Two explosive devices were found in mail sent to former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Secret Service said Wednesday.Or this:
The devices were similar to one found on Monday at the home of the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, two law enforcement officials said.
Time Warner Center – where CNN's New York offices are located – was just evacuated. The alarm went off as @jimsciutto and @PoppyHarlowCNN were on air reporting the packages sent to the Clintons and Obamas. @ShimonPro reporting it was over "a suspicious package." pic.twitter.com/EYBsytil0o
— 💀andrew👻kaczynski🎃 (@KFILE) October 24, 2018
But it's all likely to make right-wingers even more suspicious -- not just because right-wingers are incorrigible believers in conspiracies and fairy tales, but because of something Lily Loofbourow calls "the Anti-Bandwagon Fallacy."
It's the belief that a news item's truth content actually diminishes as more people come forward with corroborating stories.A few weeks ago, Loofbourow discussed the Anti-Bandwagon Fallacy with WNYC's Brooke Gladstone, in the context of the Brett Kavanaugh hearings:
LILI LOOFBOUROW: The anti-bandwagon fallacy is something I kind of made up to explain a tendency that I've noticed where a news item's truth content actually diminishes for people as more accusations emerge. We saw for instance with Dr Christine Blasey Ford.That will happen now. It's already happening at Free Republic.
[CLIP]
FEMALE CORRESPONDENT [FOX'S JEANINE PIRRO]: I've never seen so many repressed memory places in my life especially against one guy.BROOKE GLADSTONE: A conspiracy.
MALE [GUEST]: Yeah.
[JEANINE PIRRO]: So the question is if there is something awry going on, was there hypnosis?
LILI LOOFBOUROW: Yeah. When more emerged a lot of people I think on the right interpreted that to be a bandwagon that invalidated the initial accusation.
Soros yesterday, The Clintons and Obama today. Right before midterms. Has to be a hoax.And here's a (now-deleted) tweet from a host at Newsmax TV (who, according to his bio, used to be a New York City cop):
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This hoax false flag is the Dems October Suprise.
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Some Democratic lunatic... Trying to coddle sympathy for some of the most pathetic people on planet earth. I can hardly wait for them to catch the SOB and expose their sad charade.
Will elected Republican officials also claim this was a hoax? Maybe not now -- but I guarantee you we'll find emails or social media posts from state or local GOP officials insisting that this was all fake.
(And yes, there exists the remote possibility that a lefty lone nut sent these bombs to generate sympathy. But there's zero chance that this was organized at high echelons of the Democratic Party or by any known left-wing group -- and that's what much of the right already believes is the case.)
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UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh, Frank Gaffney, Mike Flynn Jr. -- all suspect a false flag. Read about them and other conspiratorialists in this Daily Beast story.
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