Trump, Diddy and how a new conspiracy theory is emerging in the presidential campaign

Once again, the former US president is pushing his campaign to the limit by endorsing a new QAnon fixation

Hey, this is Angelo. Welcome back to a new issue of It’s Not True. We're closely monitoring the US presidential campaign and will publish a special edition each week. Today, we delve into a revived conspiracy theory currently gaining traction on Telegram and various alt-right and QAnon boards.

Stefano Lovi, a Phd candidate at the Università degli Studi Internazionali di Roma - UNINT, takes us to the heart of the matter, explaining how Trump leveraged a discredited theory about rapper P. Diddy and the Democratic elite to garner support within the QAnon and MAGA communities.

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?? The prologue

Many will remember the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier arrested for sexual abuse and international child trafficking, who took his own life on 10 August, 2019, in his cell while awaiting the trial. The incident left many unanswered questions, including how he managed to take his own life despite being under camera surveillance, fueling a wave of conspiracy theories about the secrets he took to his grave.

Conspiracy theorists saw the incident as a scheme orchestrated by a "globalist cabal" led by Democratic elites—those whom their hero, Donald Trump, was supposedly battling behind the scenes. This narrative conveniently ignored Trump's well-documented and frequent associations with Epstein.

???? The charges in brief

On September 16, Sean "Diddy" Combs—US rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor—was arrested on three charges, to which he pleaded not guilty: sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and interstate transportation for prostitution. Diddy has had a criminal record since the 1990s, including arrests for unauthorized possession of firearms and aggravated assault, as well as accusations of instigating robberies and shootings, such as the incident that led to the death of rapper Tupac Shakur on September 3, 1996.

In recent months, Combs faced accusations of sexual assault and harassment, including claims made by his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura, also known as Cassie. Following CNN's release of a video in May showing Combs assaulting Ventura in a hotel in 2016, Combs issued a statement apologizing for his behavior and taking full responsibility for the actions depicted, while later denying all allegations arising from lawsuits filed against him since November 2023. Currently, Diddy is under close custody due to the risk of suicide, similar to the circumstances surrounding Epstein.

???And in the end comes Trump

Donald Trump quickly seized the media frenzy in his usual style to address his base, disregarding the fact that this election will be decided by a small number of independent voters in a handful of key states. On his Truth Social profile, he shared with his 7 million followers an AI-manipulated image originally posted by another user, depicting Vice President Kamala Harris at one of Diddy's parties.

The meme, which was later removed from Trump's account, was a manipulated image of Kamala Harris from 2001 alongside former talk show host Montel Williams, whom she was dating at the time, and his daughter. In the altered version, Montel Williams' face was replaced with Combs', and the inserted text insinuated that Harris was involved in the "freak-off" parties that Combs is accused of organizing. The same image appeared on X, shared by the well-known conspiracy profile Red Pill USA, garnering 21,000 likes and 9,000 retweets.

As NBC News pointed out, both Trump and Harris have had dealings with Combs in the past, and both have also praised him publicly; Harris praised the rapper for hosting a town meeting on how the coronavirus impacted black communities in 2020, while in 2012 Trump called Combs a “good guy” and “a good friend of mine”.

In recent months, Trump has increasingly shared false content, even sharing AI-generated images on social media for which he has never taken responsibility, while accused the Harris campaign of cheating and using photos of crowds that he says are fake. Recently, he shared images falsely showing Taylor Swift supporting his campaign, Harris addressing a crowd of alleged communists during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last August.

???? Meanwhile, in Italy

How has the narrative been received in Italian conspiracy channels and groups?

Referring to various narratives circulating in widely followed Telegram channels, such as Bio Clandestine and Pepe Lives Matter, some claim that Diddy was part of a honeypot operation—a "honey trap" using underage prostitutes to blackmail those who fall for it. Promoters of conspiracy theories in Italy question who is really behind the rapper, a rhetorical inquiry often accompanied by a video of a 2004 interview between Diddy and Barack Obama. These events are framed as part of a Deep State plan to create blackmail material involving prominent figures. This leads to calls urging people not to let Democrats distance themselves from Diddy, portraying him as a Democratic agent used to influence Hollywood and the music industry since at least the early 2000s.

• This is part of QAnon’s US narrative about the existence of a cabal of pedophiles and Satanists who secretly rule the world, which has also gained several followers in Italy. Several popularizes of the QAnon world, which became headless after Q’s disappearance, are posted on channels such as Shadow of Ezra, which boasts 485,000 followers.
• While channels such as Cesare Sacchetti, with 63,000 subscribers, accuse the feminist world of remaining silent in the face of a scandal of repeated violence against many women for fear of what might come out of Diddy’s archives about the left.
• Or again, several users claim that Diddy was a means of luring children and extracting their adrenochrome for the benefit of the Satanist cabal, while other channels have revived a 6-year-old Q drop that reads “MUSIC IS ABOUT TO STOP”.

?? Drop by drop

For those unfamiliar, the "drops" from the anonymous user Q—whose identity is now 99.9% certain thanks to the work of two linguists using machine learning—are what ignited the entire QAnon movement. These drops, a series of cryptic clues posted by Q on imageboards like 4chan (and later 8chan and 8kun), functioned as a guessing game or puzzle for followers, who were encouraged to do their own research on Trump's alleged plan to dismantle the Deep State.

Initially, Paul Furber, a South African software developer, was behind Q's posts, which first appeared in 2017, and also connected with Pizzagate. Later, in the second phase of these drops, it appears that Ron Watkins, former administrator of 8chan and a candidate for Congress in Arizona in the 2022 midterm elections, along with his father Jim Watkins, entrepreneur and administrator of 8chan and later 8kun, took over. This story has been documented by numerous journalists and researchers, including Wu Ming 1, and we will explore it further in a separate article.

Obviously, the hope of the conspiracy orbit is that Diddy does not end up like Epstein, convinced that with the material recorded and his confessions during the trial, the entire Deep State that rules the world will be dismantled, brick by brick. Or, referring to the most famous claim of Qanon’s world, The Strom is coming, which is taking longer than the Winter in Game of Thrones to arrive, drop by drop.

Questions, ideas? Please shoot an email to [email protected] or share your thoughts in the comments. This week It’s not True was produced and edited by Angelo Paura in New York and written by Stefano Lovi in Rome. Massimiliano Mattiello edited the Italian version.

All images ? Blasting News Creative Department.?

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