Conspiracy theories surge following the assassination attempt on Trump

• By Huo Jingnan, Lisa Hagen ,Odette Yousef/NPR

It took just moments for speculation and conspiracy theories to begin spreading after a gunman tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Saturday. While it will take weeks and months for investigators to piece together the full story, the assassination attempt has supercharged conspiracy theories and threats of political violence that have characterized this presidential campaign from the outset.

Even before the FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks as the alleged shooter, many Trump supporters claimed the leftist antifa movement was behind the shooting. A post on X (formerly Twitter) falsely claiming that the shooter was another person aligned with antifa racked up over 4.8 million views as of Monday morning despite a community note on the post pointing out that it was false. Prominent conservative influencers and GOP members of Congress darkly suggested that Democrats, “the deep state” and “globalist cabal” were behind the assassination attempt. Meanwhile, some on the left suggested that Trump or his allies staged the event to drum up support.

For Trump’s supporters, the attack fits into a long-running narrative they have about the former president: that dark and evil forces are out to get him. For a significant number of supporters, Trump’s narrow escape from death was nothing less than divine intervention.

“God protected President Trump,” Sen. Marco Rubio posted on X. Multiple users posted an image of Jesus over Trump’s shoulder.

The information that has emerged has done little to keep conspiratorial narratives from flourishing. The alleged shooter, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, was a registered Republican. Campaign finance records show he once donated $15 to Democrats. Authorities have yet to identify a motive and say that he probably acted alone.

On one small, extremist web forum, the personal information of people falsely accused of being the shooter, along with names of their family members, was posted, raising fears that ordinary people would be harassed and threatened with violence. Purported addresses, phone numbers and other information about Crooks and his family were also quickly posted online once his identity was released.

The attempted assassination raises tension further in an already tense political environment as political violence and harassment have become more common in the past decade.

“When a mob breaks into the Capitol, when an individual breaks into the speaker of the House’s home and attacks her husband, when an individual goes to a congressional baseball game and shoots the Republican whip,” said Jeremi Suri, a history and public affairs professor at University of Texas in Austin, “as we reconstruct our narrative to understand how we’ve come to where we are today, we can see evidence of all of those as steps each time, making violence seem more normal, more acceptable. Even as it’s condemned … others defend it.”

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, professor and founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University, said she’s worried about the potential escalating violence in the coming days and weeks — such as copycat attacks, acts of revenge or unlawful militias mobilizing to action. “We have such a high level of us-versus-them thinking and the idea of an existential threat and an incredibly armed population, that the likelihood that another lone actor tries to take action is always out there as a possibility.”

A recent poll by the University of Chicago showed that nearly 20% of Americans would support violence either for or against Trump. In a notable shift, more people supported violence against Trump rather than in support of him.

“We saw excellent condemnation of political violence over the last 24 hours from leaders across the ideological spectrum. That’s really good,” said Elizabeth Neumann, a former counterterrorism official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration and now the chief strategy officer for online harm monitoring company Moonshot. “We need that to be repeated in the days and weeks to come.”

Looking at history, Suri said public rhetoric in the aftermath of assassinations matters. After an assassination attempt just three months into being in office, President Ronald Reagan read letters from children while in the hospital and did not blame the opposition. “I think that was very useful for Reagan politically. And it was also very helpful for the country.”

“I’m hopeful that this moment will remind people and create more of an inhibition on the most violent rhetoric,” Suri said.

Still, some observers worry that the cult of personality that has been built up around Trump could heighten tensions going into the election and beyond.

Author Jared Sexton has been watching Trump and his movement closely since his first campaign in 2016. “He’s been turned into what’s called a divine agent, which is a handpicked agent of God’s will on Earth.”

Trump’s defiance after the shooting, with fist thrust high in the air, galvanized some of his supporters.

“There’s a level of awe and wonder,” said Mark Francey, a California pastor, during an online prayer on Sunday. “That a man gets shot in the ear and his first response is to love the crowd and pastor the crowd.”

Sexton warns that some of Trump’s supporters see Trump’s survival as a religious sign: “‘Saved by God, chosen by God, America will fall if he isn’t given the presidency’ — we’re going to see so much messianic rhetoric in the next few days and weeks and months.”