Exhibit … oh, who cares?
Donald J. Trump read the simmering GOP base better than party elders as early as 2011 and began flogging the birther conspiracy. A showman in the mold of P.T. Barnum, Trump knew what the marks would buy. The con man believed, then as now, there’s a sucker born every minute. The conservative base wanted red meat? He dished it to them, blasting immigrants, Muslims, and urban liberals with violent rhetoric, promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington and to “lock up” Hillary Clinton. They would follow him around the country, Deadhead style, bedecked in Trump-branded merch, for their regular feedings.
With such animosity breeds gullibility, suggests “Hatred Makes Fools of Us All,” the title of a Friday newsletter by The Atlantic‘s David French. The syllogism underlying the huckster’s pitch to the gullible begins, “If they’ll believe this….”
So, plucked from the far reaches of MAGAstan, Right Wing Watch posted this winner Friday morning:
Daily Beast fills in the details:
Two conspiracy-peddling former MAGA congressional candidates pushed an absolutely bonkers claim this week that the “Deep State” used “weather manipulation technology” to power up Hurricane Ian in order to hurt Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeAnna Lorraine, who unsuccessfully challenged Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 2020, said on her far-right online show that the federal government knows “how to manipulate and create big storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, climate change,” adding that “huge hurricanes seem to target red states” near elections. “In this case, possibly Ron DeSantis has been stepping out of line a lot and challenging, fighting the Deep State,” she added, noting that DeSantis is a likely GOP presidential candidate. Lauren Witzke, the Republican Party’s 2020 Senate nominee for Delaware, agreed that Ian “could be a weather-manipulated hurricane” before noting that the storm became a Cat-5 hurricane “overnight” and “does seem to be hitting the conservative areas of” Florida. “I’m not putting it past the elites to target something like this toward Florida as punishment for getting rid of vaccine mandates or getting rid of child grooming,” Witzke exclaimed.
Notice the blue strip at the bottom of the frame: “Biden Builds Transhuman Army using Immigrants.” It’s way out there.
ALIENS RAISE THE DEAD! CORPSE CORPS DRAFTED FROM BEYOND TO ATTACK HUMANS! — WWN
The Weekly World News ceased publication in 2007. Trump and the MAGA right filled the tabloid void with the Pillow Guy, Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, Rumble, Gab and Truth Social. The GOP is not-so-secretly WWN.
In May, for example, Stone told the ReAwaken America Tour event in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina:
“There is a Satanic portal above the White House, you can see it day and night,” the Trump ally claimed. “It exists. It is real. And it must be closed. And it will be closed by prayer,” he added, drawing claps and cheers. Stone went on to claim that this “portal” first appeared after President Joe Biden “became president, and it will be closed before he leaves.”
WWN veterans must have smiled at Stone’s homage.
This week, Ginni Thomas, fringe-right activist wife of Associate Justice Clarence, spoke with Jan. 6th Committee investigators. The details are not known, except that she did not renounce her conspiratorial faith (The Guardian):
Ginni Thomas, the hard-right conservative whose activities have raised conflict of interest concerns involving her husband, the US supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas, has told the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection that she still believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
And so it goes. Alien ambassadors, Satanic portals, bat boys. Oh, and rabid anti-communists are now Putinistas.
“I’m entirely unshocked that @CPAC has gone full Putin,” added The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson in responding to a since-deleted CPAC tweet (right).
“I don’t even RECOGNIZE this country anymore,” tweeted comedian Jay Black.
My high school journalism teacher brought in copies of National Enquirer, True Detective, and other such drug-store fare as examples of the breadth of journalism, even if of meager quality.
“At least they’re reading,” she said.
There is more afoot than the Weekly World News-ification of the extremist American right. What Rick F. once said about the redneck guy whose house we visited.
From a 2014 exploration of this type of disinfotainment, Steven Heller explained, “There are three three types of WWN reader, according to the editor—those who believe, those who don’t believe, and “those who want to believe but aren’t sure.”
Since then (and long before Trump), a large segment of the U.S. population has nurtured its own gullibility by feasting daily on its own grievance. Their drive to make America great again (for them only) has rendered the Republican Party “ideologically completely incoherent.” The Weekly World News just read its market first, even before Trump.
Hatred makes fools of us all. Ashli Babbit died for a cunning one.
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