Trump Is Doing Conspiracy Theory All Wrong

In December 2013, a small plane carrying Hawaii’s health director, Loretta Fuddy, crash-landed in the ocean. In the ensuing chaos, she died of acute cardiac arrhythmia triggered by stress. Later that day, Donald Trump tweeted:

Trump’s tendency to refer to shadowy conspiracies and dark bargains among corrupt elites is a hallmark of his presidential campaign, and of his longer-term transition from real estate magnate and reality-television star to unorthodox politician (a transformation that has been less than total). Along with promoting the notions that President Barack Obama was born outside the U.S., forged his birth certificate, and had a public official murdered as part of the coverup, he’s also suggested that Obama didn’t write his own memoirs and ran guns to Islamic State through Benghazi.