Ahead of U.S. polls, Liberals stir the pot with conspiracy theories

American liberals adopt far-right tactics, spreading conspiracy theories like BlueAnon, fueling chaos on social media ahead of the election.

From false claims of a “staged” assassination attempt on former President and Presidential candidate Donald Trump to a viral joke about his running mate having sex with a couch, American liberals have taken a page from the far-right’s playbook in pushing wild conspiracy theories ahead of the U.S. election.

The liberal and left-wing warping of reality — a trend some call “BlueAnon,” a play on the QAnon conspiracy cult — is fueling information chaos on social media platforms that are already a cesspool of right-wing falsehoods.

The trend underscores how Americans on both sides of the political divide are prone to outlandish conspiracy theories, as many turn to partisan influencers for information amid mistrust of mainstream media, researchers say.

Just moments after Mr. Trump was whisked off stage with blood on his ear following a shooting at a Pennsylvania rally earlier this month, unsubstantiated claims surfaced online that the incident was “staged.”

Some on the Elon Musk-owned platform X cast doubt on the injuries by sharing an image that appeared to show a burst ketchup packet tucked into his shirt collar.

But the image was digitally altered to include the packet, fact-checkers reported.

Other posts baselessly accused the Republican, who narrowly survived a volley of gunshots that killed a bystander and wounded two other people, of staging the assassination attempt with fake blood capsules.