Donald Trump is a cult leader.
There is no other way to explain the rabid adherence of his disciples, willing to overlook his and his family’s corruption, his putrid morality, and his rank incompetence.
There is a racist, toxic, marginalized deplorable community, and Trump gave it voice. And in return, they’ve pledged their undying allegiance. Which means that they will never have a problem with anything he does, even if it’s stealing our nation’s top secrets.
They don’t care if Trump carts off and shares our top military vulnerabilities with Kid Rock or anyone else. They don’t care if Trump leaks our military contingency plans against our enemies, potentially costing the lives of our troops. They don’t care if our nuclear secrets are spilled on some tacky Trump carpeting. And they certainly don’t care that he conspires with his staff and lawyers to lie to the national archives and the FBI so he doesn’t have to turn anything over.
Some are feigning outrage like “oh noes, we’re politicizing the Justice Department,” as if they weren’t the same people leading “lock her up!” chants in 2016. Other are arguing that “let the voters decide” is how the rich and powerful should face justice, because why should they face the same laws and system as the plebes?
But this is the modern conservative movement, prone to violence and destruction, and their rhetoric is heating up.
It is true—right-wing violence is, by far, the leading cause of deadly attacks since 9-11.
In its report, “Terrorism in America after 9-11: What is the Threat to the United States Today?,” the think tank New America found that far-right violence outpaced Jihadist attacks in the number of people killed. I would argue that “far right wing” and the incels are all of the same piece, emerging from the same dark web sewer pits, and listening to the same destructive voices.
That mixture of violence worship with rapturous Trump support culminated in the Jan. 6 coup attempt—an event that we, as a country, still haven’t properly addressed. How could we? Its instigator is the leading Republican candidate! HIs cult remains alive and well.
In a sane world, Trump’s supporters would process this week’s indictments and accept that their hero is not just flawed, but fundamentally broken. The top lines of the indictment are bad, the details are even worse. Here was their hero stealing America’s secrets, then carelessly dumping them all over the White House front drive, an open stage, a bathroom, he didn’t give a shit.
Note that there are *more* boxes behind the cheap Walmart shower curtain and rod
And when the National Archives came to collect, and after them the FBI, Trump colluded with his lawyers and staff—on tape!—to hide the materials, to the point of carting off boxes of it on his private plane to his Bedminster, N.J. golf course. He also admitted—on tape!—that he knew the documents were not declassified. He just didn’t give a damn.
It’s truly shocking that anyone would defend this. The same crowd that had conniptions over Hillary Clinton’s emails—despite there never been any evidence of any crime—are now acting like it’s no big deal for a private citizen to steal our nation’s top secrets, store them behind a cheap but very secure Walmart shower curtain, and then lie to everyone about holding on to them. Those documents weren’t his. He knew it, and he actively fought to keep them by lying and hiding the materials.
Conservative terrorists don’t care.
Kari Lake is no fringe conservative figure. She was the Republican Party’s candidate for governor last year in Arizona. She got 1.27 million votes, and only lost the election by 17,000 to Democrat Katie Hobbs. And yet there she is threatening armed insurrection.
Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins has gone all-out talking in Q-commando code to insurrectionists, like Donald Trump did at the debate when the told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
rPOTUS means “real President of the United States.” 1/50K is the ratio of a military map. “Know your bridges” means what it says—bridges are transportation chokepoints and would be valuable military targets. “Rock steady calm” is an old military tradition of calming jittery troops on the front line. For example, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, at the start of the Revolutionary War, a rebel officer calmed his troops as a mass of Red Coats of the British Army marched towards them: "Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"
Having stoked bewilderment and outrage on Friday, Higgins followed up today:
Now he claims that by covering his threatening Friday tweet, he had “Manipulated the MSM to establish deep commo.” Okay champ. Go with that. “Copy this” means he expects his followers (whether real or in his head) to acknowledge his order to (for now) stand down. And in case they don’t want to listen, he claims that by acting, they’d be falling into some trap that “they” laid.
Over at Patriot.win, the successors to the infamous subreddit r/TheDonald, people are having a rough go. Vice collated some of the standout hits.
I went over this morning to check out the vibe, and they were responding to Trump’s Truth Social posting that said, in its all-caps glory, “AMERIA WENT TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT WITH TEARS IN ITS EYES. SOMEDAY SOON, HOWEVER, IT WILL BE ABLE TO WIPE AWAY THOSE TEARS AND SMILE, BIGGER THAN EVER BEFORE, FOR WE WILL HAVE DEFEATED THE RADICAL LEFT MARXISTS, FASCISTS, COMMUNISTS, LUNATICS, & DERANGED MANIACS, & CLEARED THE PATH TO PUT AMERICA FIRST & THEN, QUICKLY, MAKE AMERIA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
You want to see a cult in action?
And we’re so scared guys.
Ultimately, we just don’t deserve someone as selfless as Trump.
Searching around their site, it looks like many of the offending comments Vice plucked out for their story have been deleted, with commenters hushing each other because “the FBI is listening.”
Let’s certainly hope so!
There is no other way to explain the rabid adherence of his disciples, willing to overlook his and his family’s corruption, his putrid morality, and his rank incompetence.
There is a racist, toxic, marginalized deplorable community, and Trump gave it voice. And in return, they’ve pledged their undying allegiance. Which means that they will never have a problem with anything he does, even if it’s stealing our nation’s top secrets.
They don’t care if Trump carts off and shares our top military vulnerabilities with Kid Rock or anyone else. They don’t care if Trump leaks our military contingency plans against our enemies, potentially costing the lives of our troops. They don’t care if our nuclear secrets are spilled on some tacky Trump carpeting. And they certainly don’t care that he conspires with his staff and lawyers to lie to the national archives and the FBI so he doesn’t have to turn anything over.
Some are feigning outrage like “oh noes, we’re politicizing the Justice Department,” as if they weren’t the same people leading “lock her up!” chants in 2016. Other are arguing that “let the voters decide” is how the rich and powerful should face justice, because why should they face the same laws and system as the plebes?
But this is the modern conservative movement, prone to violence and destruction, and their rhetoric is heating up.
It is true—right-wing violence is, by far, the leading cause of deadly attacks since 9-11.
In its report, “Terrorism in America after 9-11: What is the Threat to the United States Today?,” the think tank New America found that far-right violence outpaced Jihadist attacks in the number of people killed. I would argue that “far right wing” and the incels are all of the same piece, emerging from the same dark web sewer pits, and listening to the same destructive voices.
That mixture of violence worship with rapturous Trump support culminated in the Jan. 6 coup attempt—an event that we, as a country, still haven’t properly addressed. How could we? Its instigator is the leading Republican candidate! HIs cult remains alive and well.
In a sane world, Trump’s supporters would process this week’s indictments and accept that their hero is not just flawed, but fundamentally broken. The top lines of the indictment are bad, the details are even worse. Here was their hero stealing America’s secrets, then carelessly dumping them all over the White House front drive, an open stage, a bathroom, he didn’t give a shit.
Note that there are *more* boxes behind the cheap Walmart shower curtain and rod
And when the National Archives came to collect, and after them the FBI, Trump colluded with his lawyers and staff—on tape!—to hide the materials, to the point of carting off boxes of it on his private plane to his Bedminster, N.J. golf course. He also admitted—on tape!—that he knew the documents were not declassified. He just didn’t give a damn.
It’s truly shocking that anyone would defend this. The same crowd that had conniptions over Hillary Clinton’s emails—despite there never been any evidence of any crime—are now acting like it’s no big deal for a private citizen to steal our nation’s top secrets, store them behind a cheap but very secure Walmart shower curtain, and then lie to everyone about holding on to them. Those documents weren’t his. He knew it, and he actively fought to keep them by lying and hiding the materials.
Conservative terrorists don’t care.
Kari Lake is no fringe conservative figure. She was the Republican Party’s candidate for governor last year in Arizona. She got 1.27 million votes, and only lost the election by 17,000 to Democrat Katie Hobbs. And yet there she is threatening armed insurrection.
Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins has gone all-out talking in Q-commando code to insurrectionists, like Donald Trump did at the debate when the told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
rPOTUS means “real President of the United States.” 1/50K is the ratio of a military map. “Know your bridges” means what it says—bridges are transportation chokepoints and would be valuable military targets. “Rock steady calm” is an old military tradition of calming jittery troops on the front line. For example, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, at the start of the Revolutionary War, a rebel officer calmed his troops as a mass of Red Coats of the British Army marched towards them: "Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes!"
Having stoked bewilderment and outrage on Friday, Higgins followed up today:
Now he claims that by covering his threatening Friday tweet, he had “Manipulated the MSM to establish deep commo.” Okay champ. Go with that. “Copy this” means he expects his followers (whether real or in his head) to acknowledge his order to (for now) stand down. And in case they don’t want to listen, he claims that by acting, they’d be falling into some trap that “they” laid.
Over at Patriot.win, the successors to the infamous subreddit r/TheDonald, people are having a rough go. Vice collated some of the standout hits.
I went over this morning to check out the vibe, and they were responding to Trump’s Truth Social posting that said, in its all-caps glory, “AMERIA WENT TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT WITH TEARS IN ITS EYES. SOMEDAY SOON, HOWEVER, IT WILL BE ABLE TO WIPE AWAY THOSE TEARS AND SMILE, BIGGER THAN EVER BEFORE, FOR WE WILL HAVE DEFEATED THE RADICAL LEFT MARXISTS, FASCISTS, COMMUNISTS, LUNATICS, & DERANGED MANIACS, & CLEARED THE PATH TO PUT AMERICA FIRST & THEN, QUICKLY, MAKE AMERIA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
You want to see a cult in action?
And we’re so scared guys.
Ultimately, we just don’t deserve someone as selfless as Trump.
Searching around their site, it looks like many of the offending comments Vice plucked out for their story have been deleted, with commenters hushing each other because “the FBI is listening.”
Let’s certainly hope so!