The most interesting question to ask someone in charge of the RNC -- assuming there is someone at least nominally coordinating this hilarious dumpster fire -- regarding cancelled speaker Mary Ann Mendoza is not some arcane specific about whatever high-on-ludes QAnon bullshit she's spinning this week. Nor is it anything about how she thinks the world is under the spell of some shifty J-O-O.
The most interesting way to pose the question would be to get this hypothetical show producer to explain to their own customers why they chose to bump Mary Ann Mendoza, and just watch the wheels spin. This is all a freaky coke circus anyway, might as well send in the clowns.
(Fun fact: Jerry Falwell Junior was scheduled to speak at the convention. They even told him he could have any time slot on any night. But Ol' Jer said he just wanted to watch. Get it? Just wanted to watch? Hello, is this thing on?)
For some inexplicable reason, I greatly enjoy conspiracy theories, the more convoluted and baroque the better. I find them highly entertaining. But that's a completely different matter than believing them.
One of the more unusual ones I find myself returning to a lot these days is this weird idea that George Soros is quietly funding everything authoritarian douchebags don't like, from the DNC's porn budget to Hillary Clinton's immigrant-child cannibalism pantry to sending every BLM and Antifa protester a fat check for showing up in the streets.
So there's that little Twitter chuckle of where's my check, George? We've all seen that. But let's deconstruct the premise down to its essence: a shady billionaire is quietly funding a variety of individuals and entities that work in concert against the interests and well-being of the American nation and the majority of its citizens. Sound about right?
Well, that happens all the time, especially on the right. All of the things they think Soros is doing are actually being done by Rupert Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friess, Charles Koch, Robert Mercer, and many others that never make the news because that's the way they like it. The fucking Secretary of Education has spent her adult life funding efforts to privatize Michigan's public school system, in order to scale it nationwide.
No, they're not running a cannibal pedophile cult -- probably. But all the rest of it is right there in front of everyone. They don't blast it out from the rooftops, but they don't make much effort to hide it either. Old money tends to be quiet money. Not a lot of flashy Martin Shkreli types there. But they do spend it, and they do like the minions they rent to know where their paychecks come from. Think tanks, foundations, newspapers, magazines, teevee networks. Who bankrolls The Federalist?
It's yet another gaping flaw in the upside-down logic that rules the bizarro world the cultists inhabit. They sit and watch a propaganda network openly funded by an evil billionaire, where the morning show hosts literally lie about the plague being nothing, while those same hosts are socially distanced and working remotely. Uh-huh. That's a hell of a hoax.
What few specifics I have bothered to read about the QAnon mythos are comically ludicrous enough to give you a headache trying to make any sense of it. The idea that JFK Jr., of all people, would fake his own death twenty years ago in order to lie in wait for Donald Trump -- again, of all people -- to become chief executive and team up to purge the "deep state" of the power-mad sex cult that's really been running things all these years. This is an internet prank that got out of hand, thanks to timely assistance from Russian troll farms along the way.
Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that there is a "deep state" of criminality that includes Bill 'n' Hitlery, Obummer, and the usual gang of Demoncrats Jebus Don't Like, and they've been getting away for years with all these heinous crimes. Let's just postulate that that particular element is empirically true.
Why, then, doesn't Trump simply have his lapdog attorney general, a man whose sole operational principle is doing whatever master commands, investigate those people? Why does Trump need to wait around for John Fitzgerald Kennedy Junior, who has been hiding out in Pittsburgh for twenty years, to see the magical sigil in the sky that the seventh seal has been broken and the time is now?
Bill Barr has made it quite clear that he is ready, willing, and able to do whatever is asked of him, real or not, factual or baseless. They could initiate a complete bullshit investigation of Hillary or Obama or Biden or whoever, just to waste time and get media attention. Why haven't they done so? Whatever happened to Lock Her Up? I mean, seriously, if you got something on her, put your money where your fuckin' mouth is and prosecute her already.
Of course they have no answers, because they're not really looking for them. It's really a weird combination of two intrinsically American phenomena -- cults and porn. Obviously, many countries have one or both of those things, but nobody does those things like Americans.
The doomsday cult convinces its followers that the end is coming on such-and-such a date in the near future. When that date inevitably comes and goes without Armageddon, the cult leader simply moves the date back. A few followers realize they've been taken and peel off, and a few more join up to take their place, and the cycle repeats until the bozos finally die of terminal stupidity.
Porn, in its worst instances, can warp the minds of its frequent users. There are countless studies that have shown that excessive porn use leads viewers -- especially young men -- to have extremely problematic views about women in particular and sex in general. To put it more crudely, some of these dupes get into a routine of spanking it to their favorite jam, and after a while start reflexively thinking that every new woman they encounter really wants to jump their bones, but just doesn't want to admit it. Their brains have been rewired to think uncritically that something non-existent is not only possible, not only likely, but definitely true. They don't know the difference between fantasy and reality anymore -- or they simply prefer the former to the latter.
In both instances, the level of certainty is such that they can't merely be talked out of their tree with [pfft] "logic." That's just something that people who are in on it want you to believe, to divert you from the truth.
There's always been a certain percentage of people who are willing dupes for this kind of nonsense, who have lost at the business of life in one way or another, or who are outwardly successful but have no real inner life, and so cling to these idiotic ideas in order to feel part of something, to possess coveted knowledge available only to a select few. It's a self-reinforcing dynamic, and it's always been around, just because the law of averages stipulates that X% of people are fucking morons.
What's changed, of course, is that in the past decade, social media has served as a handy organizer and propagator for this garbage. Reality teevee has dulled people's critical thinking skills even more than porn, and across a much wider volume of viewers. And you have the worst of both worlds in charge -- a visibly stupid reality-teevee huckster who literally rose to prominence by pushing a harebrained conspiracy theory for five years.
There are a lot of things killing off this nation at an alarmingly fast pace, all of them predicated on a critical mass of people being dumb and angry. But within that is this even more disturbing phenomenon of chumps who, rather than observe what's going on right in front of them, prefer to concoct a ridiculous fairy tale that doesn't even make sense on its own bizarre terms.
Perhaps the most ironic part of all that is that Trump probably never "believed" the birther conspiracy he pushed all those years in the first place. Clearly he doesn't have beliefs as such, beyond how awesome he is, and how every woman wants to ride his thirty-five-inch cock, and pay him for the privilege. Again, you can see the "porn pattern" of empty wish fulfillment in the face of reality.
But he knew that just enough people out there did believe the birther stuff, enough that he could plant the seed, grow the crop, and reap the harvest. And he's made things so much worse since, people are tired and broke and angry and somehow bored all at the same time, wanting it to be over but not sure what they want in its place, since there is no "normal" to "return" to. They've gone from binge-watch to hate-watch, and now they want to the show to be over, but they're still uncertain of what to switch over to.
It would not be surprising if the coming decade is shaped in great part by competing conspiracy narratives, with varying political stances and elements of truth twisted to conform to those narratives. The more bizarre ones will be aimed at more religious types, since the personality traits align for wanting to believe in unverifiable fables that affirm one's preconceptions.
But they'll be everywhere across the board. Given the success they've had helping QAnon along, it wouldn't be at all surprising if the Russians decided to keep sandbagging Democratic prospects by discouraging lefties with some random bullshit about Biden or Harris or whoever.
The main goal is not even to get people to believe a specific thing, so much as to get them into a permanent state of never knowing who or what to believe. If your real goal is simply to enable the vast network of transnational money laundering to keep chugging along, all you really need is permanent destabilization. You don't have to actually defeat or conquer anyone.
It's been known to happen. I read about it on the internets somewhere.
The most interesting way to pose the question would be to get this hypothetical show producer to explain to their own customers why they chose to bump Mary Ann Mendoza, and just watch the wheels spin. This is all a freaky coke circus anyway, might as well send in the clowns.
(Fun fact: Jerry Falwell Junior was scheduled to speak at the convention. They even told him he could have any time slot on any night. But Ol' Jer said he just wanted to watch. Get it? Just wanted to watch? Hello, is this thing on?)
For some inexplicable reason, I greatly enjoy conspiracy theories, the more convoluted and baroque the better. I find them highly entertaining. But that's a completely different matter than believing them.
One of the more unusual ones I find myself returning to a lot these days is this weird idea that George Soros is quietly funding everything authoritarian douchebags don't like, from the DNC's porn budget to Hillary Clinton's immigrant-child cannibalism pantry to sending every BLM and Antifa protester a fat check for showing up in the streets.
So there's that little Twitter chuckle of where's my check, George? We've all seen that. But let's deconstruct the premise down to its essence: a shady billionaire is quietly funding a variety of individuals and entities that work in concert against the interests and well-being of the American nation and the majority of its citizens. Sound about right?
Well, that happens all the time, especially on the right. All of the things they think Soros is doing are actually being done by Rupert Murdoch, Sheldon Adelson, Foster Friess, Charles Koch, Robert Mercer, and many others that never make the news because that's the way they like it. The fucking Secretary of Education has spent her adult life funding efforts to privatize Michigan's public school system, in order to scale it nationwide.
No, they're not running a cannibal pedophile cult -- probably. But all the rest of it is right there in front of everyone. They don't blast it out from the rooftops, but they don't make much effort to hide it either. Old money tends to be quiet money. Not a lot of flashy Martin Shkreli types there. But they do spend it, and they do like the minions they rent to know where their paychecks come from. Think tanks, foundations, newspapers, magazines, teevee networks. Who bankrolls The Federalist?
It's yet another gaping flaw in the upside-down logic that rules the bizarro world the cultists inhabit. They sit and watch a propaganda network openly funded by an evil billionaire, where the morning show hosts literally lie about the plague being nothing, while those same hosts are socially distanced and working remotely. Uh-huh. That's a hell of a hoax.
What few specifics I have bothered to read about the QAnon mythos are comically ludicrous enough to give you a headache trying to make any sense of it. The idea that JFK Jr., of all people, would fake his own death twenty years ago in order to lie in wait for Donald Trump -- again, of all people -- to become chief executive and team up to purge the "deep state" of the power-mad sex cult that's really been running things all these years. This is an internet prank that got out of hand, thanks to timely assistance from Russian troll farms along the way.
Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that there is a "deep state" of criminality that includes Bill 'n' Hitlery, Obummer, and the usual gang of Demoncrats Jebus Don't Like, and they've been getting away for years with all these heinous crimes. Let's just postulate that that particular element is empirically true.
Why, then, doesn't Trump simply have his lapdog attorney general, a man whose sole operational principle is doing whatever master commands, investigate those people? Why does Trump need to wait around for John Fitzgerald Kennedy Junior, who has been hiding out in Pittsburgh for twenty years, to see the magical sigil in the sky that the seventh seal has been broken and the time is now?
Bill Barr has made it quite clear that he is ready, willing, and able to do whatever is asked of him, real or not, factual or baseless. They could initiate a complete bullshit investigation of Hillary or Obama or Biden or whoever, just to waste time and get media attention. Why haven't they done so? Whatever happened to Lock Her Up? I mean, seriously, if you got something on her, put your money where your fuckin' mouth is and prosecute her already.
Of course they have no answers, because they're not really looking for them. It's really a weird combination of two intrinsically American phenomena -- cults and porn. Obviously, many countries have one or both of those things, but nobody does those things like Americans.
The doomsday cult convinces its followers that the end is coming on such-and-such a date in the near future. When that date inevitably comes and goes without Armageddon, the cult leader simply moves the date back. A few followers realize they've been taken and peel off, and a few more join up to take their place, and the cycle repeats until the bozos finally die of terminal stupidity.
Porn, in its worst instances, can warp the minds of its frequent users. There are countless studies that have shown that excessive porn use leads viewers -- especially young men -- to have extremely problematic views about women in particular and sex in general. To put it more crudely, some of these dupes get into a routine of spanking it to their favorite jam, and after a while start reflexively thinking that every new woman they encounter really wants to jump their bones, but just doesn't want to admit it. Their brains have been rewired to think uncritically that something non-existent is not only possible, not only likely, but definitely true. They don't know the difference between fantasy and reality anymore -- or they simply prefer the former to the latter.
In both instances, the level of certainty is such that they can't merely be talked out of their tree with [pfft] "logic." That's just something that people who are in on it want you to believe, to divert you from the truth.
There's always been a certain percentage of people who are willing dupes for this kind of nonsense, who have lost at the business of life in one way or another, or who are outwardly successful but have no real inner life, and so cling to these idiotic ideas in order to feel part of something, to possess coveted knowledge available only to a select few. It's a self-reinforcing dynamic, and it's always been around, just because the law of averages stipulates that X% of people are fucking morons.
What's changed, of course, is that in the past decade, social media has served as a handy organizer and propagator for this garbage. Reality teevee has dulled people's critical thinking skills even more than porn, and across a much wider volume of viewers. And you have the worst of both worlds in charge -- a visibly stupid reality-teevee huckster who literally rose to prominence by pushing a harebrained conspiracy theory for five years.
There are a lot of things killing off this nation at an alarmingly fast pace, all of them predicated on a critical mass of people being dumb and angry. But within that is this even more disturbing phenomenon of chumps who, rather than observe what's going on right in front of them, prefer to concoct a ridiculous fairy tale that doesn't even make sense on its own bizarre terms.
Perhaps the most ironic part of all that is that Trump probably never "believed" the birther conspiracy he pushed all those years in the first place. Clearly he doesn't have beliefs as such, beyond how awesome he is, and how every woman wants to ride his thirty-five-inch cock, and pay him for the privilege. Again, you can see the "porn pattern" of empty wish fulfillment in the face of reality.
But he knew that just enough people out there did believe the birther stuff, enough that he could plant the seed, grow the crop, and reap the harvest. And he's made things so much worse since, people are tired and broke and angry and somehow bored all at the same time, wanting it to be over but not sure what they want in its place, since there is no "normal" to "return" to. They've gone from binge-watch to hate-watch, and now they want to the show to be over, but they're still uncertain of what to switch over to.
It would not be surprising if the coming decade is shaped in great part by competing conspiracy narratives, with varying political stances and elements of truth twisted to conform to those narratives. The more bizarre ones will be aimed at more religious types, since the personality traits align for wanting to believe in unverifiable fables that affirm one's preconceptions.
But they'll be everywhere across the board. Given the success they've had helping QAnon along, it wouldn't be at all surprising if the Russians decided to keep sandbagging Democratic prospects by discouraging lefties with some random bullshit about Biden or Harris or whoever.
The main goal is not even to get people to believe a specific thing, so much as to get them into a permanent state of never knowing who or what to believe. If your real goal is simply to enable the vast network of transnational money laundering to keep chugging along, all you really need is permanent destabilization. You don't have to actually defeat or conquer anyone.
It's been known to happen. I read about it on the internets somewhere.
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