9 out of 10 times, the conspiracy theory is the coverup. Consider the leading officially sanctioned conspiracy theory, the one that has appeared in numerous books and movies, designed to cover up the fact that JFK was killed by a Communist. Taking second place are the 9/11 conspiracy theories designed to cover up the truth about Islamic terrorism. Here we can see that happening in real time.

Minutes after Saturday’s shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa., liberals began flooding social media platforms with conspiracy theories.

They claimed the blood on former president Donald Trump’s ear was from a theatrical gel pack; that the shooting was a “false flag,” perhaps coordinated by the Secret Service in collaboration with the Trump campaign; that the scene of a bloodied Trump raising his fist under an American flag was “#staged.”

“When did the Secret Service start allowing the President under duress to tell them ‘to wait’, then stand up to be seen by the crowd fist-pumping?” one user posted on X. “Can you blame me for thinking this is fake?”

I wouldn’t call these people ‘liberals’, but this is typical of how conspiracy theories begin with denying an inconvenient fact and then poring over the details of the footage or interviews to find things that seem inconsistent or implausible. This isn’t actually a search for the truth, but a search for ‘my truth’.

What follows then is the next stage.

That theory was boosted by at least one influential Democrat: Dmitri Mehlhorn, a political adviser to Democratic donor Reid Hoffman, encouraged supporters in an email late Saturday to consider the “possibility — which feels horrific and alien and absurd in America, but is quite common globally — … that this ‘shooting’ was encouraged and maybe even staged so Trump could get the photos and benefit from the backlash.”

He added: “NOT ONE NEWSPAPER OR OPINION LEADER IN AMERICA IS WILLING TO OPENLY CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY THAT TRUMP AND PUTIN STAGED THIS ON PURPOSE. Ask the question, people.”

Yeah people, ask the question!

The problem here is that Trump was shot and nearly killed. The conspiracy theory makes that go away and turns the blame on Trump. Conspiracy theories turn the blame on the victim (America did 9/11 to itself and then blamed some innocent Muslims) to justify the same kind of behavior much like Holocaust deniers call for another Holocaust like the one that ‘never happened’.

Leftists want to keep demonizing Trump and they don’t want to live in a world where he was the victim.

So they make one up.