For years, far-right commentators have floated a conspiracy theory that Democratic Party elites were secretly plotting to replace President Biden on the ticket — a switcheroo that could give the party an advantage in November.
Suddenly, Mr. Biden being replaced by another Democrat as the party’s presidential nominee seems like a distinct possibility.
There is no evidence that the chaotic events following June’s debate were planned or that Mr. Biden’s halting performance was intentional. But the crisis over his candidacy has right-wing influencers heralding the moment as a conspiracy theory turned true.
“It was their final opportunity to toss the old man to one side, as I’ve been saying for the entire last year and a half,” said Vivek Ramaswamy, the former Republican presidential candidate, in a podcast interview after the debate.
“What they described as a conspiracy theory last year has become a reality today,” he added.
Far-right social media is rife with outlandish, unproven stories of Democratic crimes and rigged elections. Most of those ideas fizzle over time as they fail to come true.
But every now and then, one of those stories collides with reality. The influencers who spread the ideas seize on their luck, using the moment to lend credibility to their work and cement their relationship with followers.
Discussion about Mr. Biden’s candidacy surged on right-wing social networks after the debate, according to Pyrra Technologies, a company that monitors those channels. The firm found tens of thousands of posts discussing the debate. Many of them mentioned elements of the conspiracy theory.
“They’re trying to get other people to believe in their reality, too,” said Rachel E. Moran, a senior research scientist at the Center for an Informed Public, who has studied conspiracy theories. “So these moments of truth, these bridging moments, are where they can try to get other people on board.”
She added that conspiracists rely on those nuggets of truth as “a moment to be able to talk about, ‘Oh, well, if that’s true, then the rest of the things I’m talking about must be true.’”
While parts of any conspiracy theory are sometimes proven true, the larger story — usually involving shadowy groups or convoluted schemes — remains entirely unproved. Still, believers tend to focus instead on anything that makes the conspiracy seem more believable.
Some far-right Americans have, for example, claimed that Covid-19 vaccines were a plot among global elites to wipe out scores of Americans. While a small number of people have fallen ill after receiving some vaccines, and far fewer have died, the dangers never rose to the claims pushed by anti-vaxxers, nor is there evidence of a global plot. Still, any illness or death was quickly leveraged as evidence that the conspiracy theory was true.
Details about the conspiracy theory surrounding Mr. Biden vary depends on who is telling it. But the broad strokes are usually the same: that Democratic Party elites have been scheming to replace Mr. Biden with another preferred candidate. Sabotaging Mr. Biden with a bad debate performance would give those elites a chance to anoint a replacement, the theory goes. The last-minute change would bypass the protracted primary process that can sometimes embarrass or tarnish candidates, allowing them to undermine Democratic primary voters in the process. They would also short-circuit the Republican counteroffensive.
“You get the honeymoon phase with a new candidate without the scrutiny that comes with it,” Mr. Ramaswamy told Fox News before the debate.
The reality seems far less orchestrated. Democrats first appeared crestfallen by Mr. Biden’s unsteady debate performance, then scrambled to align behind a single response, with some party leaders backing Mr. Biden and others calling for his replacement.
If Mr. Biden were to withdraw from the race, it would probably cause political upheaval as various factions press for their preferred candidate. Anointing a successor without fuss seems nearly impossible.
It has not helped Mr. Biden, whose poll numbers have slipped.
Yet the idea that Democrats would plot to replace Mr. Biden has meshed with views perpetuated by former President Donald J. Trump about the Democratic Party, that its members are not just politically wrong, but remarkably conniving.
That conspiracy theory has also gained traction with help from another baseless belief, shared among many Trump supporters, that Mr. Biden is merely a puppet of Democratic elites or a shadowy political body referred to as the Deep State.
“I think a lot of these people are kind of experiencing a broken clock being at least partially correct twice a day,” said Jared Holt, a senior research analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research group. “It makes sense they would take a victory lap on it, if they can.”
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