Monthly Archives: February 2020
Tea’s Weird Week: Laughing My Ass Off at These Bonkers Trump Paintings
Art by J.Jason Groschopf!
“Art is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone will have their own interpretation.” — E.A. Bucchianeri
“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy, you can do anything.”– Donald Trump
I’m not sure how I stumbled on the works of Jon McNaughton, a painter from Utah who specializes in “highly detailed religious and patriotic subjects.” His bio also says that “there are three kinds of people who view my paintings: those who like it, those who hate it, and those who simply don’t understand.”
Boy howdy, McNaughton, I’m definitely 2 out of 3! I see Trump as everything bad in America– a greedy 2-bit con man who instills fear and paranoia instead of hope, all 7 deadly sins rolled into one foul, bloviating persona. McNaughton’s take, you’ll see, is a little different. But first, let’s dive in take a look at one of McNaughton’s pre-Trump era pieces:
This painting, “The Forgotten Man,” was completed in 2010. It’s a Rembrandt of nuttiness. Here we see that McNaughton’s poor “forgotten man” is not a black person sent to prison for life for smoking weed or stealing $9, or a refugee thrown into a border concentration camp, but your average white dude slumped sadly on a park bench. A stern-looking President Obama has his arms folded and is ignoring him. The U.S. Constitution is pinned under Obama’s shoe like yesterday’s news. Also gathered around the poor guy, hashing out his plight: every president ever. Here’s what they’re saying:
James Madison: “Dude, seriously?! You’re stepping on it? Do you know how much time I spent writing that thing?! It’s like, over 200 years old!”
Abe: “Hey! Hey buddy, turn around! What’s your problem, man?!”
Clinton and the Roosevelts: clap clap clap, “bravo, bravo, Obama.”
Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson: “I’m also pointing.” (oddly subdued– you’d think he’d be the first one to throw a punch.)
JFK: “Hey aaaa, look ovah there, they elected aaaa black guy for the aaa presidency!”
W: “Wait a minute, are you sure I’m not supposed to be over there by Washington and Kennedy?”
Old Mother Reagan: “Where am I? Why are we gesturing at this guy?”
Based on the old chestnut that you can “give a man a fish, and you feed him a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him a lifetime,” this work, “Teach a Man to Fish” is a hilariously failed metaphor. Here we see another poor white dude who has put down his books about socialism and is saying “duhhh, what are these things?” while benevolent Trump shows him how to tie a lure in a tranquil forest. Here’s the thing, I don’t think “patient teacher” springs to mind when describing Trump. I’m also guessing he doesn’t know how to fish. Do you think young Trump sat on a pier attaching a squirming nightcrawler on a hook? If he ever has been out to fish, he probably paid someone to set up the rod for him, much like Don Jr. pays someone to drop him in an enclosed area so he can trophy hunt endangered animals.
I think a more accurate metaphor would be Trump running away from an angry fisherman (with an unpaid bill in his hand) with a flopping fish in between his teeth, like Yogi Bear stealing a picnic basket.
This painting, “Crossing the Swamp,” (a parody of “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by Emanuel Leutze) shows the danger in trying to create any depiction of the Trump administration as a coherent team. Of those featured here, almost half the crew has walked the plank: Nikki Haley (resigned), James “Mad Dog” Mattis (resigned, Trump says he fired him), Jeff Sessions (forced to resign), Sarah Sanders (resigned), John Bolton (HA! resigned, Trump says he fired him) and John Kelly (forced to resign). Trump better hope that Ben Carson and Ivanka can navigate that thing.
“Expose the Truth”: Trump: “C’mere you lyin,’ crooked FBI man! Let me grab you by the fucking tie and get a good look at you! A real good look, with my magnifying glass!”
This “Modern-day Paul Revere” is supposed to be obnoxious FOX News personality Sean Hannity, the top dawg at the station after Bill O’Reilly was fired (6 sexual harassment cases totaling $50 million finally did it). Instead of riding town to town to warn of the British invasion, you’ll hear Hannity call out things like:
“Halloween is a liberal holiday because we’re teaching our children to beg for something for free!” and “I define peace as the ability to defend yourself and blow your enemies into smithereens!”
This is McNaughton’s latest, “You Are Fake News.” For more on Trump’s clown problem, see my column HERE.
Wheeeew! Final thoughts:
Conspiracy News Dept.: Flat Earther and homemade rocket pilot “Mad Mike” Hughes died after a malfunction with his parachute as he attempted flight on Feb.22 outside of Barstow. An upcoming show, Homemade Astronauts was at the launch to shoot footage.
Meanwhile, during Mardi Gras, an “Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself theory” float depicting Hillary Clinton strangling the deceased sex predator rolled down St. Charles Avenue while a group of dancers– “the Swingin’ Epsteins”– danced in grey wigs, prison jumpsuits, and bedsheet nooses around their necks.
My upcoming book American Madness features a journey through conspiracy culture. It’s out August 25, 2020 from Feral House. To pre-order: CLICK HERE
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“This chatty, fast-paced volume will entertain those who enjoy reading about unusual subcultures.”– Publishers Weekly (on Apocalypse Any Day Now)
The#TrumpConspiracyCounter just passed 100. I’m skipping analysis until next week, where I’ll discuss what we’ve seen so far.
Tea’s Weird Week: Doomer Fatigue, I Got It
Let’s review this long, long year of 2020 so far. It feels like Biblical plagues are sweeping the earth. In less than two months we’ve seen wildfires destroy Australia, the Doomsday Clock tick forward to 100 seconds to midnight, Antarctica heated up to 65(F) degrees (the warmest on record), a deadly outbreak of coronavirus (and a wave of racism, paranoia, and conspiracy to go along with the real threat) and a plague of locusts in Somalia.
Here at home in the US of A, where to even begin, seriously? I’m about one headline away from getting into Mad Max gear and running down the street with a bug-out bag yelling “THE END IS NIGH!”
Maybe this is all for the best in the long run. A new book titled The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene by Professor Patricia MacCormack of Cambridge. It apparently makes the argument that the only way to save the planet is for a mass extinction to happen. That’s an oversimplification, I know– I haven’t read the book, but it’s on the old reading list. I’m interested to read it, but can I handle it?
I think I know what I got a case of.
While I was working on my book Apocalypse Any Day Now, I learned about an ailment one prepper author called “doomer fatigue.” It’s a stressful depression you feel when you burn yourself out thinking about how incredibly screwed the world is. As I worked on the book, I researched ideas about the world ending, from the ridiculous to the frighteningly plausible. It was tiring. When I did interviews for the book, I sometimes joked I was going to cleanse the palate after the book was done by reading nothing but Hello Kitty. Haw haw, Tea Krulos sipping merlot, soaking up some kawaii! Good joke. Everybody laugh.
I know there is still hope. I think I’ll shake this doomer fatigue off. Usually going for a walk, some good music, and a dose of Vitamin C helps. Maybe I’ll pick up that Hello Kitty comic I was talking about.
Please Clap Dept.: Speaking of Apocalypse Any Day Now, author Linda S. Godfrey wrote about it in a post about books and bookmarks here: lindagodfrey.com/2020/02/17/mark-my-words-5-books-i-love-and-finding-the-good-parts
I have a new YouTube channel for my upcoming book, American Madness. Please subscribe here: www.youtube.com/channel/UCoFCwzjjghaVXSWUwEZx27g/playlists
My upcoming book American Madness features a journey through conspiracy culture, including QAnon. It’s out August 25, 2020 from Feral House. To pre-order: CLICK HERE
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“For some reason, though some of his observations are alarming, whenever I read Tea’s work I feel better because of his level-headed reportage and humor.” –Lee Gutowski, editor, Riverwest Currents
What a week for the Trump Crime Family! Trump grants clemency to fellow Hair Club member Blago (who announces he is now a “Trumpocrat”), tells Rush Limbaugh to “never apologize” for his homophobic comments, and his former adviser, 7-time felon conspiracy theorist Roger Stone, got sentenced today to 3 years, 4 months in prison, less than half of the Department of Justice’s 7-9 year recommendation. Meanwhile, we’re still keeping track of every time Trump retweets or promotes a conspiracy theory, theorist, or media outlet.
83.) Feb.10: Sometimes it’s hard to tell if something is the promotion of a conspiracy or just a straight-up lie. At a rally in New Hampshire, Trump tells the crowd he lost the state because “hundreds of buses from Massachusetts” were sent in full of people committing voter fraud. There’s no evidence of mass voter fraud in the 2016 election.
Source: “Trump Baselessly Claims He Lost New Hampshire in 2016 Due to ‘Hundreds of Buses’ From Massachusetts,” Talking Points Memo
84.) Feb.13: Trump on former advisor and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone: “significant bias at the ‘Justice’ Department,” quote marks his.
85-96.) Feb.19: An 11 streak tweetstorm retweeting posts by Tom Fitton and his organization Judicial Watch including ones where he talks about “draining the Deep State,” the Spygate theory, and talks about Roger Stone’s “miscarriage of justice.”
That’s all the analysis I got for today. Like I said, doomer fatigue.
For a frightening read on the upcoming tidal wave of misinformation, lies, fearmongering, and conspiracy theory in the 2020 campaign, I recommend: “The Billion Dollar Misinformation Campaign to Reelect the President,” McKay Coppins, The Atlantic.
The #TrumpConspiracyCounter is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrumpConspirac3
Tea’s Weird Week: There are Two Dozen Members of QAnon Running for Congress
“That being said, I do believe there is a group in Brussels, Belgium, that do eat aborted babies.”– Matthew Lusk, QAnon member and Florida Congressional candidate
L-R: Twitter page of Joanne Wright, California’s 34th district, Danielle Stella (w/ a Q necklace), Minnesota’s 5th district, QAnon supporter at a Trump rally, campaign website (misspelling “where”) of Christine Scott, Florida’s 22nd district.
I wish I were joking with this week’s column title, but I’m not. Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group that monitors right-wing media, has identified 24 candidates (though two have already dropped out) who have launched 2020 campaigns that are promoters of the QAnon theory. Yikes.
QAnon is a cult-like conspiracy following that believes in a Trump Messiah. I wrote about them in a chapter of my upcoming book American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness (Aug.25, Feral House) in a chapter titled, simply enough, “Q.”
QAnon beliefs go in a number of crazy directions, but the heart of the belief says that Democrats are running a secret satanic pedophile ring (the Pizzagate theory ties into this) and are practicing cannibalism. They believe Trump is silently plotting a day of reckoning, referred to as “The Storm” when all of these liberal villains– “Crooked Hillary,” Obama, “Nervous Nancy,” members of the Fake News media, and everyone else part of the “Deep State” will be rounded up, given military tribunals and sent to rot in Guantanamo Bay. Cryptic messages about this “Great Awakening” are sent to the initiated by a figure known as “Q.” There is much speculation on who Q is. Some say it is John Kennedy Jr., who faked his death and is secretly helping Trump out, or that it is Trump himself or someone in his inner circle. Spoilers: Q is probably an Internet troll.
There are many times QAnon has pointed to Trump supposedly acknowledging them– most recently I was amused to see that the Associated Press talked to QAnon members at the Milwaukee Trump rally that I attended and said they “believed the president had traced the shape of the letter ‘Q’ as a covert signal to followers of QAnon.” [“‘QAnon’ conspiracy theory creeps into mainstream politics,”Associated Press.]
You can identify QAnon believers by the lingo they use, often signaled as hashtags. “Where we go one, we go all” (abbreviated to wwg1wga) is the QAnon phrase of solidarity. “The Storm,” and “The Great Awakening,” refer to the QAnon revolution and “trust the plan” is another common signature. Q leaves “drops” and “breadcrumbs” as clues.
Some analysis of the QAnon candidates: Twelve states have QAnon candidates. California and Florida are tied with the most QAnon Congress hopefuls at five each. California has two vying for the 36th district (a huge mass of land east of LA in the Joshua Tree State Park), while in Florida, two are also competing for the 22nd district (which includes Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton). Texas follows with three (though one dropped out) and Minnesota with two. The candidates are split almost 50/50 between men and women. All but one (a Libertarian) are running as Republicans.
The most infamous of these contests include Matthew Lusk, running in Florida’s 5th district (which includes Tallahassee, Jacksonville) unopposed, meaning he’ll be running in the general election against Democrat Rep. Al Lawson. Lusk’s website includes a page devoted to Q, which only has three words of information on it:
Danielle Stella of Minnesota is running against Ilhan Omar, a favorite liberal villain. Stella says Omar hired a hitman to kill a woman and was banned from Twitter after tweeting that Omar should be hung for treason. She’s been a guest on InfoWars, and on a QAnon YouTube channel called “Patriot’s Soapbox.” She apparently also has a problem with shoplifting “cat merchandise.”
Another QAnon contender (and InfoWars guest) is DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, running against top Trump enemy Nancy Pelosi in California. As noted in the #TrumpConspiracyCounter, Trump has retweeted Tesoriero.
Here’s the list of known QAnon members running for office in 2020:
- Daniel Wood, Arizona’s 3rd District
- Dan Belcher, Oklahoma’s 5th District
- Matthew Lusk, Florida’s 5th District
- Michael Blumeling Jr., Florida’s 21st District
- Jeremy Brown, Florida’s 14th District
- Christine Scott, Florida’s 22nd District
- Darlene Swaffer, Florida’s 22nd District
- DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, California’s 12th District
- Erin Cruz, California’s 36th District
- Ignacio Cruz, California’s 39th District
- Rhonda Furin, California’s 45th District
- Patrice Kimbler, California’s 36th District
- Joanne Wright, California’s 34th District
- Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia’s 14th District
- Steve Von Loor, North Carolina’s 4th District
- Rich Helms, Texas’s 33rd District
- Michael Moates, Texas’s 26th District (dropped out after sending creepy messages to teens)
- Joe Walz, Texas’s 22nd District
- Nichole Williams, Tennessee’s 1st District
- Gary Heyer, Minnesota’s 3rd District
- Danielle Stella, Minnesota’s 5th District
- Bobby Jeffries, Pennyslvania’s 10th District (has reportedly dropped out)
- Jo Rae Perkins, Oregon’s 4th District
- Lauren Witzke, Delaware, candidate for U.S. Senate
Source: “Here are the QAnon Supporters Running for Congress,” Alex Kaplan, Media Matters for America.
This is crazy, damn damn damn crazy. It shows how important local elections can be. Please look into your local elections and VOTE. Don’t let these candidates and their imaginary friend Q get into office.
My upcoming book American Madness features a journey through conspiracy culture, including QAnon. It’s out August 25, 2020 from Feral House. To pre-order: CLICK HERE
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“Journalist Tea Krulos has made a curious and enlightening career out of examining groups of people with odd beliefs.” — Skeptical Inquirer
As noted in today’s column, Trump has already gotten a number of hits on the #TrumpConspiracyCounter by retweeting followers of QAnon, including some this week. Here’s the tallies for Feb.6-12.
64.) Feb.6: Trump, furious at Romney for voting for one of the articles of impeachment, posts a video that promotes Mitt Romney as being a “secret Democrat asset.”
65.-71.) Feb.6-7: Bongino! Dan Bongino has racked up the most #TrumpConspiracyCounter points so far this year. He’s a former InfoWars regular, NRA-TV host, and now a FOX contributor and author of conspiracy book Spygate.
72.) Feb. 6: G’day, mate: Trump retweets Australian conspiracy theorist Miranda Devine, who has promoted the white genocide conspiracy theory, as well as climate change hoaxes, including a strange one that suggests Boeing planes crashed because of pressures to make them more eco-friendly. Make your brain hurt here: “NY Post Columnist Miranda Devine Bizarrely Blames Climate Concern for Boeing Disasters,” Daily Kos.
73.) Feb.6: Trump retweets Charlie Kirk, founder of college orientated Alt-Right Turning Point USA, promotor of many conspiracies, most recently Iowa voting theories.
74-75.) Feb.9: Retweets of Big League Politics. Started by a former Breitbart News writer Patrick Howley, who has called Alex Jones “my Walter Cronkite.” Formed in 2017, the site has promoted several conspiracies including QAnon, the Clinton Body Count, and Charlottesville false flag conspiracies.
Source: “Roy Moore Consultants’ New Project: A Conspiracy-Theorizing Pro-Trump News Site,”Daily Beast.
77.) Feb.9: Trump retweets Red Pill Report, sharing a video of House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler being shouted at by a heckler. The video was made by a QAnon YouTuber called “In Pursuit of Truth.”
78.) Feb. 9: Trump goes on an ALL CAPS Tweet freakout, ranting about the Spygate conspiracy. It read, in part:
SIMPLY PUT, THE PARTY IN POWER ILLEGALLY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER THE ELECTION, IN ORDER TO CHANGE OR NULLIFY THE RESULTS OF THE ELECTION. IT CONTINUED ON WITH THE IMPEACHMENT HOAX. Terrible!
79.) Feb.10-12: These could be stretched out to several counts, as over two days Trump tweeted and spoke to the press in defense of his old campaign advisor and conspiracy theorist (and possible Batman villain) Roger Stone.
Stone has a hand in Trump becoming president, being one of the early people to suggest a White House run to him in the 1980s. In 2015, Trump tapped him to unleash the “Stone’s Rules” playbook. Stone has a long career as being a self-described “dirty trickster” as well as being a conspiracy theorist, spreading ideas like the Clinton Body Count, the Deep State, and many others. He teamed up with Alex Jones and had his own InfoWars show.
Although Trump claims “nobody really knows what he did,” the 7 felonies charged against Stone are specific– obstructing an official proceeding, witness tampering, and five counts of making false statements to Congress for his roll in trying to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks and intimidating witnesses to lie from him.
After the Department of Justice announced a 7-9 year reccomended prison term, Trump vigorously defended Stone, saying his sentence was a “miscarriage of justice” and “very unfair” and that the Stone prosecutors were “rogue prosecutors maybe? The Swamp!” Attorney General Bill Barr stepped in to say that the sentence wasn’t reasonable and would not “serve the interests of justice.” The four prosecutors who made the sentencing recommendation all withdrew from the case, with one quitting the Department of Justice completely. Many have speculated Stone will end up being pardoned by Trump, though he wouldn’t provide an answer when the press asked him.
More on Stone’s dirty trickster history: “A Brief History of Roger Stone,” The Atlantic.
80.-82.) Feb.10: Retweets of Tom Fitton/ Judicial Watch. Fitton is president of conservative activist group Judicial Watch, which has spread conspiracies about the Clinton Body Count, voter fraud, Spygate, George Soros, climate change, and others.
You can find the #TrumpConspiracyCounter on Twitter: twitter.com/TrumpConspirac3
Tea’s Weird Week: The Top 7 Flattest of the Flat Earth Hip Hop Songs
An Examination of One of Music’s Strangest Sub-genres, Plus the #TrumpConspiracyCounter Hits 063
In past “Tea’s Weird Week” columns, I explored conspiracy theories and urban legends about musicians, everyone from The Beatles to Tupac Shakur to Kurt Cobain to Ace of Base. You can read part one HERE and part two HERE.
But what about music by the conspiracy theorists, for the conspiracy theorists? Although there’s examples of JFK Assassination Folk and Extraterrestrial themed pop-punk out there, no conspiracy topic has as well-rounded (sorry) of a musical output as Flat Earth Theory, as I discovered when I attended the Flat Earth International Conference in Dallas this last November. Flat Earthers create music in a variety of genres, but the bulk is hip hop, or as I like to call it, “flat hop.” You might be as surprised as I was to learn that there is more than one flat hop artist, and more than a dozen around the world (sorry)… but probably not much more than a dozen.
Bust out a big piece of cardboard, Globeheads, find a flat surface (again, sorry) and get ready to start break-dancing because here is…
7. “Get Over It,” Mr. Matty Moses
Choice rhyme: “You’re digger deeper and you don’t know what to believe/ you’re getting pissed off that you’ve been duped and deceived/who do you blame NASA? The elites? (both of ’em)/ a lot of darker voices hiding our reality that…the earth’s flat, flat flat get over it.”
Notes: Mr. Matty Moses isn’t having it and wants you to get over the globe lies. To prove he’s tough on this, he’s rapping atop a pile of pallets behind a factory and other urban environments. Bonus point for working in a diss on Greek philosopher Pythagoras (credited with being one of the first to realize the world is round) into the rap.
6. “The World is Flat,” B.A.G.D.A.G. featuring D. Marble
Choice rhyme: “I’m on a mission to go out and wake the masses/ Like this is They Live, and I’m handing out glasses/ Like ‘put these on quick and you can see how fake space is’/ Like I was sent here to tear down the Matrix.”
Notes: These guys are super stoked about their personalized flat earth sweatshirts. Which came first– the song or the sweatshirts? I’m betting sweatshirts. They Live and The Matrix are frequently referenced in Flat Earther culture (and conspiracy believers in general).
5. “Round and Curvy,” Friend of Yahweh
Choice rhyme: “I want to flow with the planets/ but oh well I can’t get past the firmament/ Just too round and curvy/ think I’m just too round and curvy/ I’m just too NASA nerdy.”
Notes: Wow-weeeee, I’m speechless. This is a (sometimes shot-for-shot) parody of “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “White and Nerdy” video (which is a parody of “Ridin'” by Chamillionaire). This parody of parody is told from the perspective of a complete tool who believes in, you know, science, and features alien marionettes and a rapping “round and curvy” earth. Does the world– round or flat– need a “Flat Earth Weird Al” Yankovic? The answer is NO.
4. “It’s Flat!,” Curved Water
Choice rhyme: “It’s flat/ and now it feels so good to me/ I’m waking every day with this smile/ full of positivity/ waited all my life just to think for myself/ just a little bit more critically.”
Notes: I don’t know that this technically counts as hip hop, but I had to include it because of the damn hot flat earth passion! Most flat hop is about dissing NASA, mainstream science, the Illuminati, etc., but this song is about the pure ecstasy of discovering that the world is flat. It’s a flat earth song to make sweet love to.
3. “Dear NASA, Why Are you Lying?,” ODD TV
Choice rhyme: “NASA’s missions to the moon were never completed/ they just filmed them in a room and people believed it/ I used to wonder what it’s like to be an astronaut/ now when I seem em acting I can’t help but laugh a lot.”
Notes: ODD TV is one of the grandmasters of flat hop, no doubt. Check out my note about the playlist I made at the end of this article for more ODD tracks like “Cartoon Ball.” I chose this one for the sick Chili Peppers sample and the overall Flat Earth mood.
2. “Flatliner,” B.o.B.
Choice rhyme: “Woo!/ Use Use your common sense/ why is NASA part of the Department of Defense?/ they divided up the seas into 33 degrees/ feeding kids masonry bruh, be careful what you read.”
Notes: This is a Neil Degrasse Tyson diss track! After B.o.B. talked about the world being flat in an interview, it sparked a beef between the rapper and the astrophysicist. B.o.B. recorded this diss track and Tyson appeared on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore to literally drop a mic to demonstrate gravity. Guys, slow down! Remember what happened to Tupac and Biggie!
1. “Flat Smackin’ (The All-Star Remix),” Wes Blaze Muzik featuring Amber Paster, Sebastian Calico, ODD TV, DECM, Flat Earth Man, The Watcher, D, Marble, and B.A.G.D.A.G.
Choice rhyme: “Eat. Sleep. Debunk the globe, repeat.”
Notes: I have some sentimental value to this song because I saw it performed live at the Flat Earth International Conference last year and it was my awakening to the fact that flat hop was a thing. Just a couple great things about this track: 1.) “Flat smacking” is a Flat Earther term that refers to dropping knowledge on unsuspecting “globeheads” that the world is flat. 2.) Flat Earth Man is the biggest Flat Earther music star, a British dude that sings country songs about flat earth. He joins in the all-star rap here in the greatest country/ hip hop crossover since “Old Town Road.”
Please Clap Dept.: I’ve just created an American Madness Channel on YouTube, please subscribe. I haven’t uploaded any of my own videos yet. So far I got 4 playlists rolling: Flat Hop, which features all the songs on this list (plus several more), playlists with videos on the Bohemian Grove and Denver Airport Conspiracy, and a Tea Krulos Interviews list which has a few of my appearances on various podcasts. More playlists to follow soon. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoFCwzjjghaVXSWUwEZx27g/playlists
My upcoming book American Madness features my experience at a flat earth conference, among many other conspiracy encounters. It’s out August 25, 2020 from Feral House. To pre-order: CLICK HERE
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Flat Earth hip hop, Reptilian aliens, and Kevin Spacey murder theories all just seems like stupid crazy stuff. But conspiracy can be dangerous, especially as it is being weaponized for the 2020 elections. The contents of this week’s #TrumpConspiracyCounter is alarming stuff.
57.) January 30: Trump retweets The Epoch Times. The newspaper (and related media) was founded by a Chinese cult called the Falun Gong, who believes a judgment day is nigh and that “Trump was sent by heaven to destroy Communism.” The newspaper is saturated in conspiracy theories, including promoting QAnon and Anti-vaxxers. In December 2019, Facebook took down 600 accounts tied to The Epoch Times that had created fake, A.I. generated user profilers and spent $9.5 million on pro-Trump ads. Source: “Facebook say a pro-Trump media outlet used artificial intelligence to create fake people and push conspiracies,” NBC News.
58.) January 30: Retweets DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, who is running against Trump enemy Nancy Pelosi and is a regular on InfoWars. Tesoriero is one of 12 QAnon believers running for Congress. Source:“GOP’s ‘QAnon Conspiracy Followers Running for Congress,” The National Memo.
59.) January 30: Trump retweets Dawn Michael, a sex counselor and member of QAnon. For more on Michael and Tesoriero, read:
“Trump Retweets InfoWars Regular And QAnon-Supporting Sex Coach During Impeachment Trial,” Newsweek.
60.) January 30: It’s hard to make the distinction of what to list as conspiracy and what is just wacky Trump bloviating, but we’re going to count this Trump statement at an Iowa rally: “The Green New Deal, which would crush our farms, destroy our wonderful cows. They want to kill our cows. You know why, right? You know why? Don’t say it. They want to kill our cows. That means you’re next.” The Democrats Want to Kill Your Cows and Then You Theory.
61.) February 4: Honorary Counter Click for Rush Limbaugh. Trump’s State of the Union speech contained a lot of lies but was light on conspiracy. That’s not surprising as in situations like this we get “Teleprompter Trump.” But one shocking moment was when he awarded Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom…during the speech. First Lady Melania hung the medal on him as Trump commended his long time friend, who recently announced he is on his way out with stage 4 lung cancer.
Limbaugh is the original Alt-Right. He paved the way for every angry, obnoxious, far-right blowhard that followed– Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and the FOX News personalities, just to name a few. He has a long legacy of disgusting racist, sexist comments and, of course, promotions of conspiracy theories. To mention just a few of his greatest hits: Birtherism, the Clinton Body Count, the theory that the 2018 New Zealand mosque mass shooting was a “false flag” to smear conservatives, that Hurricane Irma was a liberal hoax, and that mail bombs sent to Democrat targets were being sent by the Democrats themselves.
62.-63.) February 5: Retweets of Michael Lebron aka Lionel, radio and YouTube personality and promoter of QAnon and other conspiracies. See “Trump meets with promoter of ‘QAnon’ in White House,” The Hill.
Well, here we are. Just over a month into 2020 and Trump has already promoted conspiracy theorists and ideas over 60 times. Rush Limbaugh has won a medal that is supposed to go to Americans who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” These are dark times.
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