'Bending of reality': U.S. liberals stoke political conspiracies

From false claims of a "staged" assassination attempt on Donald Trump to a viral joke about his running mate having sex with a couch, American liberals have taken a page from the far-right's playbook in pushing wild conspiracy theories ahead of US elections.

The liberal and left-wing warping of reality -- a trend some call "BlueAnon," a play on the QAnon conspiracy cult -- is fueling information chaos on social media platforms that are already a cesspool of right-wing falsehoods.

The trend underscores how Americans on both sides of the political divide are prone to outlandish conspiracy theories, as many turn to partisan influencers for information amid mistrust of mainstream media, researchers say.

Just moments after former president Trump was whisked off stage with blood on his ear following a shooting at a Pennsylvania rally earlier this month, unsubstantiated claims surfaced online that the incident was "staged."

Some on the Elon Musk-owned platform X cast doubt on the injuries by sharing an image that appeared to show a burst ketchup packet tucked into his shirt collar.

"It's always a con and a grift," an X user named "Liberal Lisa in Oklahoma" wrote, using the hashtag "Trump is not fit to be president."

But the image was digitally altered to include the packet, AFP's fact-checkers reported.

Other posts baselessly accused the Republican, who narrowly survived a volley of gunshots that killed a bystander and wounded two other people, of staging the assassination attempt with fake blood capsules.

- 'Off-the-rails noise' -

The claims appeared to resonate with voters despite being debunked.

Roughly one in five voters -– including some Trump supporters -- said they found it "credible that the shooting was staged and not intended to kill" the former president, according to a recent poll by the business intelligence company Morning Consult.

"It's definitely dark that many leftists are clinging to the idea that the shooting was fake," Mike Rothschild, an expert on conspiracy theories, told AFP.

"It's a bending of reality," he said. "It means that nothing that comes out in social media in the first minutes can be trusted."

Misinformation has also ensnared Trump's vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance, with many social media users falsely claiming he wrote about having sex with a couch in his memoir "Hillbilly Elegy."

Last month, President Joe Biden's disastrous performance in a prime-time debate with Trump sparked unsubstantiated claims that the 81-year-old Democrat had been secretly drugged before the show.

Many also lambasted the mainstream press over what they called tough coverage of the president's struggles with his age, with some going as far as calling it an "internal coup" in favor of Trump.

"The left-leaning conspiracy theories and misinformation have always been there, but they've been drowned out by the off-the-rails noise on the right," Timothy Caulfield, a misinformation expert from the University of Alberta in Canada, told AFP.

"The recent debate debacle and assassination attempt created space –- and a perceived need -– for explanations that satisfy the liberal narrative. And the algorithms that control social media feeds amplify the segregation."

- 'Mental gymnastics' -

The unfounded theories, which continue to circulate in liberal circles even after being widely debunked, are making it harder for ordinary users to decipher fact from fiction.

Many platforms have gutted trust and safety teams and scaled back content moderation efforts once used to tame misinformation.

That includes X, where Musk -- who recently endorsed Trump -- reinstated hundreds of right-wing campaigners and conspiracy theorists after he purchased the site in 2022.

Democrats -- who have a far more negative view of X, according to surveys -- are increasingly migrating to Threads, a platform launched by Meta to compete with X.

While Threads appears to have more robust content moderation policies, conspiracy theories have still gained traction among liberals on the platform ahead of the election.

"The general disposition toward conspiratorial thinking is not a particularly partisan phenomenon. It's something that sort of afflicts everybody," Adam Enders, associate political science professor at the University of Louisville, told AFP.

"It's all just mental gymnastics to bring your beliefs in conformity with the world. And a reasonable way to do that would be to change your beliefs in light of evidence."