A Conspiracy of Millions

The most telling indicator that Donald Trump is in for an electoral drubbing is that he and his supporters are already selling the idea that if he loses, it can only be because the election is rigged. They'll stick to that rather than admit honest defeat but just as O.J. Simpson never came up with a credible explanation of who did kill Nicole and Ron, Trump will never have a coherent theory as to how, if he was really ahead, Hillary managed to rig not only the outcome but all the polls by the major pollsters.

I've long been a little fascinated by folks who live in a state of angry denial. Back when I was young and foolish — or maybe younger and foolisher — I spent some time around people with wild theories about the Kennedy Assassination. It was a visit to a realm where every conceivable explanation of Who Killed JFK? was worthy of consideration except, you know, that Lee Harvey Oswald did it by himself. There were folks there with detailed (though wrong, I decided) theories backed by what at least looked a bit like evidence. Not all were looneys.

Then there were the looneys, who'd sooner believe Martians offed the President than that Oswald dunnit. What was amazing to me was how committed they were to their versions even though they couldn't even begin to explain how it could have been done. Usually, these theorists would answer questions about their theories by adding on conspirators. It went like this…

"How did the Martians get Kennedy's body out of Parkland Hospital?" "Obviously, the entire Parkland staff was in on it!"

"How did they know that Kennedy would even be taken to Parkland?" "Obviously, the Secret Service and the Dallas Police were all in on it!"

"Well, how did they know Jackie Kennedy wouldn't tell anybody about the flying saucer that you say hovered over the presidential motorcade and sent down the death-ray that you speak of?" "Don't you get it? Jackie masterminded the whole thing!"

At some point, some of them had more people involved in Killing Kennedy than in electing him in the first place. And of course, all of them have kept that secret to this day.

So just how is Hillary going to rig the election? And how come the results will be pretty close to what the main pollsters predict just before Election Day? There will be no explanation other than "they were all in on it." The number of conspirators will probably top the number of votes Trump receives.