5 Recent Conspiracy Theories That Are (Deep Sigh)
The world is in a weird place right now, and nothing makes sense. That said, it sure as hell makes a lot more sense than the conspiracy theories that some galaxy brains have concocted about current events. Such as ...
"Russia Was Framed For The DNC Leaks!"
In March 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller released the conclusions of his investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election -- and if so, whether the Trump campaign had knowingly took part in it. On the former charge, Mueller found that yes, Russia tried to influence the election for its own ends. However, he wasn't able to present a smoking gun to show this was done with cooperation from the campaign, though he did state "that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts."
These findings pleased no one. Especially not liberals, who had spent two years writing fanfiction about how the republic was going to be saved by Swole Mueller.
Conservatives also weren't happy, but for an entirely different reason: CrowdStrike. This was the byword for a popular conspiracy theory that's been making the rounds in MAGA Land since the early days of the Trump presidency. The idea is that Russia was framed for the cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee by a cybersecurity firm called CrowdStrike on the orders of, dun dun dunnn, the Democratic National Committee ... who themselves were working with, dunn dunn dunnnnnn, Ukraine, which wanted to swing the election for Hillary Clinton in order to get revenge on Russia for killing thousands of Ukrainians since 2014.
The proof of this multi-dimensional chess game? The fact after its servers were hacked, the DNC wouldn't allow the FBI to examine them. After all, this would have given the FBI the opportunity to discover that CrowdStrike, not Russia, was behind the hack. Also important to note? One of the co-founders of CrowdStrike, Dmitri Alperovitch, is Ukrainian. Chessmate, libs!
... Except absolutely none of that is true. The DNC provided a copy of all its server data to the FBI (along with several other intelligence agencies). Alperovitch is an American citizen whose family defected from Russia to the U.S. during the Cold War.
By 2017, the right-wing conspiracy machine was promoting CrowdStrike as an alternative to the then-recently-announced Mueller investigation. It soon found a permanent home among the delusional dipshits haunting 8chan and /r/The_Donald, convicted felon Roger Stone, and, um, Donald Trump. He claims that the server contains the "missing" emails of Hillary Clinton, as well as other mythical objects, like his father's love.
Related: 5 New (And Strangely Plausible) Conspiracy Theories
"The Royal Baby Is A Fraud!"
Meghan Markle is proving to be a major headache for the British tabloids. Being the island that helped invent colonialism, they can't seem to get over the fact that she's mixed-race. As a result, the headlines about her regularly run the gamut from "she's full of rich and exotic flavor" to "how dare she be on the taxpayer's penny."
Unsurprisingly, The Daily Mail is responsible for a lot of these racist snafus. The annoyance over her melanin count is so strong that in May 2019, they wound up kick-starting a conspiracy theory about her womb, accusing Meghan and Harry of lying about the time when their son Archie was born.
On May 7, Richard Kay complained that the initial birth announcement released by Kensington Palace said that Markle had gone into labor at lunchtime on May 6, while a later announcement said she'd given birth at 5:26 a.m. that morning. Immediately, racists readers began theorizing that this wasn't just an attempt to mislead the public, but definitive proof that this royal baby was a scam. It had either really been born two weeks before, or it belonged to a surrogate and Markle had spent the last several months wearing a fake bump.
But why would the royal family do any of this, exactly? Well, the readers haven't really figured that part out yet. But we'll be sure to give them a hand after we solve the mystery of how they're able to read with their heads up their asses.
Related: The 9 Strangest Newest Conspiracy Theories Thriving Online
"The Fires In The Amazon Rainforest Were Started By Tree-Huggers!"
As if the world being metaphorically on fire wasn't bad, this year saw the Amazon actually become a full-time raging inferno that destroyed millions of acres of trees, killed two people, and handicapped one of the planet's best defenses against climate change.
Unsurprisingly, this sparked anger among countless governments and environmental NGOs, all of whom pointed the finger at Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a man with such a throbbing hate-boner for trees that you'd think that one killed his parents in an alleyway after they saw Zorro. After coming to power earlier this year, Bolosnaro (aka "Captain Chainsaw") eviscerated environmental protections on the rainforest to make way for industries such as farming and cattle ranching. Forgive us if we're wrong, but what's a really easy, really illegal way to remove a bunch of trees?
Bolsonaro responded to these well-founded allegations by saying that nuh-uh, the fires were in truth the work of NGOs like Greenpeace Brazil and Amazon Watch, and were set to make him look bad. "On the question of burning in the Amazon, which in my opinion may have been initiated by NGOs because they lost money," said Bolsonaro, "What is the intention? To bring problems to Brazil ... to call attention against me, against the Brazilian government." (Note: This was after he had already fired the head of Brazil's government agency in charge of tracking Amazon deforestation.)
When asked for proof that SAD FAILING NGOs were responsible, Bolosnaro responded that he has "no written plan," and "that's not how it's done," which we believe is authoritarian shorthand for "I don't have any." Luckily, the fires were then nearly extinguished by rain, the military, and everyone in the scientific community laughing so hard in disbelief at his bullshit that they blew some flames out.
Related: 5 Conspiracy Theories That Have Insanely Dumb Obvious Flaws
"Antifa Are Reporting Trump Supporters To Child Services!"
Despite their failings elsewhere, Trump supporters, like most people, love their kids. So it's easy to see why in September 2019, conservative parents across the land lost their minds after a Twitter account called "JoinAntifa" began instructing followers to report Trump-supporting parents to Child Protective Services. This story gained traction after being promoted by conservative journalist Patrick Howley, Pizzagate enthusiast Jack Posobiec, and Jenna Jameson (whose work we can't link to).
However, despite Howley's report that "lots of sources say this is happening," it wasn't -- not least because "JoinAntifa" was a random account with next to no followers that couldn't have been more of an obvious honeypot for fear-mongering dildos if it was named something stupidly obvious, like "JoinAntifa." Oh wait.
On the one hand, we're glad this isn't happening to innocent children. On the other, we're kinda heartbroken that no one at JoinAntifa is going to be picking up our application to join the super-real, totally-not-made-up "Antifa Poll Protection Force."
Related: 5 Bizarre Conspiracy Theories Around Recent News Events
"Greta Thunberg Is A Terrorist-Sympathizing, Nazi-Hugging, Satanic-Mother-Having, PR-Stunt-Being, Child Actor Phony!"
In 2019, Greta Thunberg shot right out of Sweden to become the most talked-about child on Earth. Her whole thing is climate change. Namely, that we're all going to die unless we band together and do something, literally anything, to save the planet that we call home.
Unfortunately, her quest to persuade everyone to lower their harmful emissions has ironically resulted in an endless stream of toxic hot air being emitted into the atmosphere by thousands of commentators, conspiracy theories, and trash politicians who now hang on her every word in the vague hope that she'll say something that they can use to discredit both her and climate science. But until that happens, they're more than happy to make up any old bullshit.
Alongside the usual allegations that she's a member of ISIS or that she's George Soros' granddaughter, one of the best conspiracy theories floating around the toilet pan of the internet is that her mother is a Satan-worshiping lesbian who teaches teenagers how to perform abortions. We're pretty sure that a conspiracy theory isn't meant to make your target sound awesome, but points for ingenuity. The most popular conspiracy by far, however, is that Greta is merely the frontgirl for a massive public relations campaign orchestrated by her parents -- or even that Greta is in fact a child actress by the name of Estella Renee.
We'd point out how pathetic it is for a bunch of sad adults to unleash all this on a teenager trying to help save the planet, but considering most of them pulled the same type of shit on a bunch of kids for having the audacity of not wanting to be shot, this is (barely) a step up.
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