You may have seen the hashtags: #TrumpCheated or #DoNotConcedeKamala.
They accompanied posts ostensibly written by Democratic voters who allege, without evidence, there was no way Vice President Kamala Harris could have lost to former President Donald Trump, and that Trump's new bestie, billionaire Elon Musk, somehow tampered with the votes through his satellite company, Starlink. These claims are patently false.
Voters on the right are, of course, also dabbling in conspiracy theories in the wake of the election, and, in general, have done so at a much larger scale (remember January 6?). As I have reported, members of Musk's so-called "Election Integrity Community" on X were circulating pro-Trump conspiracy theories in the feed from the day it launched last month. After Trump won reelection last week, X users turned their attention to Arizona, alleging there was no way Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego could beat GOP candidate Kari Lake in the Senate race, given that Trump won their state. (As my colleagues Tim Murphy and Abby Vesoulis write, Lake's loss likely has to do with her "insistence on digging in her MAGA-red heels" in a purple state.)
If the past week has shown us one thing, though, it's that conspiracy theories are for everyone. As my colleague Anna Merlan writes, there's a simple explanation here, but one side (not surprisingly, the far right) continues to be confounding:
Such post-election delusions aren’t particularly surprising—as political science professors Joe Uscinski and Joseph Parent have written, indelicately but accurately, conspiracy theories are for “losers,” and tend to resonate when groups are “suffering from loss, weakness, or disunity.” But what’s far stranger is that conspiracy theories about election tampering are somehow, still, also happening among the winners on the right.
—Julianne McShane
P.S. You might still be trying to make sense of what happened last week, without any conspiracy theories to guide you—and that’s why we’d like to invite you to an election debrief with our DC Bureau Chief David Corn, Video Correspondent Garrison Hayes, and CEO Monika Bauerlein. We’ll be discussing what contributed to the outcome, and what to expect from the Trump administration. You can join the virtual event on Thursday, November 14, at 6 p.m. ET/3 p.m. PT here.
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