General Question

elbanditoroso's avatar

Has there been any research that looks at overlaps in membership between the Obama Birthers group, the 9/11 Denier group, and the Trump 2020 group?

Asked by elbanditoroso (33146points) May 29th, 2022
12 responses
“Great Question” (0points)

My guess – not based on any research just yet, is that there would be a good bit overlap.

Are conspiracy theorists generally serially consistent?

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Answers

Zaku's avatar

Well Obama Birthers included Trump, and Trump and his base certainly continue to have an anti-Obama theme, so those people seem likely to overlap a lot.

But 9/11 deniers… well there are various theories, and one of the more popular and sane/plausible narratives is that military-industrial/oil-complex people used Bush to one way or another enable the 9/11 attacks so that the US could have an excuse to intervene in the Gulf for various profiteering reasons . . . and that’s generally “the other side of the aisle”. I’m not sure if that’s the group you mean, and I don’t know how much overlap there is, but I am pretty sure there’s much less overlap with the anti-Obama and pro-Trump folks.

cheebdragon's avatar

No, but it’s an interesting conspiracy theory.

Kraigmo's avatar

The 911 “truthers” don’t come from a weaponized conspiracy theory. It’s more of an organic conspiracy theory. Much of it is obvious BS, but there are some valid questions, such as the downing of Building 7 and the owner of Building 7 saying “we made the decision to pull it”.
As for Obama Birtherism and Trump’s election lies… those are weaponized conspiracy theories, specifically written to manipulate gullible people in order to give power to Trump and his allies.
A Venn Diagram would show a lot of overlap with many conspiracy theories, but I bet most people who believe Trump’s lies do so out of loyalty to Trump, rather than any legitimate questions.

WhyNow's avatar

Popular Mechanics did an exhaustive look at the 9/11 attack
best I ever read. Turns out Occam’s Razor still works.

JLeslie's avatar

Interesting Q. Back when 9/11 happened I saw Trump at least once questioning why Bush let Saudis fly out of the US immediately once air travel was opened up again.

Throughout Bush’s presidency we (people in my circles) questioned Bush’s actions regarding anything that could be seen as helping his oil friends, although I didn’t feel Bush in any way helped plan or execute what happened on 9/11. I did think he might have ignored crucial chatter beforehand and advice given by the administration before him.

During the Republican debates in 2016, there was one instance where Trump brought up 9/11 happening on Bush’s watch, and the Republican audience didn’t like Trump doing that at all. Trump never brought it up again. Not that I saw anyway.

Because of this Q I now can see another angle to all of what I described. I used to think Trump wasn’t so sucked in to this alt-right and right wing crazy talk years ago, but now I’m thinking maybe he was listening to anarchists all along. Subgroups of the Libertarians who were and are against the government. Or, it could be countries outside of America putting these ideas out, I think it can be both.

Most Republicans aren’t 9/11 deniers, if I understand what that is? 9/11 helped create strife in America. People talk about 9/11 uniting Americans, but it also really caused a surge in attention to Muslims and a group to hate and be afraid of.

Blackwater_Park's avatar

You mean the 911 truthers? You don’t need to do research to understand it’s the same conspiracy minded people.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@Blackwater_Park Are you saying you believe that 911 was done intentionally by our government? Just clarifying.

Blackwater_Park's avatar

No, I certainly don’t believe that.

KNOWITALL's avatar

@Blackwater_Park So glad I asked first. Haha!

Blackwater_Park's avatar

NIST detailed in a report exactly how they fell. There is no mystery there, we know exactly what happened.

Entropy's avatar

The Trump elections steal and birther groups have huge overlap. Note that no serious right-leaning politician still peddles the Birther thing.

But the 9/11 Truthers run the entire ideological spectrum. There are lefts, rights, and everything else in there. This is because whereas the election steal and birther things point specifically at the left, the bogey man of the various truth movements need not be a politically specific target. Bush was prominent in some theories, but it’s usually more the ‘military-industrial complex’ which is a real thing but often over-used and exagerrated.

Conspiracy theorists are generally very NOT consistent. As soon as you point out a fact that contradicts any aspect of their theory, they will instantly find a way around it, rather like trying to block a stream with your hand. You can divert the water, you can’t stop it.

Also note that conspiracy theories happen on both sides of the ideological divide. Look at the theory that Trump was conspiring with Russia to win 2016. It was wholly false and we now have the original source on record ADMITTING he made it up because he felt pressure by Chris Steele to come up with something juicy for his opposition research. Yet it still gets peddled. The left and right are both more than willing to believe crazy stuff about the ‘other side’.

WhyNow's avatar

@Entropy If you haven’t already you should find the Popular Mechanics
article of what brought the buildings down… great research by them!

It’s been so long but I will try to find it. I was ten years old at the time…
and was profoundly impacted.

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