That being said, there has been a clear escalation of conspiracy theories, starting in 1992. Pre-1992, I never saw a President’s basic legitimacy questioned. Conspiracy theories about Presidents might be out there, but they remained on the fringes. Since 1992, every President I have seen has been the target of conspiracy theories.
Bill Clinton was accused of everything from running drugs in Arkansas to regularly having his associates murdered. GW Bush was accused of masterminding 9-11. Barrack Obama was accused of being born in Kenya and ineligible to be President. And Donald Trump has been accused of being a Russian agent. Now Joe Biden is accused of winning by massive electoral fraud.
Unlike for pre-1992 Presidents, these conspiracy theories have become widely-known and circulated. For the most part, they have been excluded for respectable discourse, but not entirely. In some cases there has been mainstream buy-in. For instance, Special Counsel Ken Starr, tasked with investigating Bill Clinton’s role in the failed Whitewater Savings and Loan, also investigated rumors that he had Vince Foster murdered. Republican Congressman Dan Burton even shot a pumpkin to investigate the blood splatter. But, to be clear, Starr decisively cleared Clinton of killing Vince Foster and from then on such allegations were relegated to the fever swamps. And Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia in its hack and leak operation, and found some outreach (on both sides), but no conspiracy. On the other hand, claims that Bush was behind 9-11 or that Obama was born in Kenya were never taken seriously. Such believes somewhat warped our political discourse, but they did not have any serious impact on policy.
So in one way, the claim that Biden won by massive fraud is simply another piece of insanity, and maybe it will go no further than any other such insanity. But it doesn’t seem like it. Allegations that Obama was born in Kenya did lead to a few lawsuits to declare his presidency illegitimate, but none by any one of any serious influence. A few state legislatures contemplated laws requiring candidates to provide their birth certificates, but none actually succeeded. Accusations against Clinton and Trump were taken seriously enough to lead to investigations, but then again, the Clintons really did invest in a crooked savings and loan, although they appear to have been purely passive investors. And the Russian intelligence service really did hack the DNC e-mails and deliver them to Wikileaks to harm the Clinton campaign, and Trump really did welcome the assistance.
None of these other conspiracy theories ever spawned over 60 lawsuits to overturn an election, some backed by state attorney generals and other leading elected officials. None ever involved a U.S. Senator offering to argue for them in front of the Supreme Court. None led to a serious attempt to overturn an election, let alone a violent insurrection. None became the leading issue for a major political party.* And none led to the immense wave of new legislation sweeping all states. And, above all else, none led to attempts to subvert the vote-counting apparatus and threats to nullify future elections.
This one is dangerous in a way that none of the others have been.
*Trump’s first impeachment was only tangentially related to the Russia investigation. His efforts to pressure Ukraine appear to have arisen from Trump’s insane belief that really Ukraine had forged the evidence of the Russian hack.
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