A pro-Trump wellness influencer and a suburban Democrat share a conspiracy theory - how did it spread so far?

Wild Mother - the online alias of a woman called Desirée - lives in the mountains of Colorado, where she posts videos to 80,000 followers about holistic wellness and bringing up her little girl. She wants Donald Trump to win the presidential election.

About 70 miles north in the suburbs of Denver is Camille, a passionate supporter of racial and gender equality who lives with a gaggle of rescue dogs and has voted Democrat for the past 15 years.

The two women are poles apart politically - but they both believe assassination attempts against Mr Trump were staged.

Their views on the shooting in July and the apparent foiled plot earlier this month were shaped by different social media posts pushed to their feeds, they both say.

I travelled to Colorado - which became a hotbed of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen - for the BBC Radio 4 podcast Why Do You Hate Me? USA. I wanted to understand why these evidence-free staged assassination theories seemed to have spread so far across the political spectrum and the consequences for people like Camille and Wild Mother.

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  • @WoahWoah
    2•5 days ago

    Yes, if a rifle is sighted. He crawled up to the peak of the building, he was not particularly visible. If you watch the video, the secret service snipers were already scanning that direction with motivation, so they were aware something might be up. Likely looking for visual confirmation of a gun.

    There was not much time between when he peeked the roof and when he started firing, partially because an officer comes the roof and saw him, which rushed the shooter. If the police officer hadn’t dropped off the roof when the shooter turned to him, that might have prevented the shooter. But I don’t necessarily feel your average cop has enough training to move towards danger with a high likelihood of being shot in that situation.

    More important, in my opinion, is the fact that the secret service snipers do/should have that type of training and FLINCHED AWAY FROM THEIR SCOPES/RIFLES AND HAD TO RE-ACQUIRE THE SHOOTER after he had already started shooting. That was the most insane part to me, and definitely cost them several vital seconds. Their training definitely didn’t show in that moment.

    Don’t even get me started on them letting Trump have a photo op before the area was secured with his head and chest fully exposed, unmoving, and perfectly silhouetted seconds after an assassination attempt or the 5’5 agent hiding behind the podium and then pretending to give body coverage to someone a foot taller than they were. Not like the upper chest and head are vital areas or anything.

    Lots of huge mistakes that day. It’s no wonder the head of the secret service resigned.