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On November 5, days before voters would turn out, a man tried to assassinate Donald Trump.

While he was delivering a speech to thousands of supporters in Reno, Trump cut himself off. He raised his hand towards his forehead to block out the beaming lights, and squinted his eyes, as if to take a closer look at what appeared to be growing unrest in the crowd.

Suddenly, after hearing somebody in the crowd shouting ‘GUN’, two secret service agents rushed to his side. They shielded him from danger, and escorted him off stage. Scenes became chaotic. His largely bewildered supporters began chanting, and then shouting, as security staff leapt into the crowd to apprehend a would-be assassin, and remove him from the venue. Footage, released soon afterwards, corroborated these events.

Minutes later, Trump returned to the podium, and told his supporters: “Nobody said it was going to be easy but we will never be stopped. We will never be stopped.” While Trump was finishing his speech, accounts of what had happened began to take shape.

Trump’s media aid, Dan Scavino, retweeted a message reading “Hillary [Clinton] ran away from rain today. Donald is back on stage minutes after an assassination attempt” while his son, Donald Trump Jr, wrote: “As Donald Trump just showed the American people, no matter what happens he will not be deterred and he will not give up fighting for you.”

But there was still a lot of confusion as to what actually happened.

Photos of the chaotic scenes began to emerge on Twitter; showing armed officers, and a man being dragged out. Journalists at the rally began reporting what members of the audience were telling them; that they had seen a man pull a gun. Others, meanwhile, claimed the ‘Trump assassin’ reached for the gun of a secret service agent before he was detained. And in even these early stages, supporters were speculating on social media that the assassin may have been planted by the Clinton campaign.

There was only one problem. Absolutely none of it was true.

***

Not only was the man unarmed; he wasn’t an assassin. He was a protester, carrying only a sign – “Republicans against Trump” – that he had printed off the internet.

He was identified as Austyn Crites, a 33-year-old inventor who worked with balloons. He was a registered Republican, and more importantly, completely harmless – which the secret service agents realised shortly before they released him.

But Donald Trump’s aides took advantage of the confusion. They had already begun to spread the message online that their candidate had survived an assassination attempt, while bizarrely, at the same time, Austyn Crites was speaking with journalists outside the venue to explain to them what had actually happened.

According to Crites, as he was moving closer towards the front, he raised his sign. Trump supporters had, by this point, noticed him. At first they booed. “And then,” he said “all of a sudden people next to me are starting to get violent; they grabbing at my arm, trying to rip the sign out of my hand.”

According to Crites, the crowd then began piling on him, kicking, punching, holding him on the ground, and even, grabbing him by the testicles. He claimed they were “wrenching on [his] neck” so much “they could have strangled [him] to death.”

It was at that moment he heard somebody shouting “something about a gun,” before police officers arrived and put him in handcuffs. He told the Guardian newspaper he felt relieved. And, as officers removed him from the venue, they continued to fend off supporters who were trying to attack him.

He was taken to the back of the venue, searched, subjected to a background check, and released shortly after. He wasn’t even aware, until the journalist he was speaking to outside told him, that Donald Trump had been rushed off stage.

But by now, even though barely any time had passed, Donald Trump supporters became utterly convinced their candidate had survived an attempt on his life. They had seen the news break on television, and relied on other supporters on social media, pro-Trump Facebook pages, and sources they trusted, to fill the gaps.

Rumours continued to spread – although now they knew the name of the ‘Trump assassin’. And, fuelled by the Trump campaign’s refusal to back down from this narrative, even more ludicrous theories were being fostered online.

***

Trump supporters found Austyn Crites on Facebook, as well as members of his family, including his brother, and found evidence they were conspiring to commit voter fraud.

Some suggested his Facebook page was fake, having only been created a day ago, while others claimed it had been deleted, meaning he had something to hide.

They learned that he had been campaigning for Hillary Clinton – something which Crites openly admitted to the Guardian journalist who interviewed him – but something they would not learn until they found his name listed in a Wikileaks database of the leaked Podesta e-mails, as many as seven times, along with information suggested he was a Democratic Party donor.

Others, meanwhile, landed on evidence confirming, in their eyes, that he was an agitator – a paid Democratic Party operative with the intent to cause violence or emotional disruption at Trump rallies. And some, who said they had read further into the leaked Podesta emails, became convinced that he had ties to a black ops shadow intel group known as STRATFOR.

But these conspiracy  theories were then suddenly legitimised. They were being spread by Trump’s surrogates, and members of his team. 

Ann Coulter, a notorious surrogate, retweeted links and posted conspiracy theories to her more than 1 million Twitter followers, while Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, refused to condemn members of her team for spreading false information.

Speaking to JakeTapper on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning, she said: “I’m glad nobody was hurt, but it does remind you that in these closing days, especially as the polls tighten, many of us are getting more death threats, getting more angry messages on social media and elsewhere. It’s a pretty fraught environment there. I think that’s the real focus here.”

She continued: “If you’re Don Jr and you’re on a live TV set while you’re watching this unfold, it’s pretty rattling to think of what may have happened to your father, so I’ll excuse him.”

When Tapper pushed back, saying Crites was not trying to assassinate Trump, Conway attacked CNN itself, saying: “First of all, that’s really remarkable, I have to say, that that’s what the storyline is here. Is CNN going to retract all the storylines, all the headlines, all the breathless predictions of the last two weeks that have turned out not be true? ‘The race is over. The path is closed. It’s going to be a blowout.’ You guys retract that and I’ll give a call to Dan Scavino about the retweet.”  

The Trump campaign later released a statement, written by Trump himself, saying: “I would like to thank the United States Secret Service and the law enforcement resources in Reno and the state of Nevada for their fast and professional response. I also want to thank the many thousands of people present for their unwavering and unbelievable support. Nothing will stop us – we will make America great again!”

Trump did not provide any details about the incident, and, in the days that followed, Trump’s team refused to back down over the ‘assassination attempt’ narrative – meaning it has continued to mutate across the internet.

***

This is only a single, isolated example of how Donald Trump has defeated journalism – partly by accident, and partly by design. He and his team are able to lie, and get away with it, because they know their supporters have stopped paying attention to the mainstream press.

Trump is able to plant simple ideas into the minds of his supporters, while his team sits back, and watches these grow into fully-fledged conspiracy theories without having to so much as try. 

Meanwhile, all the work the media organisations do to verify claims and establish facts has become irrelevant. 

Whether Donald Trump wins the presidency or not, he has set the template for a more sophisticated and sociopathic breed of politician to exploit in the future.

Why It Matters That Theresa May Is Unelected

What happens when an unknown quantity is thrust into the highest seat of power in the state without so much as a sofa interview?

Ahead of this year's Conservative party conference a large portion of the press and broadcast media dedicated hours dissecting Theresa May - the politician - as well as Theresa May - the woman.

If you're feeling as if journalists this week are being especially superficial then you wouldn't be alone. Many appeared more keen to scrutinise the May family scones recipe than trouble themselves with less important matters such as the deeply troubling shift in the government's immigration rhetoric, or the militarisation of our prison system.

But this especially intense obsession with the superficial, which all of us share at least a little, is grounded in the fact that we know absolutely nothing about our prime minister.

***

The general consensus is that Theresa May used her conference speech to grab the 'centre ground' or even, to an extent, the centre-left of politics. 

Curious, then, that she managed to do this while drawing praise from the French far-right nationalist presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

Exactement 👏

Theresa May : « Si vous estimez être un citoyen du monde, vous êtes citoyen de nulle part » https://t.co/3bRd4bvBBx

— MLP Présidente 2017ن (@ElyseeMarine) October 5, 2016

In my view, her speech was packed with rhetoric borrowed from the left and the right, lined with a few jokes, and hashed together in order to allow everybody to see into it anything they wanted to.

When a politician makes this sort of speech, packed with rhetoric but lacking any actual policy, it is usually deconstructed and rebuffed by lunchtime. But because we have no point of reference from which to judge her words, it forces us to take them at face value.

She has no record as prime minister. She has no manifesto. She has promised nothing, neither to her party, nor the country. Even her record as Home Secretary is foggy, with many citing the fact she had not been removed from the post as being her greatest achievement - begging the question as to what her other achievements, if any, may have been.

***

You can argue endlessly about whether or not our democracy is fit for purpose. But the process of an election, no matter how flawed, at the very least accomplishes several things.

First, within the context of our pseudo-presidential electoral system, any potential prime minister is measured up. We learn intimate details about them, their family, their home(s), their character, even their love life. And, although of less concern to the press, we learn about their management style and political philosophy - not overnight - but often over the course of several years (as leader of the opposition).

Second, the entire prospective government - party leaders as well as their frontbench teams - are forced to make promises and set targets against which they can be judged when they win power. 

Third, any policy proposed faces meticulous vetting by the media and the public. Generally, a good policy is received well, while a bad policy is thrown out. A good example of this is David Cameron's bizarre 'paid volunteering' scheme cooked up during the 2015 election campaign.

Finally, it forces political parties to shape their policy around what they believe the public wants, and not around whichever untested ideology they hold.

Theresa May's government - which we now know to be completely different from the government elected to power in 2015 in terms of personnel, policy, and philosophy - has not been subject to any of the above. This should worry us.

Why Hasn't The Labour Party Died Already?

Barely a week has passed since the EU referendum and the Labour Party has already been plunged itself another civil war; adding to the government's collapse, and the United Kingdom's very own existential crisis.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is facing a full-blown coup, triggered following the sacking of the now-former shadow foreign secretary Hilary Ben last Sunday. As coups go, however, this is nothing short of a disaster.

Labour MPs, MEPs, consultants and associates have openly revolted against the leadership, resigning en masse from the shadow cabinet and from other roles, while a no-confidence ballot of MPs rendered a 172-to-40 result against Jeremy Corbyn.

Although the vote was definitive and the subsequent events have caused irreparable damage to Jeremy Corbyn's authority, the MPs who triggered this challenge, it now emerges, did so without a firm candidate to replace him, and without even knowing whether Corbyn may or may not be allowed to stand in a fresh leadership contest.

This detail is absolutely crucial, as he may yet win the support of the wider party membership if allowed to stand again. And what then if, as is extremely likely, he wins? The Parliamentary Labour Party will have failed to appeal to their own party members - for a second time - and they will have failed to put forward a credible alternative to a man so incredibly incompetent. Surely they will be finished.

All this, without the added dynamic of the long-awaited Chilcot Report on the Iraq War which is being published on July 6. What could possibly go wrong?

***

Jeremy Corbyn will not resign. Labour members may back him indefinitely. Those in power - the PLP, MEPs, etc - have abandoned him, and are actively working against him. Corbyn's survival, as many suggest, could well lead to the death of the Labour Party itself as MPs are forced to break away. 

But perhaps this was only a matter of time.

For better or for worse, social democratic parties, or the 'Establishment Left', have been falling across Europe. Yet this pattern is one the British Labour party has somehow avoided. Yes, Labour has not won an election since 2005 - but its support among the public remains far greater than the support of its counterparts across the continent.

The electoral success of Syriza in Greece marked the first major success of such a populist movement. POSAK, the established centre-left party, meanwhile has been sidelined. In the January 2015 legislative election, POSAK finished seventh with 4.7% of the vote share, a monumental collapse following their victory in October 2009 with 43.9%; its fall mirroring Syriza's rise in the intermediate six years.

Spain's June 2016 general election, the second within six months, saw PSOE, the traditional centre-left party win only 22.7% of the vote share - only a shade higher than the 22.0% it scored in December. Its collapse has been facilitated by the rise of Podemos, which received 21.1% in June 2016, and 20.7% in December, the first general election it had ever contested.

The Democratic Party of Italy led by Matteo Renzi occupies a more stable position having narrowly won the February 2013 general election with 29.5% to Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom with 29.1%. But the Five-Star Movement, a non-partisan anti-establishment Eurosceptic party, received 25.5% of the vote, like Podemos, in the first general election it had ever contested. Although the Democratic Party remains popular, polls show its support is falling while the Five Star Movement gains momentum, pointing to a defeat in 2018 for Italy's Establishment Left.

In France, the popularity of president Francois Hollande's Socialist Party is at its lowest it has been in some time (14%), and he is widely-expected to face defeat in 2017. In the first round of the 2015 regional elections, Hollande's party finished third on vote share with 23.12%, behind Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right Republicans on 26.65%, and Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front on 27.73%.

***

While the fall of the Establishment Left has given way to a host of younger, more energetic insurgency-based movements, as Marine Le Pen's success in France has shown, this shift has ushered in the return of the far-right across Europe.

This New York Times interactive chart shows a recent rise in the support of far-right parties across Europe including Hungary, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, and Austria.

The Austrian presidential elections in May 2016 saw the fascistic Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer narrowly defeated by the former Green Party candidate Alexander Van Der Bellen by only 30,863 votes.

But the election - won by 50.3% to 49.7% - will have to be re-run after the result was overturned on the basis that election rules were broken in a way that could influence the result. The prospect of Europe electing its first fascist leader since the end of World War II is once again a very real one.

While fascism is yet to enter mainstream politics in Britain, barring as an occasional source of comedy, there are a few worrying signs.

Let alone the death of Jo Cox at the hand of an alleged far-right political extremist, since the referendum result there has been a massive rise in the number of hate crimes. Latest police figures reveal the rate has risen five fold in the previous week alone, with 331 incidents reported to the national police records website against the average of 63. But the true figure may be far higher.

***

What would it mean if, as is increasingly likely, the Labour Party splits, or even collapses altogether? Europe shows that it could usher in a more radical movement in the mould of Podemos or Syriza. Or it could happen in conjunction with the rise of the far-right. Or both. Or neither.

If, after the 2015 general election, conventional wisdom suffered a blow, the referendum was its death knell. Where unexpected events, such as the Tory majority, the rise of the SNP, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour success, were frequent pre-Brexit, we may now begin to see wild, uncontrollable, unpredictable events hit us one after another in quick succession.

For instance, we could well see the actual death of the Labour Party. But, for better or for worse, perhaps this was long overdue.