In Rough Edges, Mike Rothschild writes about fringe groups, conspiracy theories and how the Internet broke our brains. This column is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

The conspiracy theories about the shooting started almost as soon as the shooting itself. 

Just days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, nearly two-thirds of respondents to one poll believed the shooting had been a plot involving multiple people, despite no public evidence. Another poll found that slightly over half of respondents believed “some group or element” was at work in the assassination attempt. The fact there was no evidence at the time did not deter these theories in the slightest.

Within months, the first articles and books alleging various conspiracies to kill Kennedy and frame Lee Harvey Oswald were published, with thousands more to follow. They spun out a mind-boggling array of plots, shooters, motives, and conspiracies. All claimed with immediate and unshakable confidence that Oswald couldn’t have acted alone. He didn’t have the training or access to make the shots that killed Kennedy. Something more had to be at work.

Despite his pop culture imprint as a loser, Oswald was a trained Marine marksman. Though not especially skilled, he could have made the three shots in eight seconds that killed Kennedy, who was left virtually unprotected in an open-topped, unarmored, and slow-moving car. Despite these facts, the number of Americans who believe in a Kennedy conspiracy is currently almost exactly the same now as it was days after the event.

Americans have always trended toward suspicion and disbelief when presented with world-shaking events that “weren’t supposed to happen.” Clearly, presidential assassinations fit the bill perfectly. There is an inherent need to assign meaning and purpose to an act that often turns out to have none.

But until July 13, 2024, there had never been such a groundswell of paranoid accusations about an attempted assassination of a president. 

That day, firing from a nearby warehouse rooftop with a clear line of sight and no security to stop him, Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight shots at Trump during an open-air campaign speech in Butler, Pennsylvania. A surreal series of events quickly spooled out, and have become the most lasting images of a chaotic 2024 presidential campaign. There was a bullet whizzing past Trump’s ear, Trump hitting the ground with blood pouring down part of his face, then leaping up with his fist in the air, and Secret Service agents trying to get him off stage.

And the conspiracy theories started immediately. Butler became the new Dallas in seconds, with a narrative cemented in the eyes of conspiracy believers even as event attendees were being hustled out of the venue. There was a deep need to find greater meaning and organization in an act that was quickly found to be the work of one shooter with little apparent motivation. Neither Oswald nor Crooks were the kind of people who make history, not like Kennedy and Trump. But somehow, these two losers found a way to write their names into the fabric of American lore. Something greater had to be at work. There had to be a conspiracy — who........

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