It is... interesting
I'll give it that https://twitter.com/CursedBoomers/status/1277703131539714048

Has the USA cornered the market on covid bizarrity or do other nations have people buying into stuff like this?

Brazil and Russia, the other large nations with Trump-like dictators, are also doing a shockingly bad job of containing the virus, but I don't see evidence they've got people coming up with bizarro-world justifications for WHY it's good to pretend the virus isn't real.

Even if Russian or other professional trolls are coming up with some of these, they're clearly manufactured for export to the US market.

We seem uniquely enthusiastic about loony conspiracy theories and weirdo doomsday cults here in the US, something that has only accelerated since the late 1970s when the evangelical premillennialist doomsday first went mainstream.

Which reminds me, there's a lot of speculation on this thread about WHY the ruling class isn't too worried about their heads right now and I think it's because -- https://twitter.com/mikeduncan/status/1277692089606832129

One, they're quite sure they've got us wound up so that whenever the revolutionary spirit stirs, we'll always attack each other first.

Two, is that they're also pretty sure that they've got the actual levers of real power sequestered away in a secret room where us rubes will not be able to get to them even if we DO get our shit together enough to storm the castle effectively.

One reason people keep making symbolic gestures (like announcing you're no longer going to have white voice actors playing Black cartoon characters) is that these are easy to do, where defunding police departments is, apparently, well-nigh impossible.

Which reminds me: another reason they're not afraid of the revolution is because apparently the function of the cops who are everywhere in all our cities is apparently SPECIFICALLY to prevent the revolution.

And, ironically, apparently these armed to the teeth second amendment types exist specifically to prevent the revolution too.

I say "ironic" because they always told us they were going to START the revolution but now we know better, because we've seen how they react when the revolution marches past their door and they aim their guns AT it.

One thing I believe about weirdo conspiracy theories is that they're usually some form of displacement -- there's something real going on that you're really worried about, but your brain skitters away from that & makes up something else for you to fixate on.

Back in the late 1970s when I was a fretful evangelical child moderately worried about millennial fever, I sat down & actually read the book of Revelation, and concluded that everybody was really just afraid of nuclear war.

In the 1980s when the eye of the Satanic panic was turned to rock music, I didn't yet realize the specifically racist origins of the anti-rock movement, but --

I saw pretty clearly that it was also a displacement for the fears of evangelical parents that their children would leave the faith.

Which is ironic, because backmasking was the first thing thing that really broke my trust in the church, my parents, and adults in general.

People who will believe in backmasking will believe in ANYTHING.

When the satanic panic morphed into "satanic ritual abuse is being performed at daycare centers!" I saw it as displaced anxiety about women entering the work force and young children being at daycare centers at all. But, UNLIKE backmasking, it ruined real people's real lives.

Law enforcement got in on the act.

It became the blueprint for Qanon and a lot of the stuff we're seeing today.

Qanon reminds me a bit of 9/11 truthers -- George W. Bush really does bear more responsibility for 9/11 than we've ever held him to, but it's not because of some rubbish about the melting point of steel. In fact --

"9/11 was an inside job!" rhetoric seems specifically engineered to deflect blame FROM the GWB administration, not to hold them accountable.

Instead of calling out specific & real acts of the GWB admin's malfeasance, including the Iraq War, it all gets pushed off onto some nebulous "they" who will never actually be found & will never actually be held accountable.

Which leads me to Qanon, and *maybe* the meme that got me started isn't theirs, but it certainly has a Qish flavor about it.

When it comes to DJT, Q-ers remind me of truthers because it's similar deflection. If truthers exist specifically to exonerate GWB from his 9/11-related misdeeds, Q-ers exist specifically to exonerate DJT from his actual, known, real participation --

In not only international sex trafficking & exploitation of underage girls, but also many other crimes.

In the bizarro world of Q, they actually RECOGNIZE that DJT is part of an international crime syndicate masquerading as a government, and then give him -- I think -- credit for being a secret deep cover agent who's going to bring it all down?

(I confess that I'm not always 100% sure what Q is on about because they're indistinguishable from parodies of Q. In fact, I'm pretty sure that a lot of Q memes that are later accepted as "true" start out as somebody making a parody Q meme for the lols)

Which brings me to my final "oh, God, why can't I sleep?" thought, which is -- what are Republican trolls like Matt Gaetz actually THINKING when they post stuff like this?

I mean, I guess the Purge couple might be a good litmus test in a way -- either you identify with them or you want to mock them -- but also, who on earth would want to identify with them? They look like absolute fools.

They're not well-dressed, they don't look tough or determined, they're holding those guns like they don't actually have the FAINTEST idea how to use them.

If you put these guys in your movie, they would not be the heroes.

So what is Matt Gaetz actually intending to do here? Just keep everyone who thinks he's a fool distracted & busy telling him what a fool he is?

But there's something more to it.
This isn't an isolated act with him or with the right in general. He's participating in creating an overall narrative of right wing absurdity and foolishness, the same one DJT and other prominent figures on the right are contributing to.

And THAT narrative relates back to this Sartre quote about fascists. https://twitter.com/Vinncent/status/1057210298170511360

Fascists are foolish on purpose.

It's not ONLY that they are fools who can't help themselves, it's ALSO a tactic.

Anyway, the virus is real, wear a mask.

Also, I hope everybody reading this thread is on the east coast because if it's four in the morning where you are I pity all of us.