—William LeGate 🧢 (@williamlegate) August 8, 2018
Trump Jr. has aligned himself with Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones
Trump Jr. appeared to show support for Alex Jones of Infowars, after the conspiracy theorist was banned from Facebook and YouTube. In August 2018, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut called the Infowars ban the "tip of the iceberg" in social-media companies' work to rid their platforms of "hate and lies."
Trump Jr. quote-tweeted Murphy's statement by connecting Infowars with other "conservative media" platforms. "A Democrat Senator openly admitting that Big Tech's censorship campaign is really about purging all conservative media," he said.
—Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 7, 2018
The idea that social-media companies censor conservative voices is something Trump Jr. has claimed before. In April 2018, in response to a shooting at YouTube's headquarters that came after the platform said it would stop promoting videos that advertised the sale of guns, Trump Jr. tweeted a conspiracy theory alleging that YouTube removed the shooter's videos quickly because of her left-leaning views.
But connecting Jones to the conservative-censorship narrative, which is largely speculative, normalizes his extreme conspiracy theories. Jones' incendiary content has included racist and anti-Semitic statements and the false claim that the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was staged.
Trump Jr. has indicated that he's followed some of those theories, liking multiple conspiratorial tweets about the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people. Jones spread the false conspiracy theory that the Parkland shooting was a false flag operation.
One tweet Trump Jr. liked falsely claimed that the FBI was responsible for the shooting, Vox reported at the time. Another tweet derided David Hogg, a survivor of the shooting who was a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at the time. Because Hogg's father is a former FBI agent, conspiracy theorists falsely claimed that the teenager had been an anti-Trump US operative in some capacity.
In September 2016, ahead of the presidential election, Trump Jr. aligned himself with Jones when he posted an edited picture of himself and other Trump campaign team members joining forces with Jones, far-right personality Milo Yiannopoulos, and Pepe the Frog, which at the time was increasingly being used as a symbol by the far-right.
Trump Jr. captioned the picture by writing, "I am honored to be grouped with the hard working men and women of this great nation that have supported @realdonaldtrump."
He has amplified conspiracy theories about Democrats
Trump Jr. once shared (before deleting) a false allegation that Democratic Senator Kamala Harris of California was not an "American Black." Harris, who is Black, was born in Oakland, California. In June of 2019, quote-tweeting a thread that explained Harris' roots were in Jamaica, Trump Jr. wrote, "Is this true? Wow."
The tweet, which questioned a Black presidential candidate's heritage, echoed the birtherism conspiracy theories promoted by President Trump that President Barack Obama was not actually born in the US.
In addition to the Harris claim, Trump Jr. has shared misinformation about other Democrats, most notably Hillary Clinton. In 2016, he tweeted an Infowars article falsely alleging that Clinton wore an earpiece during a presidential debate, CNN reported.
He has also retweeted false claims about George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist and Democratic donor.
In 2018, he retweeted two tweets from Roseanne Barr, falsely alleging that Soros, who is Jewish, was a Nazi. "George Soros is a nazi who turned in his fellow Jews 2 be murdered in German concentration camps & stole their wealth," said one of the tweets. Barr later deleted and apologized for her tweets, but Trump Jr. did not address why he had amplified them.
—Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 29, 2018
Anti-Soros conspiracy theories are based in anti-Semitism and have spread for years, particularly among far-right communities, The New York Times reported.
Trump Jr. posted a meme on Instagram on May 16 that called presidential candidate Joe Biden a pedophile. The post appeared to be humorous and unserious in nature, but echoed beliefs of QAnon supporters, who often accuse prominent Democrats (and celebrities) of being involved in child sex trafficking.
QAnon is a quickly growing, large conspiracy theory movement that has pushed numerous false allegations about a "deep state" and child sex crimes. Dozens of accounts followed by Trump Jr. include QAnon slogans or references in their Twitter profiles, The New York Times reported in November.
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