These do seem to be the only two alternatives, given how many Trump “allies” are saying this and their penchant for projection - but also the Trumpian tendency to preemptively create conspiracy theories for something you know is going to happen. (Which sometimes doesn’t work. E.g. the recent GQP candidates who declared their primaries to be rigged - and then won. Oops.)
In this case, if Trump doesn’t drop dead, then he also gets to be a hero who emerged victorious over the evil librul deep state conspiracy to bump him off…
An alternate prospect or theory could be that these agents (Bannon, et al) are making pronouncements in advance of plans for a foreign actor - Russia, NK, Iran - to off Trump, throwing a match on the gassed up bonfire from the sidelines as a provocateur, with Dems and Repubs blaming each other as the US goes boom.
Dump could call a press conference, pull out a gun and blow his own head off and the MAGA morons will STILL claim “libruls” or the “Deep State” or “Nancy Pelosi” did it.
I distinctly remember watching Jon Stewart - then still the host of The Daily Show - react with glee the day after Dump went down the escalator. Because it would be so good for comedy.
Now: I don’t think Stewart is a “smug commentator” but there were a LOT of people who had no idea how stupid around 35% of the electorate is.
That reminds me of the Lovecraftian-level of horror I felt when I was a senior in high school and read about how the American public watched newsreels in 1944 about our ally, “Uncle Joe” (Stalin) in our fight against the Huns, for the Free World…then by 1950, American PR had already made the bulk of Americans cower in fear by the very idea that “communists” were under their bed, tryna rape their mothers, abscond with their sisters, stare deeply into your eyes and make YOU a commie too!
Six years or so. That’s all it took.
And those PR techniques were extremely primitive compared to what “we” have now.
So when the morbidly-obese, twice-impeached Russian lapdog keels over from cocaine and french fries, they’ll be saying he was offed by the Deep State™ — the same way they said evidence was planted at Mar-a Lago today.
