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Asked to clarify by reporters on Tuesday, Trump improvised a pathetically obvious lie, saying “a person” who was on the mythical plane ride “from Washington to wherever” told him about this occurrence, in which “the entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, people that obviously were looking for trouble.”


Where does this fantasy come from? Ben Collins of NBC News tracked down the provenance of the story of the plane full of antifa thugs: It started as a Facebook post from a man in Idaho on June 1 warning that “At least a dozen males got off the plane in Boise from Seattle, dressed head to toe in black.” Which of course didn’t happen.


This story altered and spread during the early summer as paranoid conservatives stirred each other up on Facebook with rumors that busloads or planeloads of antifa fighters were coming to lay waste to their small towns. In some places, people grabbed guns and gathered to repel invasions that never came, just as the “big damage” Trump’s imaginary antifa strike team brought to the Republican convention didn’t happen.


The problem is not just that with all the resources of the U.S. government at his disposal, the president’s view of the world is that of your uncle who in the early stages of dementia spends his days reading obscure conspiracy websites. The problem is that he is spreading these bonkers conspiracy theories while encouraging and justifying violence and vigilantism.

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