If You Want a Conspiracy, Try This One

I originally published this essay on 09 July 2020. Read the last three paragraphs again.

Lots of people talk about this conspiracy or that one, yet most would not recognize an actual conspiracy because, to be perfectly honest, true conspiracies are almost never discovered unless they fail. For example, is it a conspiracy when you go to a car dealership to look at a specific car advertised for a very special price and you end up driving away in a much more expensive model that is going to require you make certain life-style budget changes to afford? The answer: yes, it is a conspiracy and you are the mark. Look at the word “Conspiracy” and the constituent part “Con.” Confidence, Conspire, Constituent, all have within then the concept of “agreeing with.” When you are conned by a conman it is because he has established a level of confidence in you that is unmerited by the actual situation; when you conspire you are in a secret agreement with others within the ‘conspiracy’ and when you are a constituent you are in agreement as part of a larger group.

But back to the car dealership, the salesman convinces you (there’s con again) that you need, deserve, can’t live without or some other such emotional device, the higher priced car and then will try to con you into taking a number of add-ons as well. This particular conspiratorial tactic against you has a name; Bait and Switch and it is used by any number of people trying to sell you something. You do not get what you wanted but something else entirely.

We see this often in the world of politics where candidates will make promises that seem to evaporate when they are actually elected and take office; It’s Bait and Switch, pure and simple. But here’s what I want you to consider today: We are told there were “people” within the government who secretly met and considered the use of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to remove President Trump from office. We aren’t yet informed of just how deep this “conspiracy” might have burrowed into not just the bureaucracy but elected officials as well, and given the glacial pace of “investigations” we may never have an answer.

So, with that failed conspiracy as the starting point, what if the leadership of a political party knowingly (by withholding and publicly denying certain facts re a candidate’s mental or medical status) runs a candidate for President otherwise acceptable to the electorate but knows beforehand that they will replace him/her, via the Twenty-fifth amendment, shortly after the inauguration because of the previously withheld information? Such a move would elevate a vice-president who may well have been chosen as a concession to fringe members of the party and who, if they had headed the party’s ticket would not have been elected. Would this not be the ultimate bait and switch conspiracy?

Just as one should be schooled and practiced before going into a car dealership in order not to be taken, so too should a voter be attentive to all possibilities of their action in the voting booth.

So, how about that for a conspiracy theory?