
He is an environmentalist, which allows him to appeal to both liberals by promoting environmental causes as well as anti-government conservatives. This makes him a particularly strong independent candidate in 2024.
“I can say right now there is no vaccine that’s safe and effective. It doesn’t mean I’m against all medicines. I’ve been fighting for two years to get mercury out of fish. Nobody calls me anti-fish,” Kennedy said.
He staunchly opposed the government’s handling of COVID-19, comparing it to Hitler’s Germany.
“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland.” — RFK Jr. said in response to travel restrictions.
He has said vaccines caused a “holocaust” at campaign events.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent in the 2024 US presidential election, has long propagated the idea that vaccines cause autism.
Kennedy has used his family name and rhetorical skills to build his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense, or CHD, into an influential force that spreads false and deceptive information.
An AP investigation revealed how Kennedy capitalized on the pandemic to build CHD into a multimillion-dollar misinformation machine.
“There is no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” – RFK Jr.
In a March 2020 interview, Fauci emphasized the importance of conducting clinical trials on vaccine safety prior to distribution, saying, “This would not be the first time, if it happened, that a vaccine that looked good in initial safety actually made people worse.”
His comments were meant to boost public trust that any vaccines would be subject to rigorous safety testing.
But they were taken out of context and used in a headline that went viral: “Covid Vaccines May Actually Make People ‘Worse.’”
The ‘Disinformation Dozen’
In 2021, as the COVID-19 vaccine was at the height of its rollout, researchers found that just 12 people were responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferated on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Many of the people posting false information on social media sold natural supplements and books on alternative medicine.
Lab leak theory: The virus was engineered by a Chinese lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, as a bioweapon.
The virus originated in China, causing conspiracy theories to sprout alleging that the disease was created for nefarious purposes or covered up by the CCP.
“It probably is a ChiCom [Chinese communist] laboratory experiment that is in the process of being weaponized. All superpower nations weaponize bioweapons.” — Right-wing media host Rush Limbaugh
Many believe the Chinese government was responsible for and then covered up the leaked virus.
At the start of the pandemic, CDC officials gave conflicting statements based on limited information known about the coronavirus. This generated distrust, especially for President Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
A week before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Fauci said that the risk to the public “at this moment” was “low,” and there was “no need . . . to change anything that you’re doing on a day-by-day basis.” The CDC did not mandate wearing masks at first, to prevent a run on limited medical supplies. This was before it was known that the virus could be spread through the air.
Fauci was accused of lying once it became apparent that COVID-19 was spreading rapidly, and again when it was discovered to be airborne.
These instances were later highlighted to undermine CDC recommendations that governments implement lockdowns, mask mandates, travel restrictions, and, eventually, the vaccine mandate.
Republican politicians and conservative media outlets have criticized Fauci’s efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19, questioned his motivations for promoting the vaccine, and suggested he's concealing information about the virus's origins.
In 1998, British doctor Andrew Wakefield published a report in The Lancet, a prestigious medical journal, about a possible connection between bowel disease, autism, and the MMR vaccine. The journal notably retracted the article later.
Wakefield moved beyond the MMR vaccine to attack the CDC in his controversial 2016 film “Vaxxed.” The film was pulled before a screening at the Tribeca Film Festival but found its way into independent theaters in the US and Europe.
Wakefield ultimately lost his medical license for spreading medical misinformation and for not revealing he was being paid by attorneys suing vaccine companies.
The experiment, rooted in the racist idea that Black men’s bodies were fundamentally different from white men’s, is often cited today as an explanation for vaccine hesitancy in Black communities.
Racism in medical settings continues to this day, with discrimination a major driver of the high rates of maternal mortality among Black Americans, along with other health disparities.
Tuskegee experiment, in which researchers monitored hundreds of Black men with syphilis without actually treating their disease. Even after an effective treatment — penicillin — became available in the 1940s, researchers continued the study, only stopping in 1972 after more than 100 men had died from syphilis or complications of the disease.
While fears of hoofed children and bestiality might seem ridiculous to a modern reader, some concerns were rooted in reality.
Not only were vaccines much less safe than they are now — unsanitary needle practices meant patients risked tetanus, syphilis and hepatitis — they were also mysterious.
Germ theory did not exist at the time of Jenner’s discovery, and it was often thought that disease was passed through unsanitary places rather than from person to person, making the notion of injections confusing. While Jenner could prove that the vaccine worked, he couldn’t accurately explain why it worked.
In 19th century England, the first vaccine was discovered for smallpox. When the government mandated its use, the rise of the first anti-vaccine movement followed.
Opponents of the smallpox vaccine warned of bizarre mental effects paired with violent physical reactions. They feared that it triggered side effects like blindness, deafness, ulcers, a gruesome skin condition called “cowpox mange” — and even the sprouting of hoofs and horns.
Many also saw it as government overreach into private and family affairs. Following the mandate, the protests were in response to more than the vaccine, which served as an engine for broader distrust in government.
Some condemned vaccination as a violation of humans’ God-given healing abilities.
Anti-vaccination movements are as old as vaccination itself.
ENVIRONMENTAL
COVID-19
ELECTION
RFK JR.
VACCINE ROLL-OUT
ORIGIN
DISTRUST
COVID-19
VACCINES and AUTISM
MODERN MOVEMENT
THE EXPERIMENT
TUSKEGEE
MEDICAL RACISM
WHY
HISTORY
RHETORIC
Vaccines should not be administered because they are unsafe, ineffective, or an overreach of governmental power.
Vaccine hesitancy can be due to a lack of knowledge, fear of government overreach, religious beliefs, or anti-vaccine misinformation.
Global effect: The World Health Organization recognizes vaccine hesitancy as the world’s top threat to public health safety, particularly in low-to middle-income countries.
Europe effect: Europe’s fourfold increase in measles cases — due largely to people not getting vaccinated — reflects how a 25-year-old study linking the measles vaccine to autism (since debunked) can spark vaccine refusals and lead to debilitating, even fatal, cases of the disease.
US effect: Measles was declared eradicated in 2000. Since then, however, there has been a resurgence, with more than 2,216 reported cases. Just 26% of Republicans say they consider vaccine mandates acceptable, according to a recent CNN poll, compared to 82% of Democrats. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ⅓ of deaths after a vaccine was made available were of people who were unvaccinated.
CONSPIRACY
LOGIC
EFFECT
VACCINES
RETURN TO THE TOP FOR MORE CONSPIRACIES
2022 set a record of
2.2 million illegal border crossings
to the US.
The EU's border agency, Frontex, reported about 330,000 irregular border crossings last year — a rise of 64% in 2021 and the highest number since 2016.
THE
STAKES
ABSENTEE VOTING
SWING STATES
KERNEL OF TRUTH
The stakes of losing an election keep getting higher.
A 2022 NPR/Ipsos poll shows that 70% of Americans believe the nation is in crisis and at risk of failing.
Beyond just quarreling over policies, many voters are engaged in what they see as an existential fight between good and evil, with each side believing they’re saving democracy or saving America.
The majority of Republicans now see Democrats as a serious threat to the nation and downright evil. Democrats feel the same about Republicans, albeit to a slightly lesser degree, though they’re catching up.
This makes voters more susceptible to conspiracy theories when their party loses.
Early and absentee voting gives Democrats an edge.
Democrats are more likely than Republicans to vote early or use absentee ballots, whereas Republicans are more likely to vote in person on Election Day. This was especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Demcorats were more likely to fear contracting COVID by voting in person and voted absentee at a higher rate.
On election night in 2020, several key swing states initially appeared to favor Donald Trump.
But they flipped to Joe Biden as more mail-in ballots were counted over the subsequent days. The states where Trump had an initial lead before mail-in ballots were counted are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin.
Trump then instructed the protesters to march to the Capitol.
In Trump’s speech, he spoke of examples of voter fraud that were baseless in reality. “In Fulton County, Republican poll watchers were ejected, in some cases physically, from the room under the false pretense of a pipe burst. Water main burst, everybody leave, which we now know was a total lie. Then election officials pull boxes, Democrats, and suitcases of ballots out from under a table.” —Trump said in a speech on Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before followers stormed the Capitol. Election officials have said and surveillance videos show that this did not happen. A water leak caused a delay in vote-counting for about two hours at the State Farm Arena, but no ballots or equipment were damaged. Security footage shows no ballots being brought in.
On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, approximately 10,000 people attended a rally where Trump addressed the crowd for over an hour. He said he would “never concede” and that if his supporters didn’t “fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
In public, Trump made more than 800 inaccurate claims about the election from the time the polls began closing on Nov. 3, 2020, to the end of his presidency, according to a database compiled by the Washington Post.
“Everybody knows that dead people, below age people, illegal immigrants, fake signatures, prisoners, and many others voted illegally.”
— Donald Trump
Since announcing his candidacy in the 2024 presidential race, Trump has cast doubt about the fairness of the 2024 election about once a day, on average, according to the New York Times.
The day after
“Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the ‘pollsters’ got it completely & historically wrong!”
— Donald Trump
Election Night
For months, officials across the country had warned that tallying ballots may take days or even weeks to complete, given the prevalence of absentee voting that year.
“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We want all voting to stop,” said Donald Trump at 2:21 a.m., after Nevada was called for Biden, but many states remained undeclared.
As he did in 2016, Trump leaned into fraud allegations before the elections, warning in August 2020 that “the only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election.”
“He’s just gonna say he’s a winner.” — Steve Bannon
“The key thing to do is claim victory … No, we won. Fuck you.” — Roger Stone
Trump won the electoral college, but Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. Trump blamed his loss on illegal voting: “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
After Trump was defeated in the Iowa and Colorado caucuses by Ted Cruz during the Republican primary, he tweeted: “Based on the fraud committed by Sen. Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.”
Donald Trump and loyal Republicans have alleged that voter fraud was rampant whenever an election appeared close — or when they were unhappy with the outcome.
Stacey Abrams refused to deliver a concession speech after losing the governor’s race to Brian Kemp in 2018.
She claimed that Kemp, as Georgia’s secretary of state, had rigged the election in his favor by purging people of color from voter rolls and closing polls to a degree that amounted to racist vote suppression.
Abrams refused to concede but acknowledged, however grudgingly, the outcome of the election and did not try to overturn it.
Florida’s vote count showed Vice President Al Gore losing to George W. Bush by just a few hundred votes. Gore pursued a recount and legal options — leading to a controversy over how holes on ballots that are not fully punctured are discounted. He accepted defeat once the Supreme Court ruled that the recount should be stopped.
Politicians from both parties have made ill-advised and sometimes spurious statements questioning the legitimacy of elections that favored the other party.
THE MARCH
SPEECH
MORNING OF
JAN 6
CLAIMS
2020 GENERAL
ELECTION
THE VOTE
2016 ELECTION
REPUBLICANS
2018 GEORGIA
GUBERNATORIAL RACE
2000 GENERAL
ELECTION
DEMOCRATS
RHETORIC
Election denial has gone beyond Trump
Nearly 300 election deniers ran for state and congressional offices in 2022. These candidates, led by notable election deniers including Kari Lake and Mark Finchem of Arizona, Kristina Karamo of Michigan, and Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania, promoted a variety of false narratives ranging from allegations of rampant ballot-stuffing at drop boxes to claims that electronic voting machines are susceptible to fraud.
Trump has benefited financially
After the 2020 election and in the lead-up to Jan. 6, the Trump campaign took in $250 million in donations from supporters, saying the money would go to an election defense fund to pay for legal fees related to overturning the 2020 presidential election results.
The House Committee investigating Jan. 6 found that the fund was never created.
Jan. 6
On Jan. 6, 2021, between 2,000 and 2,500 supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. The mob breached security barriers, vandalized offices, and clashed with law enforcement, resulting in five deaths and numerous injuries. Five police officers died in the aftermath, one of natural causes and four by suicide because of the trauma of the event. More than 140 law enforcement officers were physically harmed.
It undermines faith in democracy.
It can lead to intimidation and even violence at polling stations and beyond.
It spreads the belief that voter fraud is rampant when, in reality, numerous independent studies and government reviews have found voter fraud in all forms to be extremely rare.
Trump’s multiple felony charges. Trump is facing a federal indictment in Washington, DC, for inciting the Jan. 6 riots, and another in Georgia for plotting to overturn the state’s election results.
A 2023 Monmouth poll showed that 30% of Americans believe Biden won the election due to voter fraud.
Since the policies, processes, and procedures involved in conducting elections are not widely understood, Trump has been able to convince voters that voter fraud is rampant.
The 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump through voter fraud, and the Republicans who affirmed President Joe Biden’s victory were complicit in a conspiracy to defeat their own party’s presidential candidate.
This conspiracy was widely disseminated by Trump in an attempt to stay in office after losing the election and culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol.
EFFECT
LOGIC
CONSPIRACY
STOLEN ELECTION
RETURN TO THE TOP
FOR MORE CONSPIRACIES
2022 set a record of
2.2 million illegal border crossings
to the US.
The EU's border agency, Frontex, reported about 330,000 irregular border crossings last year — a rise of 64% in 2021 and the highest number since 2016.
FENTANYL
HISTORICALLY
SPEAKING
ECONOMIC
FRICTION
POPULATION TRENDS
GLOBAL CENTER OF GRAVITY
IMMIGRATION
GREAT REPLACEMENT THEORY
KERNEL OF TRUTH
Fentanyl
Although the majority of the US fentanyl supply comes from Mexico, making it clearly an issue tied to the border, the vast majority enters the country through legal ports of entry, so if illegal immigration disapeared tomorrow, fentanyl supply
would be unaffected.
Historically speaking
The US was founded on colonization, a true great replacement, during which Europeans arrived, overwhelmed, and replaced tens of millions of Indigenous people by conquest, warfare, disease and resettlement.
Economic friction
Jobs for people without a college degree are becoming more scarce in the EU and in the US, increasing competition between people without college degrees and immigrants.
Population trends
Predominantly white nations have aging and declining populations, prompting calls for more immigration from the young and growing populations of developing nations to make up the shortfall.
By 2044, non-Hispanic white Americans will
be a minority population
in the US.
White Europeans are expected to be a minority before the end of the century.
The global center of gravity
is changing
In 1900, Europe had a quarter of the world's population, and three times that of Africa. By 2050, Europe is predicted to have just 7% of the world’s population, and a third that of Africa.
Immigration numbers
2022 saw a record 2.2 million illegal border crossings into the US.
The EU’s border agency, Frontex, reported about 330,000 irregular border crossings in 2023 — a 64% increase from 2021 and the highest number since 2016.
The Great Replacement Theory is deadly
It has been responsible for acts of racial violence in the US, New Zealand, and Europe.
In the US alone, it has been connected to acts of violence, including murders in Buffalo, NY, Charlottesville, VA, El Paso, Texas, and Pittsburgh, PA.
FRANCE
US
TUCKER CARLSON
ITALY
IMMIGRATION
EUROPE
FRANCE
Eric Zemmour, a presidential candidate who won 7.1% in 2022, repeated rhetoric like “an Islamic civilization is replacing a people from a Christian, Greco-Roman civilization” on the campaign trail.
Meloni has moderated her language since taking office, calling for “births, not migrants.”
Her administration has cracked down on migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean, contributing to the number of migrants who perish crossing the sea on their way from Africa to Europe.
In 2023, Meloni spearheaded a European Union deal with Tunisia, whose authoritarian leader, Kais Saied, also employs great replacement rhetoric against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. The deal calls on Tunisia to stop migrants from leaving Africa in exchange for financial support.
ITALY
Italy’s location makes it a main entrance point for migrants arriving in Europe via the Mediterranean Sea.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in 2016 that “ethnic replacement” was underway because of the large numbers of “immigrants, primarily African men, arriving in Italy.”
In 2019, she accused the then-government of wanting to “destroy our European and Christian identity with uncontrolled mass migration.”
EUROPE
In Europe, the great replacement theory manifests as the belief that white Europeans are being intentionally replaced with non-Europeans from Africa and the Middle East, the majority of whom are Muslim.
IMMIGRATION
Immigration is one of the biggest issues in the 2024 election. According to the National Immigration Forum, great replacement lends itself to the rhetoric of a migrant “invasion” that must be stopped before it “conquers white America.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R-Texas) said the Haitian migrants arriving at the border “are trying to take over our country without firing a shot.”
His language mirrors accusations Donald Trump used to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“You can’t just replace the electorate because you didn’t like the last election outcomes. That would be the definition of undermining democracy, changing the voters.”
—Tucker Carlson
Carlson accused Democrats of using immigration to dilute the strength of Republican voters.
“The Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.”
—Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson took this fringe conspiracy to a mass audience on Fox News, where his show was the most-watched hour
on cable news until his departure from the network in April 2023.
Here is how he weaved the theory into conservative rhetoric:
US In the US, the great replacement theory posits that Democrats are encouraging immigration from Latin America so more like-minded potential voters replace “traditional” Americans.
RHETORIC
Leads to the demonization of non-white immigrants, economic migrants, and asylum-seekers.
Great replacement theory is lethal: It has been responsible for deadly acts of racial violence in the US, Tunisia, New Zealand, and Europe.
The founder of the great replacement theory, French writer Renaud Camus (no relation to Albert Camus), argues that “whiteness” is another form of diversity in danger of being erased.
In his writings, Camus avoids saying that white people are superior but rather that they are a race that must be preserved like all others.
This is clever because seemingly egalitarian logic makes the racist ideology appear more palatable and can persuade more people.
White Americans and Europeans are deliberately being “replaced” by people of color and non-white immigrants. 1 in 3 US adults believe an effort is underway to replace US-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gains.
CONSPIRACY
LOGIC
EFFECT
GREAT REPLACEMENT THEORY
TK TK TK
What makes an enduring conspiracy theory?
Conspiracy theories are most likely to crop up during times of social, political, or economic upheaval — times when people need to make sense of a chaotic situation. The theories originate from a “kernel of truth,” and grounds for doubt. The kernel of truth is often an ambiguous tidbit or a piece of unverified information that aligns with the believers world view.
Because of this, and the emotions involved, using facts to dissuade people who subscribe to conspiracy theories is largely ineffective.
You can’t debunk the theories unless you understand what’s fueling them.
It’s not just the US:
According to a 2021 Censis Institute survey, 1 out of 10 Italians think astronauts never set foot on the moon while 5.8% believe the Earth is flat. Of the 1,200 adults surveyed, 19.9% think 5G wireless technology is a sophisticated way of controlling people’s minds, 10.9% said vaccines are useless, and 12.7% said science does more harm than good.
Some 64.4% of Italians think big multinationals are “responsible for everything that happens to us,” a belief that underpins a variety of conspiracy theories.
Fearmongering about secret powers pulling levers behind the scenes is older than America itself.
The Salem Witch Trials saw mass hysteria over witchcraft accusations in a Puritan community wracked by economic woes and political instability.
The American Revolution was thought to be a conspiracy organized by the French.
Catholics in the 19th century were attacked by Protestants who believed they were beholden to the pope and unable to be patriotic Americans.
As a result, a convent in Boston was burned to the ground in 1834 by people who believed the priests were using the confessional to blackmail, imprison, and sexually enslave women. Sound like the “cabal of sexual abusers” that led to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory?
Hunger for Conspiracy Theories:
It’s Less Fringe Than You Think
Trust in institutions is at an
all-time low, and only 44% of Americans have
confidence in the honesty of elections. Distrust and
election-related disinformation are leaving society vulnerable to conspiracy theories.
As part of GZERO Media’s election coverage, we are tracking the impact of disinformation and conspiracy theories on democracy. Dive in to get a sense for how this election may be pulled down a dark and dangerous rabbit hole.
FAKE ELECTORS
WITCH HUNT
MACHINE
MAIL-IN BALLOTS AND
COVID-19
TACTICS
“We used to have what was called Election Day. Now we have election days, weeks and months, and lots of bad things happened during this ridiculous period of time.”
— Donald Trump, Dec. 2, 2020
Trump spread misinformation about the potential for absentee voting: “I’ve been talking about mail-in ballots for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system. It’s a corrupt system.”
Democrats and young voters are more likely to use mail-in ballots. This was especially true in the 2020 election because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Election experts warned in advance that because of this, many states may appear red on election night but flip blue as mail-in ballots were counted. When this came to fruition, Trump claimed that the states that flipped had been subject to fraud.
Mail-in ballots and COVID-19
The 2020 election had higher levels of absentee voting because people wanted to avoid crowded polling places during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tactics used to spread the 2020 stolen election conspiracy.
Question the sanctity of machines
Prominent Republicans, including Trump, continued to spread false claims about the vulnerability and fraud associated with voting machines, particularly those made by Dominion Voting Systems, claiming they had been hacked in Biden’s favor.
These false claims were spread widely on Fox News, which eventually agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems for knowingly spreading falsehoods that the company’s election technology switched votes.
No credible evidence has ever demonstrated that voting machine malfunctions affected vote tallies.
Claim a legal witch hunt
Trump has been indicted in both federal and state courts for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He has portrayed every prosecution as part of a “politically motivated witch hunt” aimed at preventing his return to power. As Trump’s legal troubles mount, his supporters increasingly believe he is the victim of a legal witch hunt.
Tactic: Blame fake electors
US presidents are not elected by direct popular vote. Instead, each state appoints electors to the electoral college to cast ballots on behalf of the candidate who won that state.
Trump’s campaign substituted electors favorable to him in the seven states he lost. Law professor John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, an adviser to Trump’s campaign, wrote legal memos arguing that state legislatures had the authority to choose their own electors, according to the committee’s final report.
Those electors had no legal standing, but Trump and his supporters used them to pressure Mike Pence to discard the actual results when he presided over Congress’ session to certify the election outcome.
Vaccines should not be administered because they are unsafe, ineffective, or an overreach of governmental power.
RETURN TO THE TOP
FOR MORE CONSPIRACIES
JEFFREY EPSTEIN
CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING ON THE RISE
Sex trafficking has never been more prevalent, and 27% of sex trafficking victims are children. The average age that people become victims of sex trafficking is 12 years old.
KERNEL OF TRUTH
QAnon has made
inroads in Republican politics.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a first-term representative from Georgia, has become the most prominent QAnon-affiliated lawmaker in the country. The FBI has warned that the movement has the potential to become a domestic terrorism threat.
QAnon is the umbrella term for an ever-evolving set of internet conspiracy theories alleging that the world is run by a cabal of
Satan-worshiping pedophiles.
Some of the individuals most commonly believed to be pedophiles: politicians including Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, and religious figures like Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama.
Followers believe there will be a “storm” of mass arrests by the mysterious “military intelligence” team at the heart of the conspiracy.
QAnon has evolved into a “big tent conspiracy theory” because it constantly adds new features and claims.
CONSPIRACY
LOGIC
EFFECT
QANON
QAnon is rarely a believer’s first conspiracy theory, but it can be the next step on a ladder built on the 2020 stolen election or the 9/11 “truther” movement. When people find Q, which incorporates many other conspiracy theories, it fits easily into their worldview.
A common misconception is that QAnon is purely a political movement. For those who believe in it, it can function as both a social community and a source of entertainment.
It has been compared to a massive multiplayer online game because of how it invites participants to co-create a shared reality filled with recurring characters, shifting storylines, and intricate puzzle-solving quests.
For many, QAnon operates almost like a church, in that it provides followers with a social support structure as well as an organizing narrative for their everyday lives.
It gives adherents a way of ordering the world into good and bad guys. What’s more, unlike most conspiracy theories, it gives followers hope that the bad guys will soon be held accountable, and boosts their self-esteem for being a part of a movement that will help bring it to fruition.
Trump is the central and heroic figure in QAnon’s core narrative: a brave patriot who was chosen to save America from the global cabal.
The idea of “the storm” refers to a photo op Trump had with senior military generals, where he remarked: “You guys know what this represents? Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”
QAnon believers pointed to this moment as proof that Trump was sending coded messages about his plans to break up the global cabal.
Q predicted this war would soon culminate in “The Storm” — an appointed time when Trump would finally unmask the cabal and punish its members for their crimes.
“Open your eyes,” the first post from Q began, claiming, “Many in our govt worship Satan.”
Like QAnon, the theory was spread on 4chan, the notoriously toxic message board, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
It linked words like “cheese pizza” sent in emails to the initials “c.p.,” which are reportedly used on dark web forums to denote “child pornography.” The restaurant’s signage was tied to satanic symbols, prompting speculation that satanic rituals and cannibalism were taking place there.
Comet Ping Pong was told it would be burned to the ground and staff received hundreds of online death threats. Pizzagate laid the groundwork for the far more elaborate QAnon conspiracy to come.
QAnon was built off the Pizzagate conspiracy, which claimed Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, were running a criminal operation out of the basement of a Washington, DC, pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong.
TRIP CODES
"Q DROPS"
THE IDEA
"THE STORM"
PREDICTION
Q CLEARANCE
PATRIOT
4CHAN
HILLARY CLINTON
PIZZAGATE
RHETORIC
SATAN
In October 2017, a post appeared on 4chan from an anonymous account called “Q Clearance Patriot.” The poster, who became known as “Q,” claimed to be a high-ranking government insider with access to classified information about President Trump’s war against the global cabal.
QAnon has moved to various message boards, all of which use “tripcodes” — essentially, a username that proves a series of anonymous posts were written by the same person or people. On these sites, Q posts coded messages, giving followers ample opportunity to theorize, look for clues and patterns, and make predictions about when the cabal will be revealed.
THE LOSS
NARRATIVE
2020 ELECTION
After Trump’s election loss, many QAnon believers rallied behind the false theory that the election had been stolen from him. QAnon beliefs infiltrated far-right extremist militias, and 13% of the people arrested for crimes committed at the Capitol on Jan. 6 have connections to the movement.
Many QAnon believers look at Jeffrey Epstein, a sex offender and trafficker with connections to celebrities, politicians, and royalty, as evidence that pedophiles are common among the global elite.
NEW WORLD
ORDER
CHEMTRAILS
QANON
VACCINES
2020 STOLEN
ELECTION
GREAT REPLACEMENT
THEORY
CLICK ON A THEORY TO LEARN MORE
SMALLPOX
Tucker Carlson took this fringe conspiracy to a mass audience on Fox News, where his show was the most-watched hour
on cable news until his departure from the network in April 2023.
Here is how he weaved the theory into conservative rhetoric:
Scroll down to explore
Tucker Carlson took this fringe conspiracy to a mass audience on Fox News, where his show was the most-watched hour
on cable news until his departure from the network in April 2023.
Here is how he weaved the theory into conservative rhetoric:
By Riley Callanan
Scroll down to explore
The Disinformation Election: Will the Wildfire of
Conspiracy Theories Impact the Vote?
Trust in institutions – from the Supreme Court
to public schools – is at an all-time low, and only 44% of
Americans have confidence in the honesty of elections. Distrust and
election-related disinformation are leaving society vulnerable to conspiracy theories.
As part of GZERO Media’s coverage of election 2024, we are tracking disinformation and conspiracy theories and the impact these are having on democracy. Dive in to get a real sense of how this election may be pulled down a dark and dangerous rabbit hole.
The Disinformation Election: Will the Wildfire of Conspiracy Theories Impact the Vote?
SUBSCRIBE
Get the word out. Share a link to this conspiracy theory
guide with your friends, family & co-conspirators!
And sign up for our free newsletter GZERO Daily where we'll keep
debunking conspiracies every day (until the UFOs carry us off).
Check out @gzeromedia’s interactive guide.
SHARE ON
SUBSCRIBE
And sign up for our free newsletter GZERO Daily where we'll keep debunking
conspiracies every day (until the UFOs carry us off).
Check out @gzeromedia’s interactive guide.
SHARE ON
Get the word out. Share a link to this conspiracy theory guide with
your friends, family & co-conspirators!
SUBSCRIBE
And sign up for our free newsletter GZERO Daily where we'll keep debunking
conspiracies every day (until the UFOs carry us off.)
Check out @gzeromedia’s interactive guide.
SHARE ON
Get the word out. Share a link to this conspiracy theory guide with
your friends, family & co-conspirators!
SUBSCRIBE
And sign up for our free newsletter GZERO Daily where we'll keep debunking
conspiracies every day (until the UFOs carry us off).
Check out @gzeromedia’s interactive guide.
SHARE ON
Get the word out. Share a link to this conspiracy theory guide with
your friends, family & co-conspirators!
SUBSCRIBE
And sign up for our free newsletter GZERO Daily where we'll keep
debunking conspiracies every day (until the UFOs carry us off).
Check out @gzeromedia’s interactive guide.
SHARE ON
Get the word out. Share a link to this conspiracy theory
guide with your friends, family & co-conspirators!
SUBSCRIBE
And sign up for our free newsletter GZERO Daily where we'll keep
debunking conspiracies every day (until the UFOs carry us off).
Check out @gzeromedia’s interactive guide.
SHARE ON
Get the word out. Share a link to this conspiracy theory
guide with your friends, family & co-conspirators!
SUBSCRIBE
And sign up for our free newsletter GZERO Daily where we'll keep
debunking conspiracies every day (until the UFOs carry us off).
Check out @gzeromedia’s interactive guide.
SHARE ON
Get the word out. Share a link to this conspiracy theory
guide with your friends, family & co-conspirators!
Design by Leslie dela Vega