Members of Trump’s inner circle have stoked similarly lurid rumors about the Clintons. On Nov. 3, Trump’s national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, tweeted a link to an online post claiming the NYPD had evidence linking Clinton to “child exploitation” and “sex crimes with minors.” “U decide,” Flynn wrote, calling the post a “must-read.” He has since deleted the tweet.
Online media amplifies such theories, helping them gain traffic in remote and niche corners of the Internet. Conservative websites such as Breitbart, the Drudge Report, Infowars and WND play host to the least scrupulous theorizing. Sometimes, their coverage drives discussion at more prominent outlets such as Fox News. Social media produces memes that get picked up by public figures, including lawmakers. Eventually, mainstream media outlets may carry the rumors, if only to debunk them.
Joseph Uscinski, an associate professor at the University of Miami, said the risk of having conspiracists in government is they can act on those beliefs “with the force of law.”
“In other institutional contexts, we’ve seen the damage that conspiracy theorists can do when they have power,” said Uscinski, whose book, American Conspiracy Theories, was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. “Hitler and Stalin come to mind, though those were very different institutional contexts.”
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