‘One screen, two movies': Conflicting conspiracy theories emerge from Trump rally shooting

Washington, NT Bureau: A former president is wounded in a shooting, the gunman quickly neutralized, and all of it is caught on camera. But for those who don’t believe their eyes, that’s just the start of the story.

For some supporters of Donald Trump, the failure of the Secret Service to prevent the attempted assassination of the Republican former president points to a conspiracy orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden. For some of Trump’s critics, however, the details of the shooting don’t add up.

They wonder if Trump staged the whole thing. Two dueling conspiracy theories are taking root online following Trump’s attempted assassination, one for each end of America’s polarized political spectrum.

In this split-screen republic, Americans are increasingly choosing their own reality, at the expense of a shared understanding of the facts.

“One screen, two movies,” is how Ron Bassilian describes the online reaction to Saturday’s shooting at a Pennsylvania rally. Bassilian is a prolific user of social media and has used X to broadcast his conjecture about the shooting.

“People have their beliefs, and they’re going to come up with theories that fit their beliefs.” “It seems highly suspicious,” Bassilian said of the attack on Trump and the law enforcement response.

“Something was going on that was more than a slip-up.” Many of the claims about the Trump assassination attempt emerged first on fringe social media platforms like 4chan before migrating to larger sites like X or TikTok, where they were seen by far more people. (AP)