(End of the American Dream)—Ever since the moment that Donald Trump was shot during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the left has been pushing wild conspiracy theories all over the Internet. Unfortunately for the left, their conspiracy theories are so ridiculous that most rational people immediately see right through them. Yes, there are legitimate questions that need to be asked about what really happened at that rally, and I have been writing about many of those questions. But to suggest that the assassination attempt was staged or that Trump was never hit by a bullet is just nuts.
As you will see below, the stuff that the left has been coming up with is straight out of crazy town.
It has been less than a week since Trump was shot, and already “false assassination narratives” have been viewed more than 100 million times on X, and many of those false narratives are being classified as “Blue Anon” conspiracy theories…
So-called ‘BlueAnon’ conspiracy theories — levelled by Left-wingers — have clearly been thick on the ground this time, compounding the confusion spread by similarly paranoid or just trouble-making Trumpites.
According to research group Institute for Strategic Dialogue, references to false assassination narratives amassed more than 100 million views on X in just 24 hours.
So what are some of the most common “Blue Anon” conspiracy theories that the left has been pushing?
Well, one of the most popular theories is that the shooting was staged, and an Associated Press photo that was digitally altered is being offered as “proof” of that theory. The following comes from CNN…
To bolster the “staged” conspiracy theory, an image began to circulate that had been altered to make it look like one of the Secret Service agents who rushed to Trump’s aid was smiling during the incident. An influential anti-Trump X user who has almost 250,000 followers on the platform shared the image with the message, “Everyone here seems to be having a good time, laughing and smiling for the cameras.”
The image was soon debunked by the fact-checking organization Lead Stories, which said it was a digitally manipulated version of an Associated Press image.
“The officers cannot be seen smiling with their teeth as seen in the original, nor in any other news outlets photos of the event,” Lead Stories explained in a blog post.
CNN has often been fooled in the past, but even they were able to see right through this one.
Another theory that is floating around is that a BB gun was used to shoot at Trump…
“Donald Trump continues to play in our faces!! This was SO staged!!! If someone REALLY wanted to take him out, they wouldn’t use a BB Gun!!” one person posted on X a little more than an hour after the shooting.
Seriously? Where does the left come up with this stuff?
Others are suggesting that Trump was never hit at all. In fact, some on the left are actually claiming that Trump used “a gel pack containing fake blood” to spread blood on his ear and face…
According to some fanciful social media interpretations of photos of the moment when shots were fired, Trump was holding a yellow object in the hand he used to touch his bloody ear.
They have even claimed it was a gel pack containing fake blood — routinely used in films and TV — that Trump burst the moment he grabbed his ear.
If this was true, where did the damage to Trump’s ear come from that we could clearly see in the footage after he was hit? Of course there are some on the left that believe that Trump’s ear was not even damaged.
A photo from a rally that was conducted on September 17th, 2022 is being used to “prove” that Trump’s right ear is perfectly fine…
CLAIM: A photo taken on Monday shows former President Donald Trump with no damage to his right ear, contrary to reports that it was injured in an attempted assassination on Saturday.
THE FACTS: The photo was taken on Sept. 17, 2022, at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, for then-U.S. Senate candidate JD Vance. Trump appeared at the Republican National Convention Monday night with a large, white bandage on his right ear. Myriad photos show his ear bloodied after a shooter opened fire at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, over the weekend.
It is hard to believe that there are people out there that actually fall for this stuff.
As crazy as this may sound, right now there are people on social media that are discussing the “fact” that the entire incident was orchestrated by Trump, his team and the Secret Service in order to stage the iconic photographs which we have all seen by now…
Almost immediately after Trump was injured during a shooting at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally Saturday evening, a conspiracy theory emerged that the assassination attempt had been “staged” – that Trump and his campaign had set it up to orchestrate the iconic photos of a resolute Trump surviving an attempt on his life. The term “staged” began trending on X as soon as an hour after the shooting.
The mainstream media is not stupid enough to fall for such nonsense, but there is a push to get news outlets to stop using those photographs because they are helping Trump so much…
An editor at a major news outlet wants the press to stop using the iconic photo of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump because it represents ‘free PR’ for his campaign.
The unnamed editor told Axios that sharing the historic photo of the former president standing after he survived the attempt on his life is ‘dangerous despite how good it is.’
After everything that has happened, they are still out to get Trump.
The rest of this campaign season is going to be so intense, and if Trump actually wins there will be even more chaos.
Our country is about to go over the edge, and one of the big reasons for this is because people are so easily fooled.
The crazy conspiracy theories that I just discussed above are completely and utterly absurd, but many on the left really want to believe that they are true.
Conservative content creator James Klug recently interviewed random folks in the street, and he quickly encountered someone that truly thinks that the Trump shooting was staged…
James Klug: What is our evidence for suggesting that it was a staged, a fake assassination attempt?
Old Dem: I think that he walked away alive with perhaps a scratch on his ear at most… Of course, behind the scenes, that was fabricated… some noise. They put a little scratch on his ear, threw a little blood on his face.
James Klug: Now, so you think that they planned from 130 yards away to shoot off the corner of his ear?
Old Dem: They never shot off the corner of his ear. That was all done by the people hanging around him. Nobody ever shot off his ear.
Sadly, Klug also interviewed quite a few others that believe some very questionable things…
It can be very entertaining to watch interviews like this, but we should also be deeply saddened by what has happened to our country.
What would our founders think if they could see us today?
We live at a time when much of the population seems to have lost their critical thinking skills, and that is extremely unfortunate.
Michael’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
The idea that the shooting was staged is required to allow the left to continue to believe in their imaginary world view.
This is all so silly, obviously the Secret Service, PA state troopers and Butler PD all graduated from the elite UVALDE SCHOOL FOR SNIPERS!
https://youtu.be/yPBT3mjIyVk?si=9p-2yjL8AXJoqPX9