A troubling 63% don’t believe Crooks acted alone in assassination attempt

Social media has us all so whipped up and turned around about what type of information we are feeding our brains that most of us are now concocting our own conspiracy theories out of whole cloth.

And I’m not even talking about this horrifying, unverified Haitian immigrants-eating-pets rumor Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are irresponsibly sharing with the masses.

I’m talking about results from a Mitchell Research and Communications poll question that showed 63% of Michigan voters believe Thomas Matthew Crooks did not act alone when he shot at Trump in June. Only 37% believe he did.

Nine out of 100 people said they believe Crooks was working with the “Deep State,” whatever that is. Another 3% believe he was working with the Secret Service, 2% with a foreign nation and 1% with the CIA. The plurality, 48%, said they’re not sure whom Crooks worked with, but they’re convinced he didn’t work alone.

This shocking level of skepticism comes without one shred of evidence that this 20-year-old loner associated with anyone, let alone some conspiratorial network.

In the weeks after the shooting, the FBI combed through Crooks’ phone, conducted nearly 100 interviews, searched his house and rifled through his car to find ... nothing.

Same thing with the hordes of media who talked with old classmates or anyone with any connection to him. Crooks was troubled. He searched the internet about a major depressive disorder, how to make bombs, and stories regarding Ethan Crumbley, the Oxford High School shooter.

There’s no evidence that he collected a boatload of cash. There’s nothing on his phone, his emails or from any eyewitness that connected him with anyone nefarious.

There’s no bullet trajectory that suggests a shot came from a grassy knoll. There’s no Jack Ruby that comes out of nowhere to shoot him.

Instead, the best we can find on Thomas Crooks is that he was more like the mentally ill John Hinckley Jr., who shot Ronald Reagan, than an enigmatic Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot John F. Kennedy.

The official line that the Secret Service and the local cops royally screwed up isn’t good enough for too many people.

A majority can’t accept that the security detail, after more than 30 years without a serious incident, let one slide under the goalie.

In this age where nobody trusts anybody anymore, this mountain of proof against a conspiracy doesn’t stand a chance against social media and the power of people’s imagination.

Trump has made talking out of one’s ass on social media such a popular activity that everyone does it. Everybody is a political pundit on Truth Social, Rumble or TikTok now.

The game is to say outrageously crazy things and win a bunch of followers, become an “influencer,” score a national sponsor and make money saying or doing nutty stuff.

After all, aren’t we told these days that the “truth” is a personal set of beliefs? Your truth is different from my truth, which is different from someone else’s truth.

Some Democrats are convinced Trump concocted the shooting to gin up sympathy. Some Republicans are convinced Democrats want to take Trump out before he wins again.

As a result, we put ourselves in an impossible position to prove something that does not exist.

We’re told: “I don’t have to prove Crooks worked with someone else to shoot at Trump.

You prove he ‘DID NOT!’ ... Prove this theory I cooked up in my head didn’t happen. If you make a good point, maybe I’ll adjust the facts slightly and try again ...  if I listen to what you say.”

All the while, our political figures steer us into swallowing their spin whole. They select their own set of facts through their free pseudo media sources. Everything else is “fake.”

Why pay around $80 a month for a legit news outlet a when you can find something that poses as news and agrees with your own biases, for free?

Trash goes in through the eyeballs. Trash goes out through the mouth or the fingertips.

Sad commentary. Sad times.

(Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. Email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)