"Lone Nutters" or "Tinfoil-Hat Conspiracy Theorists"?

[Tom Mahon]

When looking at the JFKA students and researchers who support Donald Trump, are most of them so called "Lone Nutters" or so called "Tinfoil-Hat Conspiracy Theorists"?

I'm guessing the latter.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

When looking at the JFKA students and researchers who support Donald Trump, are most of them so called "Lone Nutters" or so called "Tinfoil-Hat Conspiracy Theorists"?

I'm guessing the latter.

Which people are you talking about? These students or researchers? Names, please? It's not a big crowd. We have one Trump supporter here - Richard Smith - who is a lone assassin believer. We have another Trump supporter - Royell Storing - who is a conspiracist. Other than those two, who are we talking about?

I would guess that, like most ordinary Americans (Trump supporters or opponents), they are probably mostly conspiracy believers. Since again it's the dominant view of Americans regardless of political affiliation. I think that's also true of Harris supporters. I.e., most are conspiracy believers. Conspiracy belief transcends the left/right spectrum.

You keep trying to force Trump or Putin into this "conspiracist vs. lone assassin" issue when they really don't fit. The big name conspiracy believers - the ridiculous Stone and the bizarre DiEugenio (is this guy for real? he must be acting?) among others - are on the Left not the Right. But that doesn't tell us about rank-and-file conspiracy believers. Or the hobbyists or buffs. They are all over the political map. As to the noted/serious researchers, they are, from my experiences, almost all on the Left.

Anyway, aren't you a conspiracy believer? That the Soviets were behind the assassination?

[Richard Smith]

When looking at the JFKA students and researchers who support Donald Trump, are most of them so called "Lone Nutters" or so called "Tinfoil-Hat Conspiracy Theorists"?

I'm guessing the latter.

I can't fully decipher what you are asking here.  I've said before that I haven't seen any correlation between political views and whether someone is a JFK conspiracy theorist.  In general, I believe in those "conspiracy theories" that are supported by the facts and evidence and reject those that are not.  It's the facts and evidence, however, that are determinative of a conspiracy and not politics or any bias in favor of conspiracies.  There are undoubtedly some paranoid types who see a conspiracy behind every event.  Such as the KGB influencing the American public's opinion of the JFK assassination but that is more a product of a world view or mental issues than politics.

JFK assassination - no conspiracy. 
Lincoln assassination - conspiracy. 
Watergate - conspiracy. 
9/11 - no conspiracy beyond the terrorist hijackers involved in the attack.
Faked Moon landing - no conspiracy.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I can't fully decipher what you are asking here.  I've said before that I haven't seen any correlation between political views and whether someone is a JFK conspiracy theorist.  In general, I believe in those "conspiracy theories" that are supported by the facts and evidence and reject those that are not.  It's the facts and evidence, however, that are determinative of a conspiracy and not politics or any bias in favor of conspiracies.  There are undoubtedly some paranoid types who see a conspiracy behind every event.  Such as the KGB influencing the American public's opinion of the JFK assassination but that is more a product of a world view or mental issues than politics.

JFK assassination - no conspiracy. 
Lincoln assassination - conspiracy. 
Watergate - conspiracy. 
9/11 - no conspiracy beyond the terrorist hijackers involved in the attack.
Faked Moon landing - no conspiracy.

As I've said before, it seems to me there's a great deal of evidence that the hard Left, the anti- anti-communist Left from the Sixties and Seventies, those who thought (and still think) the Cold War was manufactured by the military-industrial complex for money and power and that the mostly innocent Soviets were dragged into it, are overwhelmingly pro-conspiracy believers. It's here where politics shows itself. There is no equivalent right wing element to this. Tucker Carlson thinks there was a CIA conspiracy behind it; but I don't think his views on the causes of the Cold War are similar to a Oliver Stone's?

It's why the major conspiracy promoters in history have been the Mark Lanes and Meaghers and Stones. Even Garrison viewed the Cold War as being caused by the US "war state" and not the actions of the Soviets. But yes rank-and-file conspiracy believers transcend the right/left divide. They come from both sides.

[Richard Smith]

It seems to me there's a great deal of evidence that the hard Left, the anti- anti-communist Left who thought (and still think) the Cold War was manufactured by the military-industrial complex for money and power and that the mostly innocent Soviets were dragged into it, are overwhelmingly pro-conspiracy believers. It's here where politics shows itself. There is no equivalent right wing element to this. Tucker Carlson thinks there was a CIA conspiracy but I don't think his views on the causes of the Cold War are similar to a Oliver Stone's?

It's why the major conspiracy figures have been the Mark Lanes and Meaghers and Stones. Even Garrison viewed the Cold War as being caused by the US "war state" and not the actions of the Soviets. But the rank-and-file conspiracy believers transcend the right/left divide. They come from all sides.

I think the leftist JFK conspiracy theorists are certainly more well known and vocal than those on the right.  But the right-wing has an element of paranoid "anti-government" types who think the government controls or fakes many events like the 9/11 buildings falling or moon landings.  There are certainly a lot of reasons to be skeptical of the government these days due to many the lies they have told, but the facts and evidence eventually tell the tale and only crazy people cling to the fake conspiracy narratives.  A conspiracy is notoriously difficult to cover up. Particularly for those events that are subject to scrutiny.  For example, Watergate was a small and simple conspiracy to begin with.  It came unraveled even with the sitting president doing everything to keep a lid on it.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

I think the leftist JFK conspiracy theorists are certainly more well known and vocal than those on the right.  But the right-wing has an element of paranoid "anti-government" types who think the government controls or fakes many events like the 9/11 buildings falling or moon landings.  There are certainly a lot of reasons to be skeptical of the government these days due to many the lies they have told, but the facts and evidence eventually tell the tale and only crazy people cling to the fake conspiracy narratives.  A conspiracy is notoriously difficult to cover up. Particularly for those events that are subject to scrutiny.  For example, Watergate was a small and simple conspiracy to begin with.  It came unraveled even with the sitting president doing everything to keep a lid on it.

Sure, the right-wing elements - the militia types most notably - are certainly there and probably strongly in the JFK conspiracy camp. But I think they are rarer and haven't been as vocal as the left-wing element (didn't the Birchers think the "Jewish Communists" were behind the assassination? Not the CIA). Who is the right-wing equivalent of a Oliver Stone? Or a Lane. Or Garrison? They are certainly there but don't get much attention.

A couple of years ago the right wing commentator Glenn Beck had the left wing conspiracy advocate Jefferson Morley on his show. Morley persuaded Beck that the CIA was behind the assassination, that James Angleton and the CIA's counter intelligence operations manipulated/used an unwitting Oswald as part of a covert program to embarrass the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. It's all a giant Rube Goldberg conspiracy explanation that is absent the mouse traps and bells and whistles. He's making it all up. Beck believed it. It's here where the sort of anti-government Right and Left come together.

As to conspiracies: the JFK conspiracy believers like to say, "Hah, you nutters don't believe in government conspiracies! You're naive." No, we believe in such things; the record is clear that they happen. It's the alleged complete secrecy behind the JFK conspiracy (along with the lack of evidence) that is the issue. You cannot secretly organize what they say happened, carry it out, and then cover it up (with future generations in the government and media doing so) for all of these decades. It simply cannot be done.

[Tom Mahon]

There are undoubtedly some paranoid types who see a conspiracy behind every event.  Such as the KGB influencing the American public's opinion of the JFK assassination but that is more a product of a world view or mental issues than politics.

I guess you've never heard of Comrade Joachim Joesten, Comrade Thomas G. Buchannan, Mark "KGB" Lane, overly ambitious, scandal-plagued and revengeful Jim Garrison, the Communist-owned Italian newspaper Paese Sera, William Schaap and Ellen Ray's Sheridan Square Press, and Comrade Oliver Stone, et al. ad nauseam.

[Tom Mahon]

Watergate was a small and simple conspiracy to begin with.  It came unraveled even with the sitting president doing everything to keep a lid on it.

President Nixon set up The Plumbers group in response to a claim by Kremlin-loyal FBI "informant" Aleksei Kulak (J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA) that the Kremlin had a complete copy of the Pentagon Papers (it didn't).