the following is a cnn special report.

could be one of the greatest coos of all time. they're spying on me. fighting the deep state. >> this is a conspiracy against you, the american people, and we cannot let this happen. >> why does the president of the united states of america live in a world of dark, sinister conspiracies? >> he gravitates, instinctively, to conspiratorial understandings of the world. >> the world actually makes sense, if you just look behind the curtain. >> it could be a plot. >> there are dark, malevolent forces behind the curtain. >> lurking behind that curtain, he sees political enemies. >> obama gate. some terrible things happened, and it should never be allowed to happen in our country again. >> joe biden and his son are corrupt. >> hillary clinton. she's a world-class liar. >> he sees a plot to steal an election.

>> voter fraud. voter fraud. here's the evidence. >> this whole election is being rigged. >> it's a lie. >> and it's dangerous. >> a burn-it-down strategy. it doesn't just defeat an opponent, it actually damages democracy. >> covid-19 is a hoax. >> trump has conspiracy theory allies. >> obama and hillary, both, smell like sulfur. >> it's totally nuts. >> even crazier. the conspiracies of trump fans. >> donald trump is the hero of a ring of predators and child traffickers. >> this is the first time in our history that a conspirasist. >> a democracy that will soon elect a president. >> this is the first time i can remember having a fear or anxiety that a sitting

president, if he loses a free and fair election, won't leave. good evening. i'm fareed zakaria. let me begin with a confession. this is not the kind of topic i usually tackle. and i am concerned about repeating false information. but the subject is urgent because the conspiracy theories circulating, now, are dangerous. and the president of the united states is trafficking in them. when donald trump tells us that elections are rigged, obama gate is the biggest scandal in history. some know these ideas are wholly false. but others are less certain. especially, when they hear a story full of details, that seems to explain everything. polls show that up to 50% of americans have believed at least one of these conspiracy theories.

this is a story of just how destructive they have become, not just to the people they target but, also, to the very foundations of our democracy. >> why doesn't he give his birth certificate? >> donald trump's rise to power began with a conspiracy theory. >> his relatives don't even know which hospital he was born in. >> as he tested the waters to run for the white house. >> people have birth certificates. he doesn't have a birth certificate. if he doesn't, it's one of the greatest scams in the history of politics. >> trump peddled birtherism like a traveling salesman. >> he was born in hawaii. why are you going through all this, don? >> you won't report it, wolf. >> it was a political winner. >> 55% of the republicans believe in this issue. >> he rode it into the white house. he's got brilliant instincts and

brilliant intuitions. >> donald trump understood exactly how to tap into an ugly, racial undercurrent. >> the idea of whether he was born in the united states, i think, that's a metaphor. is he one of us? answer, no. >> with the birtherism conspiracy theory, donald trump could send a racist message, without saying the race part, out loud. >> your country was stolen from you by barack hussein obama. >> barack hussein obama. >> black, african father. barack hussein. that's enough. >> trump uses conspiracy theories as weapons against his

political opponents. >> very suspicious situation. obama gate. i'm fighting the deep state. >> but there has been no bigger trump target than hillary clinton. >> the most corrupt person, ever, to seek the presidency of the united states. >> the darkest clinton c conspiracy theory has a huge following on the internet. trump and his allies have promoted it. even, as it has grown increasingly toxic. this is edgar madison welch. he is driving from his north carolina home to washington, d.c. recording a message to his two young daughters. >> i love you more than anything in this world. >> he is preparing e to risk hi life, to save children he doesn't even know. >> like i've always told you, we have a duty to protect people. who can't protect themselves. do for people, who can't do for

themselves. >> you might consider welch a good man. >> i hope you understand. >> but this mission of mercy was, actually, a dangerous delusion. welch fell prey to a twisted conspiracy theory called pizza gate. he, actually, believed that hillary clinton and other washington elites were running a pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizza restaurant in washington, d.c. >> just because it's crazy doesn't mean that people won't believe it. >> in addition to the ar-15, welch was carrying a handgun and a shotgun was found in his car. >> he burst into a crowded restaurant. terrified customers ran for their lives. but there were no abused children. not even a basement. no one was hurt. welch went to prison. the original source of all this? elite e-mail to john podesta,

hillary clinton's campaign chief. it was from his brother and it said, simply, would love to get a pizza. >> pizza is a well-known, pedophile code word that, actually, has been used by law enforcement to arrest online sexual predators of children. >> pizza gate is real. >> now, disturbingly, teenagers have grown obsessed with pizza gate. they believe celebrities have joined hillary clinton to abuse children. >> we need to search for what they don't want us paying attention to. >> child trafficking. >> the social media site tik tok, popular with teenagers, has logged more than 18 million views for posts with the pizza gate hashtag, according to "the new york times." pizza gate began in 2016. but in the last few years, it has grown into an even bigger conspiracy theory called q anon.

>> when nonsense becomes actually dangerous is when people actually believe it to be true. >> supposedly, high up in u.s. intelligence, give followers hints about deep-state conspirators, who are out to destroy donald trump. >> donald trump is the hero of the qanon following. >> he is actually a christ-like figure, who will save the country and save the word. >> save the world from the deep state. from liberals. from pedophiles. >> you believe there's a ring of high-profile politicians who are kidnapping and sacrificing children? >> i believe that. >> everything he posts about child pedophilia and what's been going on in our country and who is doing it, it's coming to light. >> trump is part of the q team. from what we understand, q plus is his handle and he does a lot of posts, and he's part of this. >> crowds of qanon believers show up at trump rallies.

>> hi. my name is tammy and i'm a family doctor. >> truth. q is about getting to the truth, by educating people about the truth about what's really going on. >> they're anonymous, but they're all on the same track. looking for the truth. >> we are all qanon. all of us. >> getting to the truth is a qanon theme. even though its beliefs are preposterous fiction. >> the motorcade moves into the downtown area. death is six minutes away. >> the biggest conspiracy theory of them all? who really killed jfk has now become part of qanon. >> jfk jr. is in protective custody because they tried to kill him just like they killed his father. >> the belief is that, somehow, the late jfk jr. is alive, and helping trump clean up the deep state.

>> they're not tethered to the truth. so it's very easy to make up more and more elaborate stories. >> qanon has morphed from conspiracy theory, into an actual, political movement of sorts. >> we've all been gathering in one line and talking together, as -- as americans. and uniting and -- >> you think maybe this makes you comfortable talking with other frustrated, sometimes angry, people? >> yes. >> what is donald trump's connection to qanon? meet radio host michael lebron. he is one of qanon's chief pushers. >> if you have not even ventured, initially, into the qanon phenomenon, do you have any idea of what you're missing? >> this is qanon pusher, michael lebron, in the oval office with the president. >> eric trump, everybody. >> eric trump, the president's son, posted this instagram. he is promoting qanon. even using one of the slogans.

where we go one, we go all. >> you're wearing a shirt that says qww 1 wwga. >> where we go one, we go all. >> general michael flynn, the former national security adviser, who trump has lavishly by the justice system, took the qanon oath on the fourth of july, with family and friends. >> god bless america. >> flynn's lawyers tell cnn that the oath he took was not connected to qanon. but, in fact, that oath is universally recognized inside the q movement. >> where we go one, we go all. >> where we go one, we go all. >> president donald trump frequently retweets qanon accounts. on the fourth of july, the same day michael flynn took his oath,

while the coronavirus was surging to record levels all over the country, the president retweeted qanon accounts 14 times. no one is sure how many people are in the group. but according to "the washington post," about 600,000 people have voted for qanon-connected political candidates. media has documented at least 46 of them are in the current election cycle. >> i'm marjorie green and i approve this ad. >> marjorie green faces an august runoff in her effort to win a congressional seat from northwest georgia. >> q has put out there that many high-level officials will, soon, be arrested. is it going to be true that the child pedophilia and the elites in the washington, d.c., is that what we're really going to see come out? is it going to be satanic worship? >> save america. >> marjorie green is favored to win that seat in the house of representatives.

perhaps the biggest question surrounding all of this is why? why would anyone believe any of these conspiracy theories? >> it's so unsettling. and i think, quite authentically, terrifying. to live in a world that we feel we can't control. >> conspiracism becomes very, very seductive, very attractive because it explains that the world is against you and, this is the important part, it's not your fault. >> not my fault but we're fixing it. >> hey, it's not my fault. i didn't put us there. >> no, i don't take responsibility at all. >> it externalizes blame. that's what qanon does for people. >> and it seems to give its followers a kind of emotional support. >> it creates an explanation that comforts and consoles. there's always this unnamed, unseen deep state that is actually responsible for everything. >> qanon provides people with the psychological comfort they

need. what it does for donald trump is that it provides the fear that keeps his base motivated. >> several studies done by scientists from the united kingdom and poland found that conspiracy-minded people have a strong need to feel better or smarter than others. they are, in other words, narcissistic. if that sounds familiar. >> i don't think this is the most controversial thing in the world that he is, even by the standards of american politicians, unusually narcissistic. >> i, alone, can fix it. >> people would say i'm the supergenius of all time. >> the one that matters is me. >> is it possible that trump just uses conspiracy theories to gin up his base? maybe. but -- >> he has a con spir cyst mindset. he graduates, naturally, inescapably, to conspiratorial

understandings of the world. >> there's something going on that we don't know about. >> a lot of people are saying they had spies in my campaign. >> there could be a plot. i mean, i don't want to think in terms of conspiracy. but it could be a plot. >> trump's conspiracy theories resonate deeply with his voters. and that raises the most troubling aspect of this story. >> our immune system has been weakened to conspiracy thinking. >> this is why it's so dangerous. >> many americans are vulnerable to conspiracy theories because they don't trust government, officials, or institutions. listen to what this qanon follower says. >> we can all admit that pretty much everybody knows the government is corrupt. q, to me, is just showing that it's a lot more corrupt than we thought. >> pew research shows america's trust has been dropping for decades. just look at the last 20 years. by the time donald trump was elected president, belief and faith in democracy had reached an all-time low.

trust in the media took a similar plunge. and donald trump knows it. >> and just remember what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. >> what's important is to get them to disbelieve everything. >> this is the way in which hard demagoguery can destroy democracy. >> all of this, as we face a presidential election. >> voter fraud, voter fraud! >> the most corrupt election in the history of our country. >> it's a lie. >> coming up next. the biggest conspiracy threat of all. >> the sort of thing i never imagined would be possible in the united states of america. this is a tempur-pedic mattress.

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>> yes. >> can i have it? >> no. >> why? >> we're going to release everything to the public. >> when? >> as soon as we get done with the checks. >> so you're not done checking it, yet. >> questions about a possible recount. >> in fact, when phillips made his outrageous claim. >> recount votes in michigan, pennsylvania, and wisconsin. >> states had not even certified their election results. >> we're not going to make a mistake. we're going to do this. we're doing it. >> you already accused them. >> look, i'm not a politician. i'm just a guy. >> millions of dead people voting. millions of illegals voting. >> then, alex jones, the notorious conspiracy theorist, who said the u.s. government staged 9/11, picked up the story. >> donald j. trump didn't just win the electoral college. he, also, clearly, won the popular vote. >> and after that story ran, president-elect trump tweeted, for the first time, that he won

the popular vote, if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. greg phillips, still, won't show us any evidence. >> illegal immigrants voting. >> illegal immigrants are voting. >> just like that. >> we don't want noncitizen voters. >> a voter fraud conspiracy theory was born. >> voter fraud. voter fraud. here is the evidence. it's a lie. >> trump has made an astounding number of completely unsubstantiated voter fraud claims over the years. as early as the 2012 election, he tweeted that president obama's win was a total sham. >> god bless the great state of iowa. >> in the 2016 primaries, he accused ted cruz of stealing iowa and marco rubio of rigging florida. >> new hampshire was taken away. >> he said there were busloads

of out-of-state voters who stole the state ofre. >> people who died ten years ago are still voting. >> nearly, 2 million dead people voting for hillary clinton. >> tens ofn 2020. >> will they be forged? >> according to our president, mail-in ballots will be riddled with fraud. >> will they be taken from the mailmen and the mail women? >> it's based on a lie. it's a big, magical trick but it's lethal to american democracy. >> reporter: voter fraud has been investigated, ad nauseam, by academics and governments, republicans and democrats. proven cases are less common than someone being struck by lightning. >> from 2000 to 2014, in one billion votes cast, there were 31 cases of voter-impersonation fraud. that's not massive. that's not rampant. >> voter fraud is, virtually,

nonexistent because it doesn't make sense for people to risk it. it's unlikely to swing an election. and the penalties are severe. >> voter fraud is a felony. so that's a big disincentive. >> they even want to try to rig the election. >> but thanks to trump's constant repetition -- >> the system was rigged. that election's going to be rigged. fivt of all, it was rigged. >> the voter-fraud lie has become the truth for many americans. in one poll, nearly half said that voter fraud occurred often. among trump supporters, over two-thirds said it happened a lot. >> the beauty of a lie is, if you say it over and over, and with conviction, it sounds like the truth. >> we have to protect the integrity of the vote and our voters. >> trump doubled down on his conspiracy theories when he

formed a presidential commission to investigate voter fraud. >> criticized as a misguided effort to prove the unprovable. >> after a few months of bureaucratic blundering. >> one senior white house adviser telling cnn, quote, it was a poop show. they used a different word. >> it ended in disgrace. >> in that commission's report, when you get to the section marked voter fraud, the pages are blank. >> but the voter-fraud lie lives on. >> we're not going to lose. the only way we can lose is if cheating goes on. >> voter fraud conspiracy theories have been around, long before donald trump. >> vote fraud threatens the very integrity of our process. >> in the 2000s, some republicans began spinning tales of widespread voter fraud. >> germinating the system.

>> there is growing concern in the party about the nation's demographics. >> this is your victory. >> that more people of color, who traditionally voted democrat, were going to the polls. >> certain republican elites came to believe that the republican party had an interest in depressing turnout. and that's when they invented the fiction of voter fraud. >> requiring people to show photo i.d., in order to vote. >> some in the party used the myth of rampant voter fraud. >> pushing more voters out of the ballot box. >> to justify new voting restrictions. >> i just think it's terrible because it's so many people that don't have i.d., and they're not going to be able to vote. >> that made it harder for black americans to vote. >> we are ready! >> a shameful echo. >> you are ordered to disperse. >> of the jim crow south. >> we are taking a very close

look at wisconsin right now. >> in 2016, these measures had a re impact. >> donald trump continues to maintain his lead of about 90,000 votes. >> tens of thousands of people were detefrrred from voting in wisconsin because of that state's i.d. law. >> the question is are there democratic votes out there somewhere? it's just not enough. >> and black voter turnout plummeted. >> cnn projects donald trump will carry the state of wisconsin. >> trump won the state by less than 23,000 ballots. >> voter fraud doesn't change an election result. voter suppression does. >> millions and millions of ballots. >> trump's doubling down on his ballot box conspiracy theories in 2020. >> will they be counterfeited by groups inside our nation? >> from rigged mail-in ballots. >> will they be counterfeited by the millions by foreign powers? >> to votes being airmailed from china.

there is growing fear that trump's disinformation campaign will cast doubt on the outcome of the election. democrats and republicans are gaming out worst-case scenarios. >> this president's going to try to steal this election. >> this will be, in my opinion, the most corrupt election in the history of our country. >> donald trump may be saving his most dangerous conspiracy theory, for last. >> i think of all the conspiracies, this one is one i worry about the most. our family is from?

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it's all coming up on this live global sunday transmission. >> while this may look like your average cable news show, it is anything but. >> leading a frontal assault on the lies of the new-world order. >> i don't like -- in the water that turn the freaking frogs gay. >> the globalists are filling our water with radioactive isotopes. >> they believe they are possessed by entities. basically, space aliens. >> this is alex jones. host and founder of "info wars." a leading conspiracy talk show and website. >> hillary and obama want to make you poor. >> he screams and rants on air. spewing venomous hate. >> they hate god. they hate children. and god damn them to hell. >> and he has, also, been a principal news source for the

president. >> it is surreal to talk about issues, here, on the air and then, hear, word for word, trump say it two days later. >> his real name is barry sataro. >> he was born barry sataro. somewhere along the line, he changed his name. >> i think he is going to show up and on drugs, though. >> i think we should take a drug test, prior to the debate. >> to have conspiracism move into the white house, and then have a president welcome it, amplify it, recognize it, utterly unprecedented. >> donald, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, alex. >> donald trump first aligned himself with jones in 2015. >> your reputation's amazing. i will not let you down. >> donald trump, basically, said to alex jones, i love your work. it's totally nuts. >> so nuts, it begs the question, how did we get here? to what, some are calling, the

info-wars presidency. >> alex jones. he was a nice guy, actually. >> you may remember alex jones for spreading the most grotesque lie imaginable. >> sandy hook is a synthetic, completely fake, in my view, manufactured. >> claiming the massacre was all a hoax. jones has been ordered to pay at least $100,000 in legal fees. >> basically, everything was staged. >> in one deposition, jones testified that a form of psychosis had made him believe these preposterous claims. >> that's what alex jones does. that's the world he lives in. it's the world in which there is no true and false. where anything can be believed, except the official account of anything. >> buying this product. >> all these lies have proven to be a lucrative business for jones. >> introducing cell force. >> this stuff is incredible.

>> available at info-war store.com. >> i just can't express how serious the situation is. >> and part of the way he's been able to do that is by continually scaring his audience into telling them that disaster is approaching. and then, selling them products to mitigate that disaster. >> if you don't buy the products, we will not be able to fund this operation. >> his online store sells everything, from freeze dryers to survival gear. >> we have the full my patriot supply. this stuff kills the whole sars/corona family, at pointblank range. >> most recently, the fda ordered jones to stop selling fake cures for covid-19. >> it kills every virus. >> there's money to be made in this. >> i only promote what i believe in. >> it is this conspiracy-riddled path that connected donald trump to alex jones. >> my audience, i'd say 90%,

support you. >> trump knows his bread and butter. and to keep power and to win in the next election. >> both men understood how to reach an audience and how to propel themselves into the mainstream. >> i doubt i'd be here, if it weren't for social media. i'm able to go bing, bing, bing, and i take care of it. the other way, i'd never be able to get the word out. >> like trump, jones used all kinds of media to push his agenda for years. >> machine gunned a bunch of men, women, and children. >> he migrated from public-access tv to terrestrial radio to the internet. that unrestrained freedom, combined with these algorithms that are designed to amplify whatever is most eye catching and most shocking meant that he was just perfectly adapted to the internet. >> but that all came to a crashing halt in 2018. >> apple, facebook, youtube,

spotify, pinterest, and linked in, have all removed material from jones. >> the de-platforming of jones. >> google is evil! >> especially, by youtube. it diminished him. >> i don't get a day in court. >> his viewership fell by about half. >> the president, himself, has also been policed for promoting violence and spreading false claims. twitter has flagged several of his tweets, over accuracy and copyright issues. while we may never know whether jones or trump, truly, believe in the crazy conspiracies they spread. >> this is first time in our history that a conspiracist holds the highest office in the land. >> presidential historian, tim neftali, says what happens next is up to us. >> will the american public embrace it a second time? the test is in november.

yes it is. jim, could you uh kick the tires? oh yes. can you change the color inside the car? oh sure. how about blue? that's more cyan but. jump in the back seat, jim. act like my kids. how much longer? -exactly how they sound. it's got massaging seats too, right? oh yeahhhhh. -oh yeahhhhh. visit the mercedes-benz summer event or shop online at participating dealers. get 0% apr financing up to 36 months on select new and certified pre-owned models. and a high risk for fracture, osteoporosis now might not be the best time to ask yourself, are my bones strong? life is full of make or break moments. that's why it's so important to help reduce your risk of fracture with prolia®. only prolia® is proven to help strengthen and protect bones from fracture with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. serious allergic reactions like low blood pressure, trouble breathing, throat tightness, face, lip or tongue swelling, rash, itching or hives have happened.

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we caught him. >> this is actually treason. >> they were spying on our campaign. there was treason. >> long before donald trump became conspiracist in chief, there was joseph mccarthy. >> one communist in the state department, that would still be one communist too many. >> in the early 1950s, the republican senator accused all kinds of americans of treason. largely, without any evidence.

it was what, joe mccarthy called, a vast communist conspiracy. >> these activities may well determine whether this nation will live or die. >> what he did was to drum up this incredible fear. >> yes, they're traitors, to america. >> communist! >> but they could not find, as he said, a conspiracy so immense. they could not find it because it wasn't there. >> at the height of the cold war, many americans had legitimate fears about communism. >> in 1949, you had the soviet union explode a nuclear device. >> then, communists overthrew the chinese government. >> overnight, now, you have 500

million new communists in the world. it felt like america was losing. how could america be losing? >> enter joseph mccarthy, who claimed he had the answer. a list of 205 employees in the state department, whom he said were known communists. >> that simple answer just was like, boom. >> he didn't have the goods to prove this monster conspiracy. >> mccarthy presided overhearings that were little more than trial by accusation. >> he would just badger witnesses. where they wouldn't have a chance to answer. he wasn't about nuance. he was about got ya. >> answer that, yes or no, do you know this man? >> mccarthy made baseless charges against the truman

administration. including, a man who served as the secretary of state and defense. >> george c. marshall. a man who helped defeat the nazis. >> a venerated, five-star general, who had helped orchestrate the allied victory in world war ii. republicans didn't like mccarthy's tactics. but most didn't speak out because they were afraid of losing their base. sound familiar? by 1952, republicans had been out of power for two decades. >> the american people have spoken with a resounding voice at the polls. victory is here. >> mccarthy helped win back the white house, and both houses of congress. >> with a bigger platform, he became even more reckless. he went after the army. claiming it had been infiltrated by communists. >> you're not fooling anyone, at all. >> senator.

senator, let me tell you something. >> the chair believes the american people have had a look at you for six weeks. you're not cool with anyone, either. >> the senator was called out as a bully, in front of 20 million viewers. >> you've done enough. have you no sense of decency, sir? at long last, have you, left, no sense of decency? >> finally, congress said enough. >> the republican senate censured one of their own. >> the conspiratorial world view and political tactics, however, would live on. >> fight to expose those who would destroy this nation, will go on and on. >> nearly one decade later. >> from dallas, texas, president kennedy died at 1:00 p.m., central standard time. >> a tragic event became the catalyst for a new wave of

conspiracies. >> to this day, people think how does a lone gunman successfully assassinate the most protected person on the face of the earth? >> there was plenty of evidence linking lee harvey ods waswald e shooting. but america didn't buy the official story. >> the idea that one person, alone, without a government or a conspiracy behind them, could change the course of history just seemed impossible to believe. implausible. >> i emphatically deny these charges. >> then, only two days later, he was fatally shot, on live television, by nightclub owner jack ruby. >> many americans, when jack ruby killed oswald, began to believe something was amiss. >> the week that president kennedy was killed, a gallup poll showed that the majority of americans believed it was a conspiracy.

the kennedy assassination, immediately, became a national obsession. by the mid-'70s, the percentage of americans who believed it was a conspiracy skyrocketed to over 80%. americans had seen the release of the pentagon papers, the escalation in vietnam, watergate. >> a series of misfortunes for this country, and you begin to wonder, did it all start with the jfk assassination? >> i have enabled the cia. >> senate investigations into secret government programs open the door to even more conspiracy theories. >> the more americans mistrusted government, the more they believed that john f. kennedy had been assassinated by a secret group of officials, who did not like his policies. >> soon, an entire cottage industry because created around the jfk assassination. books. board games. video games.

and of course, a hollywood blockbuster. >> one of the grossest lies ever forced on the american people. we've come to know it as the magic-bullet theory. >> great cinematography. terrible history. >> but it was the internet age of the '90s and 2000s that helped rocket a conspiracy theorist right to the presidency. - i didn't know why my body was moving on its own. it turns out i have tardive dyskinesia,

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it is an undeniable fact the president of the united states is an ardent fan of conspiracy theories, he repeats them and retweets them and embrace the crazy people who promulgate them. in doing so, he's bringing to the three different strands of history in a dangerous way. first, we all share some basic propensity to believe in the theories. why? human beings can't stand uncertainty. we want to know why things happen. we used to rely on religion and magic to explain things. enlighy

transferred to science. there's so much we don't understand. the world is a blooming buzzing confusion. we want to find ways to make sense of it. ascribe meaning and assign blame. in particular when we confront huge events with great consequences, like john f. kennedy's assassination, we can't accept it happened by chance, confusion or accident. there must have been a cause for the outcome. a larger grander conspiracy. the second strand is particular to america. america has had a history of conspiracy theories. what one historian called the paranoid style in american politics. it's easy to understand how it developed in vast country with new immigrants coming from everywhere, living on sparsely populated land. far from centers of power. with a strong antistatist tradition.

and when people felt threatened or in danger at the height of the cold war, the theories got more alarmist. that's why the pandemic has given rise to a new wave of conspiracy theories that explain how something so devastating must have had behind it an evil genius. the third strand is even more specific to donald trump. for people who believe that they are at the center of the world, narcissists, conspiracy theories are especially compelling. you are so important, the world is arrayed against you. if something goes wrong it was not your fault, rather dark and deep forces that plot against you. trump has decided that there are vast and powerful forces that plot against him daily. bureaucrats. reporters. minority activists. if he loses the election, he already set in motion conspiracy theories that will claim it was because of voter fraud.

or mail-in ballot irregularities, or work of the chinese communist party. in doing so, trump is taking an axe to american democracy and wrecking ball to the constitution. america's election of 1800 was a historic moment for the world. because for the first time after a contest at the ballot box, political power changed hands from one party to the another. peacefully. that is america's legacy to the world. and it has endured for 2020 years. now by creating doubt about the 2020 election, by setting up possible obstacles to the peaceful transfer of power, donald trump is doing something more insidious and dangerous than anything he has done as president so far. i'm freed zakaria, thank you for watching.

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