If you liked this article, please like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and please consider Donating to keep the blog going
Edited by Robert Beach
As we enter the last few months of the 2016 American Presidential election, a strange trend has emerged out of the political discourse. While both this and the 2012 election have been colored by taking place after the explosion of Internet use from 2007-2010, this particular election has delved head first into web culture.
From Hillary Clinton name-dropping Pokemon Go to Donald Trump sliding into the role of alt-right meme to Jill Stein tweeting about Harambe, this is very much the election the net built. The latest iteration of this idea, or rather a persistent example that’s picking up steam, is the Internet’s infatuation with conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories have always circulated any given political election, but this is the first time we’ve heard major candidates like Trump talking about political conspiracies directed at them in an attempt to preemptively invalidate their opponent’s victory.
That particular strategy, forming an elaborate conspiracy to cast oneself as the victim of persecution and frame your megalomania and totalitarian ambitions as courageous freedom fighting is hardly new. In fact, I first encountered it two decades ago in an episode of Pinky and the Brain.
