Conspiracy theories of the United states presidential election, 2016

The United States presidential election, 2016, was marked by the allegation of several well-publicized plots and conspiracies alleging various issues with the conduct of the elections, or the qualifications of the candidates.

Republican candidate Donald Trump himself repeatedly made indirect statements endorsing conspiracy theories, often distancing himself from them with the caveat "Many people are saying..." or a variant. He had been known for questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United states, a so-called "birther" conspiracy theory supported by a significant fraction of Republican-identified voters, and made other allegations against the president's loyalty to the country and support for terrorism which are also near the mainstream of American conservative thought. These allegations bore a similarity to conspiracy theories originating in the Middle East about Obama's supposed support for the Islamic State, which have accused Obama of being both a Shiite and a Sunni Muslim, although he is in fact a Christian. Foreign policy experts Michael Wahid Hanna and Daniel Benaim warned that this could have negative consequences on the region's stability.

Trump's supporters created and shared many conspiracy theories on social media, making false allegations about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's health and financial dealings. A study conducted by social media analyst Demographics Pro found that Trump supporters were more likely to use hashtags like #NewWorldOrder or follow people known for conspiracy theories.

Conversely, a range of conspiracy theories circulated targeting Trump, including unfounded suggestions that he was deliberately trying to lose the election to Clinton, and that he was an agent working for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

CNN host Brian Stelter released a video essay criticizing other members of the media for failing to do enough to challenge the spread of conspiracy theories connected to the election, prompting refutations from Fox News host Sean Hannity and the Trump campaign.

Conspiracy theories targeting Hillary Clinton

Brain damage allegations

In 2012 Hillary Clinton was hospitalized for a blood clot. Two years later, in 2014, political consultant Karl Rove suggested the clot had left Clinton brain damaged. Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill responded to the allegation by explaining that Clinton was "100 percent". On August 4, 2016, British political commentator Paul Joseph Watson posted a video to YouTube in which he alleged Hillary Clinton was suffering from a variety of health issues, including neurological issues and brain damage, citing, among other items, a facial expression made by Clinton at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Within a week the video had received more than 1.6 million views. The following Monday the National Enquirer ran a front-page feature titled "Hillary Clinton's Secret Health Crisis" while the Drudge Report posted a photo showing Clinton tripping on a flight of stairs, in which it was insinuated the accident was a result of medical issues.

File:Clinton DNC 2016 CSPAN.ogv

A facial expression made by Clinton at the Democratic National Convention was cited as an indicator of a neurological disorder; the clip here is shown twice, the second time in slow motion to approximate the method of presentation used in online videos making the allegation.

Meanwhile, on August 6, in a question and answer session following a speech to the National Association of Black and Hispanic Journalists, Clinton - responding to a question about the honesty of a public statement she made during the Hillary Clinton email controversy - said "I may have short-circuited it". According to CNBC, the comment "sparked a furor on social media with the hashtag #WhatMakesHillaryShortCircuit trending for hours on Twitter".

On August 7, 2016, Martin Shkreli, the indicted former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, waded into the controversy, devoting a two-hour Periscope chat in which he alleged Clinton was on levodopa.

By midday of August 8, the second-highest trending Google search term about Hillary Clinton was "Is Hillary having health problems?" The following day Sean Hannity, in his nationally syndicated radio show, suggested Clinton had recently suffered from a stroke, citing alleged aberrant behavior by Clinton. Later, on his television show, Hannity interviewed a physician who concluded that "a traumatic brain injury with symptoms down the road is very, very likely here especially since she had a blood-clot on her brain". A number of blogs and other websites followed by also questioning the soundness of Clinton's health. In most of the cases scrutinized, the Washington Post reported, "a Clinton moment that had been captured by the media was reinterpreted and wrenched out of context".

File:ClintonStairs3423.png

A photo of Hillary Clinton ascending a staircase in February 2016 was distributed by persons alleging Clinton suffered from neurological disorders.

On August 12, Clinton herself seemed to address the rumors, discussing her health in an appearance on her campaign's podcast "With Her". During the segment, Clinton said she had "a lot of stamina and endurance", that she ate right and followed an exercise routine that included yoga and weightlifting.

Specific claims

Several videos and photographs were cited as evidence of Clinton's supposed health issues, including:

• A Getty Images photograph from February 2016 showing Clinton being helped by two men to ascend a flight of stairs. The rumor-examination website Snopes.com concluded that the August 2016 claim was a "mixture" of truth and falsehoods, noting that the photograph was "genuine" but "not recent," as it had been taken back in February. The Getty Images photograph also had a caption that stated that Clinton merely "slipped while [she] walked up stairs in South Carolina."
• A June 10, 2016, video posted to YouTube showing Clinton at a campaign stop in which it appears she turns her head back-and-forth vigorously for several seconds. In fact, the video was manipulated to loop a much shorter Clinton head turn to create the appearance of a spasm.
• An early August incident where a Clinton speech was disrupted by protesters and in which the Secret Service Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Todd Madison, approaches a visibly shaken Clinton and instructs her to "keep talking". He was alleged by some conspiracy bloggers to be a neurologist and not, in fact, a U.S. Secret Service special agent.

Election rigging claims

In August 2016 Donald Trump stated that the only way Hillary Clinton could win Pennsylvania is if the election was rigged. Trump then began recruiting "Trump Election Observers" via the campaign's website.

Conspiracy theories targeting Donald Trump

Trump plant theory

According to believers in the Trump plant theory, Donald Trump (left) and Hillary Clinton (right) coordinated their campaigns to benefit Clinton.

According to the Trump plant conspiracy theory, Donald Trump had made an arrangement with Hillary Clinton to seek and secure the presidential nomination of the Republican Party as a pro-Clinton plant with the intent of either dropping out of the race at the last minute (thereby effectively handing the presidency to Clinton), running an intentionally poor campaign that would help propel Clinton to the presidency, or switching affiliation to an insurgent third party bid late in the campaign to siphon votes from a non-Trump Republican nominee.

The theory first gained public attention in a July 2015 blog post by Justin Raimondo. A tweet sent by Raimondo promoting the theory was subsequently re-tweeted more than 400 times, including by James Taranto. On April Fool's Day in 2016, a libertarian website created a manipulated image of a tweet appearing to originate from Trump's Twitter account that read, in part, "I ran for president to help Hillary win"; the image of the fake tweet was widely circulated. In July 2016, there were polls that showed that Clinton would fare worse, in a general election matchup against Trump, than Democratic also-ran Bernie Sanders would. After these polls were released, Shane Ryan of Paste Magazine satirically suggested an alternate version of the conspiracy theory by which Clinton was running a false flag campaign to elect Trump.

Proponents of the theory pointed to the fact that Trump had a long history making positive comments about Clinton prior to entering the 2016 campaign, was formerly a member of the Democratic Party before becoming a Republican, and had donated money to Democratic candidates on a number of occasions. Noah Rothman of Commentary also opined that Trump tended to make bombastic or headline-grabbing statements at times that coincided "with scandalous revelations that reflect poorly on Democratic politicians". A separate report by the Washington Post, citing unnamed sources close to the Trumps and Clintons, alleged that Bill Clinton had telephoned Donald Trump the year before Trump announced his candidacy, encouraging him to take a larger role in Republican politics.

Putin allegations

The release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee by Wikileaks resulted in charges that Donald Trump was being secretly controlled or influenced by Vladimir Putin. Trump addressed the rumors, dismissing them as a "weird conspiracy theory." The Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald characterized the claims as "McCarthyist" in nature while Jesse Walker, writing in the Chicago Tribune, said "the biggest Trump conspiracy stories are the ones that call the candidate a tentacle of the Kremlin ... by linking the candidate to Moscow, this narrative suggests that Trump is precisely the sort of threat that he constantly warns against."

References

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