It’s come to shitty pillows and shredded paper
Anyone who harbors hopes that the televised Jan. 6 committee hearings that resume Monday morning will change minds among the MGA faithful, read it and weep:
Six years into the grass-roots movement unleashed by Donald Trump in his first presidential campaign, Angela Rubino is a case study in what that movement is becoming. Suspicious of almost everything, trusting of almost nothing, believing in almost no one other than those who share her unease, she has in many ways become a citizen of a parallel America — not just red America, but another America entirely, one she believes to be awash in domestic enemies, stolen elections, immigrant invaders, sexual predators, the machinations of a global elite and other fresh nightmares revealed by the minute on her social media scrolls. She is known online as “Burnitdown.”
She is also among the people across the country willing to do whatever they can to ensure that the imagined enemies of the United States are defeated in the 2022 midterm elections and beyond. From school boards to state houses to Congress, their goal is to take political territory, and for evidence that this is possible, they look to northwest Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose first-time candidacy two years ago defined the fringe of the Republican Party and who is now running for reelection as one of its standard bearers.
Dumpster diving for evidence
Rubino retrieved a couple of bags of shredded materials from the dumpster outside her local elections office in north Georgia, took them back to her garage, and expects to reassemble them — there must be evidence in there . When she’s not taking down RINOs or trafficking in conspiracy theories or distributing campaign signs for “patriots” running against Republicans insufficiently Trumpy.
“And who were those people drinking each other’s blood?” said Rubino.
“Megan Fox and her boyfriend,” said Smith, referring to the actor.
“Did you ever see that clip about Hillary Clinton where she cut a girl’s face off and she wore it?” said Rubino, referring to one of the fake videos of the type always coming across her social media scroll. “I could hardly watch.”
Everyone not with her is against her. Against America. Against Trump. Against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Dark night of the soul
All Rubino’s certainties have fallen away. As in any cult, members must have external reality broken down, stripped away, so the old reality can be filled with a new one.
She no longer trusted her schooling. She no longer trusted traditional news. She no longer trusted election results. She no longer trusted courts, or local government, or state government, or the U.S. government, or any of the institutions of democracy she once took for granted. She was no longer sure America was the country she once thought it was.
“It’s just endless questions,” she said. “You’d like to have somebody to trust, something to be sure of.”
[…]
“Sometimes I’m like, what if I’m wrong?” Rubino said. “It crosses my mind. Then I ask God: If I’m doing something wrong, please give me the strength to figure it out. Because I really want to understand what the point is. This can’t be what life is, that you get up and go to work and come home. That as humans, we’re nothing.”
It’s an age-old search for meaning. In all the wrong places. I’ve seen it before. Just never on this scale.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us.If in a position to Play to win in 2022 (see post first), contact tpostsully at gmail dot com