🧩 BND Motif Index · M1282
Cobra effect
A bounty meant to stamp something out is said to breed more of it, with people faking the crime or taking the fall to collect.
- 1claim filed under it
- 1left show it came up on
- 1right show it came up on
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up (1 left-leaning, 0 center, 1 right-leaning so far), colored by the show's lean; the bar is how many of its claims each one heard
- left-leaning
- right-leaning
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
📰 In the news
the stories its claims were told about, the most told first (matched by our tools, so a link can be wrong)
- 📰 Trump offers $1 million reward for voter fraud tips leading to convictions 2026-10-26 to 2026-10-29
🗣️ In so many words
the words that carry it
💬 the tellers' own words: “going to create some really perverted incentives” “the perverse incentive where you are likely to get third worlders and criminals being like, who's taking the fall because we're about to get paid?”
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, in our words, by who told it: newest first in each; a claim's dots are the shows it came up on, in their lean's color (point at them for their names)
Told on the left 0
claims heard on left-leaning shows, and no right-leaning one
🦗 No claim heard only on the left so far.
Told on the right 0
claims heard on right-leaning shows, and no left-leaning one
🦗 No claim heard only on the right so far.
Told on both sides 1
claims heard on left- and right-leaning shows alike
- 2026-10-27 “Trump's voter fraud reward creates a perverse incentive for criminals to take the fall for money.” 2
M1282 · first seen 2026-10-29 · last 2026-11-09 · what this is · how the index works