Trump Supporters Have a Predictably Insane Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory
Apparently this all ties back to the Russia investigation.
BY BESS LEVIN
FEBRUARY 27, 2020
There’s an old saying in politics that goes “Let’s not stereotype anyone, but Donald Trump attracts some real wack jobs. (See R.Storing). ” Data points that support this maxim include but are not limited to: the belief among Trump supporters that God chose him to be president; the belief that an established pathological liar is the most honest man in politics; and the belief that if he’d just had three fewer Big Macs over the last couple years, he be on track to live until 200. Of course, there’s nothing like the threat of a global pandemic to get already unwell people extra riled up, so now we can add “the belief that the deep state is using the coronavirus to take down the president” to the list.
Politico reports that a number of Trump supporters are pretty sure they’ve uncovered a smoking gun showing that traitors within the government are weaponizing the disease against the president, in a plot that goes all the way back to the Mueller report. Yes:
One key piece of evidence fueling their theory: A Centers for Disease Control official making public statements on the outbreak is the sister of Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who oversaw the Mueller probe and, according to a disputed report, once discussed removing Trump from office. Dr. Nancy Messonnier, head of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases—who got a shoutout from her brother for attending his 2017 confirmation hearing—warned Americans in a Tuesday media briefing that an outbreak in the U.S. is inevitable. Messonnier’s comments got widespread attention, sparking calls for further actions by the administration, which had long struck a more reassuring note. The furor appeared to catch Trump flat-footed while en route back from his summit with the Indian prime minister, where he had declared the outbreak “very well under control.”
The likes of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and Jim Hoft, publisher of the Gateway Pundit, a conspiratorial, pro-Trump site, have seized on the sibling connection, as have a large number of anonymous Twitter accounts. “Rod Rosenstein as we all know definitely worked to undermine the Trump administration, which is oddly exactly what his sister is doing by undermining the more logical and calm message the president’s team has issued on the virus,” charged conservative pundit Wayne Dupree in a Wednesday blog post. Of course, there’s no evidence whatsoever that health officials like Messonnier have been overstating the threat of the virus, yet a considerable amount suggesting that Trump has downplayed the situation so as to avoid upsetting financial markets. “I’ve heard people jumping on Nancy Messonnier because she told us the truth: that it’s not a matter of if but when,” Representative Tom Cole told reporters on Wednesday, according to Politico. “Isn’t that what you want to hear instead of some pie in the sky?” Apparently, not so much!
In addition to putting two and two together re: Messonnier—who, unlike the president and newly minted coronavirus czar Mike Pence, is an actual doctor who has never helped cause an HIV outbreak that we know of—supporters like Limbaugh have also fingered the media for the inside job. On Monday, the Medal of Freedom recipient told his listeners: “It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump,” adding, “Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus…The coronavirus is the common cold, folks. The Drive-By Media hype of this thing as a pandemic, as the Andromeda strain, as, ‘Oh, my God, if you get it, you’re dead’...I think the survival rate is 98%. Ninety-eight percent of people get the coronavirus survive…I believe the way it’s being weaponized is by virtue of the media, and I think that it is an effort to bring down Trump, and one of the ways it’s being used to do this is to scare the investors, to scare people in business. It’s to scare people into not buying Treasury bills at auctions. It’s to scare people into leaving, cashing out of the stock market—and sure enough, as the show began today, the stock market—the Dow Jones Industrial Average—was down about 900 points, supposedly because of the latest news about the spread of the coronavirus.”
Perhaps now that it’s all been laid out as plain as day, you‘ll begin to understand.
