This man is on the House Intelligence Committee:
“You know it’s getting bad when the propaganda machine that the Democratic socialists control in this country — they control 95% of the media or so,” he opined. “And then you take the big tech oligarchs that control and censor what we receive via social media. When that poison gets to the average independent American, that propaganda, you know it’s bad when they can’t even find a 15- or 30-second soundbite out of a full-hour town hall that they can plug into their own propaganda machine.”
Nunes added: “I mean, it’s getting really bad. It’s not just the president. They can’t get any soundbites from the vice president either.”
The Republican lawmaker claimed that deep state actors are “almost to the point where they’re going to have to start using computer-generated graphics in order to give to the propaganda machine because they can’t get good clips to sell what they’re trying to sell here in Washington, which are policies that are running the country into the ground.”
As you can see in the clip, he’s not joking. Not even a tiny twinkle in the eye.
There have always been cynical manipulators, cranks and fringies on the right and a handful of them ended up in congress. And there have always been a few who ended up running committees or in leadership. (I’m thinking of Dan Burton or Tom DeLay.) But Donald Trump has completely eaten this guy’s brain and he seems to be headed toward QAnon if he isn’t already there.
Apparently, there is some QAnon conspiracy theory that Biden is actually a computer generated hologram or something, which they call “Bidan.” Trump was referencing it obliquely in his rally speech last night. It’s out there but then so is the idea that Democratic leaders are all pedophile cannibals so what else is new?
It’s the kind of validation from nationally known GOP politicians like Nunes that’s mainstreaming these nutty conspiracy theories. After all, he could have just said that Biden sucks, his performance is terrible and that Kamala Harris isn’t much better which makes it hard for the libs to help them sell their program. It’s wrong and it’s dumb. But it isn’t a paranoid conspiracy theory. These guys are so wedded to the Trump Cult that they naturally speak in their kooky language now. It’s getting creepier and creepier.