Joan Donovan, a Boston University professor who researches media manipulation, said the results are an indicator of the role of showmanship in Trump’s presidency. “It just seems incredibly Hollywood to imagine that this is staged,” Donovan said of the correspondents’ dinner shooting. “The entire apparatus of the government has been turned into a reality TV show.”
Of course, the commenters over there find a way to blame Trump. The highest-rated comment says: "Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. Trump started his political career with the birther conspiracy. This is a bed he has made. When you lie constantly no one believes you when you tell the truth."
Somebody who calls himself EngageWithReality says: "Everything MAGA is fake. The orange skin, the claimed 4% body fat of the president, the mar a lago faces, the claims of a stolen 2020 election. This is too. Look at the footage - No one was scared at that hotel. A guy sat and finished his dinner. No blood in his ear in Pennsylvania. No shot fired at the golf course. It isn’t conspiratorial to think these evil people try to manipulate reality when it is clear they are trying just that."
And one Miss_Ann_Thrope says: "I think Butler was staged. Does anyone really believe that if there was an active shooter that Cadet Bonespurs would be standing up shaking his tiny fist for the photo ops? It's more likely that he'd have been cowering on the ground, hiding behind the secret service agents' legs, and probably p1ssing himself. The dead guy was just collateral damage."
His name is Corey Comperatore. But for conspiracy freaks, he's "the dead guy."
By the way, here's a NYT article from a week ago: "The Widow of the Firefighter Slain by a Would-Be Assassin Speaks Out The conspiracy theories around the Butler, Pa., assassination attempt hurt Helen Comperatore, but in this age of distrust, partisanship and social media, she nurtures a conspiracy theory of her own."
[S]he believes, even though no evidence has shown it, that President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was somehow behind the 20-year-old gunman in Butler.
“I do not believe that this kid just got out of bed that day and decided to come over there and kill the president,” she said. “I believe that he was involved with someone greater than him, that worked with him and probably offered him money to do this, and I would like to know what that entailed.”...
Posts
96 comments:
Now ask yourself why pollsters keep asking such a question.
Democrats are just violent dishonest people.
Their only core value is tribal power over other people.
The point of believing the obvious lie is to justify killing Trump.
Everyone in the democrat party wants Trump killed. Some are just more honest about it.
That probably tracks with the number of braindead True Believer libtard Democrat Party members in the USA.
I love this:
Trump started his political career with the birther conspiracy. This is a bed he has made. When you lie constantly no one believes you when you tell the truth."
The truth is that one of Obama's autobiographies was promoted as if he was a Kenyan by birth. Once people noticed, that is Hillary began whispering about his birth certificate, he refused to release his birth certificate. So Obama or his editor was the original "birther." Hillary spread it as a rumor but Trump made the mistake of noticing publicly Obama's contradictions.
So the lying sack DNC Media did a "republican pounces" story, which is how they frame it when lefties are at fault and it had the benefit of absolving Hillary! of doing it first. How quaint.
Always remember, when the Left fucks up the Media will blame our side for noticing. We pounce. And every leftist CJR-trained NPC reporter will blindly repeat the narrative, just like NYT commenters have learned to do. You will be printed in the comments if you parrot the Narrative.
Scott Adams used to do a bit on his podcast, Coffee With Scott Adams, where he would point out that 26% would always reply in a crazy way in any poll. How many people think the moon is stuffed with Fig Newtons? 26% say yes. So 26% is pretty standard for loony answers and the WaPo knows that. Shame on them for making it into a news story.
"Trump started his political career with the birther conspiracy. This is a bed he has made. When you lie constantly no one believes you when you tell the truth."
This is the standard Leftist rhetoric. Because X did Y, no matter how far in the past, he deserves whatever happens. Or Republicans cant complain about unfair attacks or lies or whatever, because they did X in the past.
You also see this in foreign affairs. Iran took people hostage in 1980, so they are our forever enemy. Or Gazans attacked israel in 2023, so therefore they deserve to be killed in 2026. Its just a rhetorical tactic.
I saw a recent poll where 27% of "very liberal" people think political violence is acceptable, while 3% of "very conservative" people think so.
It's got to be more nuanced than that, however. As a very conservative individual myself, I think initiating political violence is 0% acceptable while we still have free and fair elections, even if our side loses. I think it is 100% acceptable, and in fact admirable and desirable, in response to political violence initiated by the Left, or in response to despotic tyranny such as rigged elections.
Can “PEAK STUPID” be stopped?
As long as we have leftwingers on the loose, it will be a challenge.
Theres your sign
And 1983 and 1992 and 1996 and so on...
"We need to deploy correctly. Chuck, Timmy, and the rest of you communists, over that way. I'm going to join my fellow fascists over here in the other corner. The important part is that we get the lines right, and that we sound out in unison on this."
"Is everybody in the shot? Just read the poster, and repeat after me on three - 1 - 2 - THREE!"
THEY HATE YOU AND THEY WANT YOU DEAD.
How's that one? *thumbs up*
distant voice:
"we'll fix it in post!"
"Is it Trump's fault?"
That's a rhetorical question, but the need to ask it demonstrates the pervasiveness of indoctrination in our society, from education at all levels, news media, and entertainment including "reality television."
Indoctrination is the problem. That's where the fault lies.
it's Important, to REALIZE; that ALL of Reality is Staged.
it is ALL fiction, None of this is Real
It's crazy to play the blame game. Control is just an illusion. The world is a wild, crazy place. I kind of like the way Billy Joel said it:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone, it will still burn on
And on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
If one accepts a premise that polls are used to create and engineer public sentiments, rather than measure them, then the results suddenly emerge in a crystalline focus, don't they?
And when a public figure attempts to squelch an observation from the crowd by shaming them or pulling a power move, this should also be an alert that a dangerous opinion has been identified, and is being managed.
I think the crowd may be catching on to these things, finally.
“Exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures. Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union, and show him a concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom. When the military boot crushes his balls, then he will understand, but not before that. That is the tragedy of the situation of demoralization.”
"...Ideological subversion or psychological warfare changes the perception of reality to such an extent that despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country."
― Yuri Bezmenov
I agree that all the world's a stage but I think it's improvised rather than scripted.
I think it is 100% acceptable, and in fact admirable and desirable, in response to political violence initiated by the Left, or in response to despotic tyranny such as rigged elections.
Just wait until the Dems lose the House in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028. Like the 6-3 decisions coming from the Supreme Court, the Left will declare elections "rigged" and justify much wider political violence.
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
“Now ask yourself why pollsters keep asking such a question.”
Push polling, where they frame questions in a way to influence rather than obtain opinions.
As for political violence, don’t start nothing and there won’t be nothing. But the Golden Rule and FAFO are real, and I believe it is better to give than to receive.
Ginsberg was on about our Donk pals way back in '56, destroyed by madness, even as the Mohammedan angels are taking residence in Gracie Mansion, until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance, madness and Maddow, good to eat a thousand years.
The details are irrelevant. This is just another story to remind us TDS is very real, and very unhealthy.
Just wait until the Dems lose the House in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028. Like the 6-3 decisions coming from the Supreme Court, the Left will declare elections "rigged" and justify much wider political violence.
They will have chosen the form of their destructor, then.
It's staged if you include the news coverage. The original act hardly matters.
How can we continue as a constitutional republic when at least 25% of our fellow citizens are detached from reality?
I hope that this 25% don't vote, but I think they do.
The constant media drumbeat is what created this problem along with our miserable education system.
Probably the absurd "Conspiracy theory" was put out by Pat Robertson in 2022. Putin y'see was going to use Ukraine as a stepping stone to attack Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. After that, he was going to hop over the straits, march through Turkey and attack his real target - Israel.
The Iranian nuclear weapons is also a crazy Conspriacy theory. According to this lunacy, Iran will get nukes and then blow up Israel and themselves in some sort of crazed National hari-kari. This usually isn't called a "Conspiracy theory" because our Establishment pushes it.
6 in 10 physicists believe the multiverse theory explains fine tuning. Without a shred of evidence.
His name is Corey Comperatore. But for conspiracy freaks, he's "the dead guy."
Actually, I suspect that the commentor was thinking of the shooter as the "collateral damage" and had completely forgotten that Corey Comperatore existed.
RC never misses an opportunity to drag those dastardly jooooos into the conversation, regardless of the topic. *sigh*
Whenever the assassins show up to exterminate the Jew
Joan donovan the censorship queen
RSM: Thanks for that reference to Yuri Bezmenov. I immediately started listening to his interview with Griffin. Great stuff! Did you discover this guy before he became famous on Call of Duty?
This early part of the conversation struck me as applicable to what's going on with the Democratic party, especially in the petri dish of California:
"There is a great possibility that the system will sooner or later will be destroyed from within. There is a
self-destructive mechanism built into any socialist or communist or fascist system, because there is a
lack of feedback, because the system does not rely upon the loyalty of the population. But until this Soviet junta is being supported by the Western so-called imperialists — that is, multinational companies,
establishments, governments — and, let’s face it, intellectuals — so-called academia in the United
States is famous for supporting the Soviet system — as long as the Soviet junta will keep on receiving
credits, money, technology, grain deals and political recognition from all these traitors of democracy or
freedom, there is no hope. There is not much hope for changes in my country. And the system will not
collapse by itself simply because it is being nourished by so-called American imperialism. This is the
greatest paradox in the history of mankind when the capitalist world supports and actively nourishes its
own destructor."
Griffin
I think you’re trying to tell us something.
Bezmenov
Oh, yes. I’m trying to tell you that it has to be stopped "
"Roughly 1 in 3 Democratic respondents said they believed the event was staged..."
Many Democrats are loosing their minds as their world crashes around them.
The deadly serious goal of others is to have one of the assassins acting on their behalf freed by the courts.
It was staged AND ah ah ah - the left are so unhappy the leftist shooter wasn't successful.
LOL. these people are idiots.
We saw the khorranshah missile imagine with a nuclear warhead
About a decade ago,
Oops. The marvel is how many narratives are continuously being created to slander President Trump from every angle. Why is that?
Seriously it must be his support for Israel. Why else would the entire world want him exterminated too.
Do the math, 6% of Republicans agree that the correspondence dinner incident was staged.
Anything more than 5% is a dangerous level of delusion
They have minds to lose...
The Democrat party can only continue to exist as a parasite on the productive people in the United States.
Most of the party members either have a 6 figure NGO job working in HR or for a University or marketing in some giant corporation, or they are one of the "homeless" people on some form of section 8 and SNAP benefits.
It all ends when the people who actually work and actually build the roads and air conditioners put their foot down and end the farce.
This is all downstream of Women earning more than Men.
There is nothing useful being done by a huge proportion of our workforce. It only gets done because the government takes money from the productive segments of society.
Howard said...
Do the math, 6% of Republicans agree that the correspondence dinner incident was staged.
95% of Republicans in DC and state capitols are actually democrats.
Government republicans are just as parasitic and evil as democrats and they hate Trump just as much.
This isn't a democrat/republican issue.
This is a taxpayer/ruler issue.
Howard completes the idiot loop.
*It was fake!
*We leftists are furious and sad the shooter didn't compete his mission.
* Polls reveal big maff - It's YOU guys who think it was staged.
Assuming that it was staged, is it a comedy or a drama?
Since the dawn of time, around 30% have been deluded or detached from reality. This used to be obscured by religious zealotry and extreme patriotism. Many of these people were in prison or institutions, but many were "war heroes" too. Actionable mental illness has been more male than female, as males are more often violent while females are more social/cultish and religious.
What changed is that female (left-wing) mental illness has skyrocketed with social media -- see the soft urban academic Jonathan Haidt's work. Instead of the 30% that would largely be non-voters and split between the left and right, we now have a distinct left-wing female issue.
This is the root issue of 20 years of post-iPhone politics: cancel culture, woke, BLM/defund the police, and now social democratic politics that have been proven to fail many times over.
Trump has always filled up the brains of the left much more than indepdendents and the right-wing. His support is mixed and seen as a necessary evil, while his opponents circle in a pit of failure to launch/failure to mature, dysfunctional fear, and fixation on Trump. This is an aggregate effect of weak parenting, incoherent teaching, incoherent media, and internal left-wing social feedback loops that exaggerate negatives/never calibrate to reality.
RCOcean said:
"You also see this in foreign affairs. Iran took people hostage in 1980, so they are our forever enemy. Or Gazans attacked israel in 2023, so therefore they deserve to be killed in 2026. Its just a rhetorical tactic."
How about if they constantly declare their intentions to do the same again. Does that count?
5/11/26, 10:39 AM
“Unbelievable” is no longer adequate to address the stupidity, ignorance and evil of the Democrats and their consorts.
Democrats are the party of severed heads, death threats, hate, Antifa Nazis bullying non-believers, Antifa thugs acting just like Nazi Brownshirts, REDDIT leftist murders Charlie Kirk for his... speech...
Every single leftist or unhinged lunatic is on the left - inspired by Democrat party Rhetoric - from "Maxine Waters, to Kamala "they are not going to stop" Harris.(D).
WE had a corrupt president - who was installed - follow the SPLC narrative that anyone who dare not accept the Democrat party as their lord and savior - was a racist and a white supremacist.
"Assuming that it was staged, is it a comedy or a drama?"
For someone with main-character syndrome, drama. For everyone else, comedy.
Joan Donovan, a Boston University professor who researches media manipulation
Better: Joan Donovan, and partisan liberal Boston University professor who makes money 'researching' bullshit and slants all data in one direction made a predictable conclusion based on her bias.
All these same liberals who believe the assassination attempts were stages, all took the COVID clot shot and believed the fatality numbers were real.
Well there is a certain dark humor element as is urkel had planned a hit
Respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 were also more likely than older people to think the incident was staged, according to the report. - Makes sense. This age group has been subject to the greatest degree of liberal education indoctrination by 'teachers' like Joan Donovan.
We can't get to AI implementation fast enough. The US education system is purposefully cranking out idiots.
Democrat party loyalists are Democrat party Christianists.
It's the lying Propaganda Progressive media that is at fault.
"Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures." "...despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions."
Don't ever let anyone tell you this isn't a major motivation for pursuing AI. Those WaPo numbers are shockingly low, and are guaranteed to increase. The lie, told often enough and amplified by the right sources, WILL become the truth to the already mentally weak and emotionally vulnerable. Only those with significantly disciplined and experienced intuition and pattern recognition filters will remain immune, and even they will be time-constrained in a world where nothing is trustworthy and everything needs verification.
The future is going to be one gigantic neverending assault on your a priori reasoning, and it will be on purpose. Prepare accordingly.
Yes! ..But the evil that controls The Party apparatus pointsin the direction to the snake-head - the elite of the democratic party, and their billionaire mob controllers and Chi Com benefactors. The media are just acting as good loyalists and bullshit spreaders.
Never forget that Hillary Clinton raked in money from Russia - while she was secretary of state. Private servers are useful.
She also started the Russia Russia collusion lie - that the hack D press dutifully went along with and pimped.
I think Trump WANTED to do his speech. It was supposed to hit the media hard!!!
Why would he stage this before he could jab at the press???. THAT doesn't make sense. If it were staged, it was by the media.
Putin y'see was going to use Ukraine as a stepping stone to attack Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece.
Not at all an unreasonable belief. Recall that when the invasion first started- years ago- virtually every military expert expected Kiev to fall within a week, a month at most.
So much for experts.
It's been like that long before AI, RSM. If you're not already prepared, you're too late.
People who say that things like this (assassination attempts, moon landings, etc.) are FAKED are mostly trying to show how sophisticated they are.
"I'm so smart that they're not fooling ME with their bullshit operations! Maybe the rest of you rubes will fall for it, but not me!"
And thus they prove what rubes they actually are.
"Sophisticated" originated around 1600 as a negative term meaning "adulterated" or "impure," derived from ancient Greek sophists (wise men/teachers) who became known for deceptive rhetoric. It transitioned to a positive description of "worldly-wise" and refined taste by the late 19th century, evolving from "mixing with foreign substances" to "refined by experience".
Or Gazans attacked israel in 2023, so therefore they deserve to be killed in 2026. Its just a rhetorical tactic.
Let's not forget that Gaza not only attacked Israel in 2023, they held hostages through the beginning of 2026 - it was not a one-day bad act.
The the smartest person in the bottom 25% of the U.S. has an IQ of 85. The smartest one.
I cannot believe that anyone familiar with firearms believes that Butler or the WHCA dinner attacks were staged. Can you picture this? You’re a Secret Service agent buckling on your bullet proof vest and your agent-in-charge comes up and tells you that a guy is going to run full speed through your check point and fire a load of 00 buckshot at your chest, but don’t worry because you have the vest on. Would you do it? Or would you think about the possibility he’d hit you in face or maybe in the thigh and you’d bleed out from a severed femoral artery?
Only fools believe that the assassination attempts were staged.
It’s entirely nonpartisan to say Americans believe a lot of crazy shit. It seems like only yesterday the ghost of Hugo Chavez was reprogramming voting machines, the Chinese were printing fake ballots on rice paper, and Sidney Powell was vowing to Release the Kraken.
Reality has left the building.
This is an example of why I'm embarrassed and ashamed that I was a Democrat for a long time, though I have the excuse that most of the time it was just inertia keeping me there. With enough time, you can learn anything, even simple stuff.
Conspiracy theories are like a warm bubble bath for those who can’t face reality.
Matt Walsh had the best response to this conspiracy nonsense.
"I’m officially convinced. It was a hoax. The Trump Administration recruited a leftist Kamala Harris voting Trump hater to participate in a staged assassination that would include the shooter getting shot at and then locked in federal prison for the rest of his life. The Kamala Harris voter agreed to this plan, that works against his political and personal interests, because he’s just like a really generous guy.
Meanwhile the Trump Administration, despite dastardly planning multiple assassination hoaxes, decided to keep their patsy alive and a permanent liability to them, rather than just killing him like they could have easily done. They did this because they also are really strangely generous in a very odd and specific way.
So in summary we have a plot where all parties involved are working against their own interests with no real discernible benefit to any of them. There is no evidence of this plan and it doesn’t even make any intuitive sense and the motives for everyone are unclear if not insane, but still I believe it because I’m a very smart person."
tommyesq said...
"Let's not forget that Gaza not only attacked Israel in 2023, they held hostages through the beginning of 2026 - it was not a one-day bad act."
Forget it, Tommy, it's Gazatown.
Matt Walsh said it better.
This question should be on IQ tests, and cost you 75 points if you get it wrong.
"Conspiracy theories are like a warm bubble bath for those who can’t face reality."
COVID-19 taught me that conspiracies are plausible but how they actually work is that not everyone is in agreement on how to act, what to say and believe, but that 90% of the people will simply go along with whatever authorities tell them. So it's not quite as orchestrated as some claim, but it's just that so many people are in essence sheep who do not want to get noticed for the wrong thing.
My Terminator tells me that 95% of Republicans voted for Trump in both 2020 and 2024, so I'm suspicious of the 1 in 8 Republican figure.
Claiming the attempts were staged frees you and your team from responsibility. It's a way to cope for some.
This explains why Democrats think it's hard to get an ID to vote. I bet 1/3 of them live in a house full of clocks with flashing numbers, and they turn up late or early for everything.
What was staged - the left still think is real.
*Russia Russia Russia...
*Jussy Smollett's ridiculous stunt - where he and his paid accomplices got caught.
*The Whitmer kidnapping hoax - built out of desperate men being paid by corrupt D-party players inside the FBI.
Democrats demand ID to get into any of their events.
Matt Walsh - perfect.
This is an example of why I'm embarrassed and ashamed that I was a Democrat for a long time
You shouldn't be- things were different then. They were full of bad ideas but there was still a legitimacy to their agenda. No lawfare, no Hawaiian judges, no teams of lawyers and academic strategists gaming the system, a left leaning mainstream media that understood the consequences of violating trust. They were nothing like the monsters and village idiots they're foisting on us today. Now if you were still trying to prop them up that would be cause for regret...
Anne in Rockwall TX -thanks!
Since I don't have, and don't want, a WAPO account who ran the poll and what were the questions? (any honest news source includes that in a link)
"Since I don't have, and don't want, a WAPO account who ran the poll and what were the questions? (any honest news source includes that in a link)."
There's a link on the word "survey" in the post.
Who the fuck responds to Public Opinion Polls nowadays?
The sample is a bunch of Lonely Hearts who answer their cell phones to random callers
Faking assassinations is harder than the average idiot thinks. AI says that the average scene in a Hollywood film requires 3 or 4 takes to get everything right. Nowadays more and more is shot with CGI. Fake an assassination and somebody's still likely to get killed.
And of course, the paradox has been noted that the people who believe somebody ought to kill Trump are also the people who believe the assassination attempts were staged.
Is it harder to fake an assassination or to fake a poll?
About 1 in 4 Americans hate Trump with a burning passion and will gladly cover for his attempted assassins.
1 in 4 does not sound like 'many'
From my experience with Democrats, this does seem low. I would expect that many who don't really believe it would say they do. Most I know have this uncontrollable need to vent about him, even when it makes them look dumb, because they are convinced they are the ones seeing things clearly.
It's about time to raise the question
What is the meaning of STAGED
Trump started his political career with the birther conspiracy. This is a bed he has made. When you lie constantly no one believes you when you tell the truth."
I see. So even if this were true - which it isn't - it's A-OK to kill the guy.
You leftists have no idea of the fire you're playing with. You really don't.
Donald Trump has unveiled a golden statue of himself at his Florida golf club, raising concerns about the Obamas' uppityness.
Missing from the story is the phrase I always see when the 2020 election "stealing" is discussed in the press: "without evidence" (or "baseless")
YouGov April 2026: asked whether “the 1969 landing on the moon didn’t occur and was actually staged somewhere in Arizona”; about 12% said true, with 22% not sure.
So ore than 1 in 4 people are stupid. Who cares. Democracy is based on having a majority of people who are not stupid. American Federalism allows for a greater percentage of stupid people. But by careful manipulation and moral panics the stupid can win, or at least think they won.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/f-k-djt-alleged-antifa-radical-accused-of-trying-to-burn-down-republican-headquarters?
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