Conspiracy Reigns in the Era of Trump

 Conspiracy Reigns in the Era of Trump

The temptation of responding to conspiracy theories is getting caught in their webs of deceit and half-truths.  Grounded in an absurdity that carries the illusion of truth, the alleged facts and underlying presuppositions upon which they are based break down in the light of critical scrutiny.  Throughout his public career, our intrepid president has trafficked in conspiracy.  Whether he knows he is putting something over a sufficient number of people more than willing to be persuaded by the latest sound bites stemming from the continuous echo chamber of Fox News, or whether he has come to actually believe his assertions (most likely, some combination of both) is hard to say.  Be it “birthism,” plots to assassinate Kennedy, “the deep state,” or “fake news,” Trump gloms onto these conspiracies, which fuel his spiteful tweets and demagogic rallies. 

Consider the conspiracy claiming that Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government during the Obama presidency to fire their top prosecutor, Victor Shokin.  The allegation is that the then VP’s efforts to block a corruption probe against the Ukrainian firm, Burisma, by Shokin, was designed to cover up his son’s (Hunter’s), alleged culpability, over what is not exactly clear, based on his membership on the Burisma board of directors.

This charge is absurd on a number of levels.  Foremost among these is Biden’s long years of public service and commitment to the national interest, poignantly forged through the ashes personal loss through which he has developed powerful bonds of empathy that underlie his most admirable trait—his deep-rooted humanity. Whatever his faults, it simply does not pass the smell-test of common sense and critical civic awareness to conclude that he would jeopardize his most cherished values to protect his son against behavior, which has never been deemed criminal, based on an undefined right-wing guilt by association.   

As to the specifics, the US Ukraine policy between 2014-2016 was that of Obama’s not Biden’s.   In this, the VP was the executor rather than the initiator.  Moreover, the US policy was a joint endeavor coordinated with our major allies to weed out corruption in Ukraine. The anti-corruption effort extended well beyond Burisma and it was initially Shokin, himself who claimed that Biden was responsible for him getting “fired for going after Burisma” to protect his son. According to an article in VOX (10-01-19), it was “a matter of dispute” over whether Shokin had even investigated Bursima.  As depicted in the same article, “the desire to push him [Shokin] out was fully bipartisan policy in the United States and reflected a consensus across European governments,” rather “than anything idiosyncratic to Biden,” who was not, as stated, the policy decision-maker in the first place. 

Whether Hunter Biden should have served on the Burisma board is another matter; clearly, there were some among the Obama administration who were troubled, including George Kent, who testified at the recent impeachment hearings.  Said Kent, “I raised my concern [in 2015] that Hunter Biden’s status as board member could create the perception of a conflict of interest” (CNN, 11-13-19).  That mistakes of judgment and even of ethics on the desire of Hunter to trade on his name (never sanctioned or acted upon by his father) is one thing. Conspiracies are another.  In short, there is no substantial ground upon which to make a charge of illegality against Hunter or of attributing the VP’s actions in Ukraine to his desire to protect his son, though you can be certain that the right-wing driven Biden conspiracy machine is designed to get you to think differently. 

The irony is that Trump and his fixers (including Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, the “Three Amigos”) have engaged in their own corrupted practices in Ukraine and have done the bidding of Vladimir Putin in the process.  Add to this that the US Attorney General has been traveling around the world to propagate the story that it was Ukraine that interfered in the 2016 election on the side of Hillary Clinton and the corresponding charge that Russia intervened in the election was a complex hoax cooked up by the DNC.  It is in the merging of this absurd narrative with the story of the Bidens that becomes fused in the right-wing conspiratorial imagination, which, in turn, pervades its media outlets and the president’s fervid, under sourced mind.

The biggest lie of all is Trump’s omnipotent sense of self as a “stable genius,” that “only he can fix it,” whatever it may be, that prevents America from being great again. His signature slogan is nothing more than a marketing ploy through which the president has fused the myth that he and the nation’s interests are one. The logical consequence is that whatever impedes this conceit needs to be eradicated, regardless of the legal or ethical corners that need to be cut— so long as his base is with him.  It is this narcissistic absurdity that lies at the basis of Trump’s authoritarian impulses.

That Trump believes this is one thing.  That he has been able to perpetrate such a myth on 40% of the voting public, is another. This fable, fueled by the power of an extensive right-wing media echo chamber, is one that should greatly concern us, as the prospect of imperceptibly merging into a truth-altering Orwellian dystopia becomes a distinct possibility in the land where in 1787 Franklin was asked to explain what we have in the formation of the US Constitution.  His response: a republic if you can keep it. There is troubling evidence on the horizon that we are on the verge of losing what is so central to the very fabric of who we are at our civic best.  

2019