Any specialist in disinformation and conspiracy theories knows that the most toxic actors on the Internet take advantage, above all, of unrest and information gaps. With the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, in which even the motives of the assassin are still unknown, the chup-chup The pot of hoaxes did not need much to boil over. And even more so in the American electoral context, already loaded with all kinds of conspiracy narratives. It has been said that the shooter was a antifa infiltrated, the whole scene was dramatized, the assassination was orchestrated by Joe Biden, even the return of John Kennedy Jr. was predicted. And that the security failure It was deliberateas Elon Musk suggested on his X network, once again giving credence to nonsense. But one argument has caught on in a striking way: it was the women’s fault. And their inability to do men things. A speech that has reached Spain copied by disinformers such as MEP Alvise Pérez.
From the first images of the incident, the presence of several women among Trump’s bodyguards, Secret Service personnel in charge of protecting presidents and former presidents, stood out. The Secret Service, led by veteran Kimberly Cheatle, is the subject of much criticism for the poor protection given to Trump (and the deceased assistant) at that Pennsylvania rally. But the focus has turned to the role of women in that federal agency. Influencers from the supremacist right, politicians from the most conservative wing and other characters from the same ecosystem They have managed to viralize edited videos and manipulated or context-less images to disseminate their sexist discourse, which denies the very possibility of women existing in that agency: “The DEI (inclusion policies) caused someone to be killed.”
That last phrase is from the reactionary activist Chaya Raichik, head of the popular “Libs of TikTok” accountin a tweet (with 10 million views) that reproached the agents for not even knowing how to holster their gun, as seen in a video. Other influencers accuse that same agent, in a photo without adequate context, of hiding behind Trump instead of covering him. Musk has also splashed in that puddle, with This comment: “Having a small person as body cover for a big man is like wearing a small bathing suit at the beach: it doesn’t cover the issue.” Radical right-wing media outlets headlined the story: “The Ponytail Brigade: Total Humiliation for a Group of Female Secret Service Agents.” After millions of views and comments on social media, Republican Congressman Tim Burchett declared: “This is what happens when you don’t put in the best players.” That is, only men. No one has yet proven that the female agents were solely responsible for an obvious security breach. All the images that have gone viral are from after the shooting, but the blame for what happened before is theirs.
The speech is misogynistic, but it has a technical name that allows it to pretend that it is a political critique: DEI. These are the initials of the policies of diversity, equity and inclusion, which have been developed in companies and organizations in the United States in recent decades with the aim of accommodating women and people from minority groups. It is the latest of the many battle horses that the American political right has used to keep its ranks mobilized, according to its own ideologues. All the problems come or will come because of abortion, first, and then gay marriage, trans people, critical race theory and the indoctrination of children’s books. Now it is all the fault of the inclusivity of DEI. The Boeing plane crashes It was because of the quotas. The crash of the freighter into the Baltimore bridge, also. And, of course, the attempted assassination.
Disinformation in this case has been on a roll thanks to the support of Musk, now a fervent Trump supporter (after years of doubts), who has created an aristocracy of disinformation on his network thanks to the blue stamps that deceive users, according to the European Commission. On X and other platforms, a video of an interview with the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, has gone viral, in which the narrator says that she aspires to have women represent 30% of agents by 2030. And it is pointed out in a specific context: the agency needs to attract more people because it has a very high rate of resignations. On the networks, one fact is hidden: today women They already represent 24%so it wouldn’t be an extraordinary jump, just one point a year. A regular right-wing rumour-monger, Mike Cernovich, shared a screenshot of Cheatle’s bio to show her poor qualifications: her previous position was security director at Pepsi. Cernovich had cropped the image just to hide the fact that she previously worked at the Secret Service for 27 years. But it was enough for Musk responded to that tweet saying: “Before he was in charge of protecting the president he was guarding bags of Cheetos.” He made himself laugh so much that he repeated the concept “Director Cheetos” two times more.
In the misogynistic context, a third culprit appears: Jill Biden, the president’s wife, who was already accused of keeping her husband in the White House due to his economic interests in the arms industry. In recent days, it has been reported that it was she who pressured Cheatle to be appointed. And there has also been a rumour that the Secret Service left Trump unprotected in order to reinforce the first lady’s security. All denied by the spokesman from the agency. The Conspiracies about Kamala Harrisvice president, have also skyrocketed since Biden’s candidacy has faltered.
These speeches have been copied without changing a comma by the agitators and conspiracy theorists of the right in Spain: Alvise Pérez, Rafapal or Captain Bitcoin They have shot the same tweets and publications of their North American referents, changing “DEI” for “quotas”. Most of the comments on these publications, also in Forocochesrefer to the dangers of the “woke fashion” or the “feminist quota”: “As a woman, I would never hire a female bodyguard”, “Defense and security should only be a man’s job”, “Gender quotas almost led to a murder”, “There are things that men do better than women and vice versa”, “Who would think of putting women (and overweight ones) in these positions”.
Elisa García-Mingo, who has been researching misogyny on social media for years, was surprised by this blatant way of copying: “It is common for it to arrive through content creators here, as a form of cultural translation, but it is normal for them to do it with their own references, not this direct appropriation.”
The misogynist door
Many internet hate specialists point to anti-feminist discourse as the entrance door to recruit people for racist, far-right or violent causes. “Misogyny functions as an ideological link across a continuum of violence and as a vector across different extremist ideologies,” concludes a job of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an organization that fights intolerance.
“It is not the only gateway, but there are certainly people who enter through there. There are intersections between different fields: some people go from misogyny to white supremacy, but it also happens the other way around. The discomfort in the search for answers to gender problems leads to other issues,” explains García-Mingo, a researcher at the Complutense University.
Specialist Rachel Guy, from Georgetown University, explains in an article that it is still easy to place anti-feminist messages in the middle of social conversation. And she gives a reason: “Anti-feminism not only allows the manosphere not only harnesses the emotional power of their feelings of injustice, but also allows their arguments to appear grounded in fact.” For example, linking that 30% of women in the Secret Service to the assassination, even though they had nothing to do with it.
“The discourse of the woke “In the face of tradition, of lifelong masculinity, of nostalgia. It is to express that we now live in a weak system, of degenerate democracies, that we are heading towards the end of civilization,” García-Mingo explains. And he adds: “Comparing it with what an old family was, a working father with his wife and respectful children, is a framework, a habitual scheme that is applied to many things: youth, family, security…”. And now, also, for assassinations. Because in the networks we are not moved so much by the algorithmic bubble, but by the ideological quilt: a discourse that covers us against the cold of uncertainty.
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