My friends know I love a good
conspiracy theory -- a much-maligned phrase which I might remind people simply means a
theory (a hypothesis set forth explain certain facts observed) involving a
conspiracy (an action secretly carried out be a group of people in
power to advance their own ends, such as have been historically documented over and over and over and over again). And I'm sure I'll catch
flack for this one, but it cannot be denied that this one has totally been earned. In fact, the entire point of the question is to illustrate that conspiracy theories can
boomerang against their theorists.
You see, theory begets theory. And pro-Trump/pro-
NRA voices have been more than willing to invoke conspiratorial claims as to the February 14, 2018 mass shooting, wherein a disturbed teen with a powerful gun killed seventeen students and wounded some number of others in a high school in Parkland,
South Florida. The
students at the school -- the
survivors who'd run for cover and hidden huddled in closets or dove under desks during the horror of the event -- quickly thereafter galvanized themselves into opposition for the gun policies perceived to have lent ease to the occurrence of the event. And those opposed to the questioning of such policies were quick to fabricate accusations. The students, they claimed, were being coached and scripted and used as pawns by the enemies du jour, these mostly being the FBI and the media. Some people accused certain of these students of not being students at all, but of being actors placed there by the FBI and certain networks to convey an especial response. The darkest directions of these theories implied -- without outright stating -- that the shooting itself was planned by manipulators who planted "survivors" amongst the student body in anticipation of using them to push an agenda after the attack. And it is not unworthy of observing that some of the theories plying propositions about the students being actors, coached, faked, were retweeted with approval with none other than Donald Trump, Jr.
But here's the thing: Junior's forebear,
papa Donald Trump, literally
bragged only weeks before that Republicans might not fare as poorly in the mid-term elections coming later on in the year because a terror attack would help the Republicans politically. Many observers took this to mean that Trump thinks such an attack would be a good thing (politically, for him) -- and perhaps even that he would take the opportunity to allow one to happen (or, at the extreme of concern, cause one to happen) to obtain the benefits thusly imagined. Certainly Trump has allowed people who believe such a thing to influence, for example maintaining ties to talk show host
Alex Jones, who still deems the somewhat similar Newtown, Connecticut mass shooting as having been ordered by Obama to gut gun laws. Some might object that Trump would never do that -- just as surely as Trump never grabbed those women by the pussy who claim that he grabbed them by the pussy, totally unrelated to his "locker-room talk" claim that he grabs 'em by the pussy. It's like that.
Going back to the Parkland shooting, this especial situation unfolds within the context of the
resignation of
White House aide Rob Porter on February 7, 2018. Though there had thus far been many, many resignations amongst this body of employees -- more than have been seen in a similar portion of an administration in decades, at least -- this one was a bit different from the rest. It arose not due to perceptions of infighting or wrongheaded political directions or even petty graft, but instead because there was a credible case that Porter was a
wife beater, a serial physical
abuser of women. Photos surfaced supporting this account given by two ex-wives. Worse yet, it was discovered that due to the FBI investigation into Porter's character, he had never obtained clearance to view the
top secret documents which he was permitted to peruse with regularity. And all of this was complicated when, in the midst of the burgeoning scandal, Trump appeared to defend Porter (and praised him as having "a bright future" ahead of him; and the White House released a glowing advocacy of Porter's talents, which turned out to have been penned by none other than Porter's current
lover, longtime Trump aide
Hope Hicks.
And so the controversy would not die. Trump's Chief of Staff, General Kelly, came under scrutiny when this debacle revealed that dozens of other White House regulars lacked security clearance to see the things they were seeing. And this led to questions about access being giving to uncleared Trump son-in-law
Jared Kushner, who was revealed to be the administration's biggest requester of classified information. As the headlines raged on day after day, a distraction from this, a changing of the topic of national conversation, was direly needed. And then, with miraculous timing, one happened.
Twenty-six days after Trump assured worried associates that a tragedy could lift his political fortunes, an emotionally troubled high school student in Parkland, Florida brought a powerful gun to school and with it murdered seventeen people. It cannot be ignored that the placement and timing of the attack were blindingly convenient to Trump's already-laid-out travel plans. The location was blocks from his vacation home, in the middle of that balmy South Florida Winter weather, and the date was days before Trump was already headed exactly there.... A cynic might think Trump ordered that an attack happen, but when presented with options was simply too damned lazy to go someplace like
Louisiana or
Missouri or
Wisconsin -- not when he already had plans to swing by Mar-A-Lago and spend a long weekend golfing. And so perhaps the CIA (now under the control of a Trump loyalist) goes to the FBI and has them comb through their database to find a name: whichever disturbed person is closest to the President's planned vacation in the same neighborhood. And perhaps the CIA uses their infamous
MK-ULTRA techniques to cause this already-disturbed person to actuate their dark desires. And the Porter scandal gets buried. And the President gets to start his three-day weekend trip a day early (minus a half hour or so spent in a hospital, praising himself to the survivors and giving himself a couple of thumbs up).
Hazelnut commented on this vid: "Tell us again how vaccines cause autism." I presume they were perhaps referencing the 2015 Republican debate where Trump claimed that vaccines cause autism (or one of various other times when Trump has made this claim)