Maybe the whole dang country has lost its mind


She heard it on the phone! From a friend! It must be true!

How dare those Democrats practice their second amendment rights to keep and bear arms — the Founding Fathers intended for that to apply only to Republicans. I also had no idea that ANTIFA had a membership list. I’ll have to take that up with the chairperson next time I see her.

I have a recommendation for everyone, too. Stay away from West Virginia on 1 November. It looks like a lot of loons will be congregating there. Maybe we can fence the whole state off on 4 November and not let any of them leave?

Comments

  1. PaulBC says

    The country lost its mind long ago if it ever had one to lose.

    This is just the kind of racist scare tactic that shows up in one form or another on a regular basis. Who knows who wrote it? It could even be Russian propaganda. Even during the Cold War, the Soviet Union used to try to drum up racial division (like we needed the help).

    And yeah I suppose it is hypocritical about guns, but that’s the least of it.

  2. cartomancer says

    The grammar mistakes… the spelling errors… the sclerotic approach to punctuation… it burns! It all burns!

    You’ve got to wonder how little these people have going on in their lives that coming up with such bizarre conspiracy theories seems an agreeable distraction to them. Somebody should buy them all a jigsaw puzzle.

  3. specialffrog says

    @PaulBC: I assume it means Obama.

    Also didn’t West Virginia split off from Virginia to stay in in the Union?

  4. birgerjohansson says

    She forgot to say, the rich old guy with the jewish-sounding name will help buy guns for any darkies that cannot afford an AR-15 on their own.
    They will use facebook to coordinate their attacks because it has such good encryption.
    Anyway, the second amendment only gives darkies the right to bear three-fifths of a gun, so this is obviously illegal. Except for Republican darkies who may purchase an 8-inch nuclear howitzer asd long as they don’t carry concealed.

  5. PaulBC says

    specialffrog@4 Oh. Duh. I thought it was a secret Soros-funded organization. I guess I need to get a wingnut decoder ring to read this crap.

  6. Nemo says

    I feel like, if this were Russian propaganda, it would be less stupid.

    Fortunately I have a standing policy of avoiding West Virginia.

  7. jenorafeuer says

    … Trump has deputized over 4 million military people and are training with special forces

    Quite aside from the grammar error (presumably there should have been a ‘they’ in there)… whoever wrote this obviously has absolutely no clue as to how the American military recruits or works.

    I mean, first, even if you include the reserve troops on top of the active duty ones, the total military is only about half that size. Second, at the lower ranks, a significant chunk of the U.S. military personnel are there because it’s the only way they can afford to go to college. A lot of that same chunk is also (gasp) black or other minority, and is unlikely to be all that well disposed towards Trump and his demands anyway. Not to mention that the top brass seems to hate him because he tries setting up military parades for his own ego. And on top of all that, there aren’t enough special forces troops to train that many people, especially as U.S. military training has long, so far as I can tell, relied on throwing disposable warm bodies with overpriced equipment at the problem. People with rich families find ways to get out of military service, which just reinforces their belief that the bottom line military personnel are disposable.

    Maybe this person meant ‘militia’, that might fix the numbers issue, but training most of the modern militia movement to follow anybody else’s orders is a fool’s errand. The militia movement is the absolute epitome of the ‘toxic individuality’ attitude being discussed yesterday.

  8. Rob Grigjanis says

    Whites and other patriots! Blantifampanthers will be setting up ambushes around polling stations! Stay well away from them until Wednesday!

  9. davidc1 says

    One of my dreams have been to visit Kitty Hawk where the Wright Brothers did their thing ,seeing as it is near the coast is there any way i can avoid driving down from DC ,through all those wackaloon states and approach it from the sea?

  10. komarov says

    Some people favour incisive wit. Others, preferring the cudgel, come up with clever insults among the lines of “Oscumba”. If the US’ future really does hinge on clever campaign slogans it can only get better.

    I’m also slightly confused by MS-13 joining the fray. What exactly would be in it for them? No friend to law and order, I assume even a drug cartel would have some interest in a functioning society because that’s how people get the cash to buy stuff, legal or otherwise. Also, what if the US collapsed and the US dollar followed?

  11. wzrd1 says

    Looks like a boilerplate Q dump, Russian style. The grammar and homonyms incorrectly used is nearly formulaic.
    Not to mention the ignorance on our military requiring deputization during a major emergency, with the “working with SF” tripe being the cherry on top. And of course, the conflicting start dates.
    What is sad is, followers of the Trump religion will believe it.

  12. emery says

    Membership list? Yes, yes. In Germany at least their are antifa membership cards. We have gold, credit, debit and family editions. Also, we get paid for taking part in demonstrations. Participants of the black block even receive hazardous duty pay. Maybe you should get more organized. ;)

  13. lakitha tolbert says

    Sooo…the Black Panthers have what? RSVP’d their invitation to the local riots? How does this work exactly?

    This is also how I can tell that somebody old and white probably wrote this, because they don’t know that Twitter is a thing, as well as plain old text messaging, which would make things especially easy, since antifa has a membership list!

    I’m definitely sure this person not only has no idea how the military works, they also have no idea how gangs, community activists, and social movements, work either.

  14. robro says

    davidc1 — You can approach it from the sea by boat, of course, but if you’re going to drive you’re have to drive through North Carolina…and from the DC area through Virginia.

  15. consciousness razor says

    No credible sources? Expect garbage. Certainly not the first time here and probably not the last.

    Two 2017 articles from The Verge and Slate about a right-wing Nov. 4 conspiracy theory.

    robro:

    The Reddit post says it was created October 15, 2015, so more like 5 years ago.

    The text mentions “president Trump,” that people “never figured Trump would win,” and that “Trump has deputized over 4 million military people.” (The last is nonsense, but it still suggests that they believe he could in some sense deputize somebody.) This didn’t come before he was elected.

  16. Dave says

    I’m not sure what statement in this thing is the least credible, but it may be the claim that an army of 16-28 year olds is using Facebook to organize.

  17. addicted4444 says

    The reasons for fear that this post is mentioning are literally things republicans have either promoted, or are doing in greater numbers as mentioned in the post itself! 2nd amendment rights is a Republican thing. They keep crying about how a society filled with guns will be a peaceful society. So all that additional gun buying will clearly only lead to less violence right, like these righties have been telling us every time someone murders a bunch of kindergarteners with guns.

    And they’re complaining about 800,000 Democrats assembling while literally talking about how Teump is creating a militia of 4million!

  18. robro says

    consciousness razor @ #19 — Thanks, I get it and my confusion. The document was posted 3 years ago to the r/insanepeoplefacebook thread which was created 5 years ago.

  19. npsimons says

    While I started rolling my eyes at the dumbness of this post (“oscumba”, give me a break!), I slowly started getting a sinking feeling: given that a large chunk of republican accusations are projection, this is probably what many of them are planning when desperate cheeto loses, isn’t it? Fuck, I think next Tuesday and Wednesday might be good days to call in sick to work, maybe the whole week . . .

  20. ilr1950 says

    Trump has convinced people that they should be proud of being uneducated, ignorant and stupid. Stupid people have always been with us, but usually they are not proud of it. Trump changed that. He convinced them that being American made them ‘better than’ anyone who was not born here and being white made them ‘better than’ anyone who was not white, and being anti science and being uneducated makes them the ‘chosen of god’. Hopefully if we can get Trump and his minions out of office (and into prison) these refugees from the shallow end of the gene pool will crawl back under their rocks and shut the foxtrot u p

  21. chesapeake says

    Ron Suskind has an op-Ed in today’s Times about what will happen after Election Day based on interviews of many senior Govt. officials and ex-officials. It the same old stuff, mostly, still fascinating, but also new stuff about the seriousness of the danger of violence.

    The F.B.I., meanwhile, is bracing for huge challenges. “We are all-hands-on-deck for the foreseeable future,” the F.B.I. official I mentioned earlier told me. “We’ve been talking to our state and local counterparts and gearing up for the expectation that it’s going to be a significant law-enforcement challenge for probably weeks or months,” this official said. “It feels pretty terrifying.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/30/opinion/trump-election-officials.html

    AN FBI OFFICIAL SAYS “IT FEELS PRETTY TERRIFYING!!!
    I feel frightened for the first time.

    Sent from my iPad

  22. says

    I hold people responsable for passing on things like this. When I mention interrogating claims this is an example. If someone posts something like this, even a meme, I ask that they back their insults up. My family hates it. The people I interrogate internet wide have so many excuses for making utterly substance-less disparaging claims. Defensive “I have a right to an opinion” and other whining is just the start.

  23. unclefrogy says

    this kind of paranoid bull shit has been around for as long as I have been aware of the greater world of people in high school in the 60’s. The army’s of commies hiding in Baha, black helicopters. Always the double standard and the racism and utter ignorance slathered with fear
    I am rather more apprehensive myself, I must admit, about the next few weeks. I can see a lot of things that say it will be alright in the end but I also see plenty of hate and fear filled propaganda as well. I already voted so I guess I will just have to wait to see what happens.
    What was that Chinese curse? “may you live in interesting times.”
    uncle frogy

  24. PaulBC says

    Fuck, I think next Tuesday and Wednesday might be good days to call in sick to work, maybe the whole week

    I have been calling in “Well and planning to keep it that way.” since some time in mid-March.

  25. PaulBC says

    ilr1950@26

    Trump has convinced people that they should be proud of being uneducated, ignorant and stupid.

    To be fair, I don’t think he was the first or that it took a lot of convincing.

    Cue Lee Greenwood “Proud to be an American, where I’m free to be uneducated, ignorant and stupid.” or something along those lines.

  26. Reginald Selkirk says

    Just got off the phone with a friend…

    That is an awful lot of very detailed information for a phone call. I wonder if she took notes, or if she is operating from memory.

  27. says

    The “Oscumba” thing is super annoying. It’s so stupid. I mean, “Oscuma,” whatever, even “Oscumma.” Even “Obscuma.” But his name isn’t “Omaba.” That b has no business there.

  28. PaulBC says

    @34 Yeah, I didn’t even think about the b but that might explain why I really couldn’t decode what they were saying. I mentally pronounced it “os-KOOM-buh” short-O and thought, huh that’s a new one. I can’t figure out what it’s short for or anything else so I looked it up.

  29. Marissa van Eck says

    The only question that remains in my mind is, is this really a case of massive radicalization, or has a very large plurality of the country always been this utterly bat-shagging insane and the Internet is just letting them advertise how insane they are?

    In either case I’m scared shitless, and hoping like Hell to be a Canadian this time next year…

  30. John Morales says

    Marissa, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/29/coronavirus-pandemic-americans-gun-sales

    “Americans have bought nearly 17m guns so far in 2020, more than in any other single year, according to estimates from a firearms analytics company.

    Gun sales across the United States first jumped in the spring, driven by fears about the coronavirus pandemic, and spiked even higher in the summer, during massive racial justice protests across the country, prompted by police killings of black Americans.

    By August, we had exceeded last year’s total. By September, we exceeded the highest total ever,” said Jurgen Brauer, the chief economist of Small Arms Analytics, which produces widely cited estimates of US gun sales.”

  31. says

    Apart from the fact that she seems to have confused Rethuglicans with Dumbocrats I’d be more concerned about the clear and present danger from the 4 million of Trump’s deputies that are training with Special Forces. Sounds like Seal Team 666 might be coming to a polling place near you.

  32. unclefrogy says

    @36 not a majority but a sizable minority probably with historical percentages .
    Remember even with a low turnout Hillary still had the popular vote by over 3 million . hate and fear are common things they are not usually so encouraged for votes then the followers are mostly used and discarded
    uncle frogy

  33. davidc1 says

    @18 Thanks ,won’t be for a few years ,if i manage to do it. The Wright Brothers could say to represent the best of America ,their work changed the world .

  34. Pierce R. Butler says

    I get the general impression that the pro-violence wingnuts, living and breathing the fumes in their own bubbles, overestimate their numbers just as they overestimate their own knowledge, and their opponents’ intentions and capabilities.

    If so, we may see Charlottesville 2017 again in early November: Trump Chumps working themselves into a lather, some nasty violence – and a wave of revulsion that sets them back for years.

    Or am I committing the fallacy of optimism?

  35. PaulBC says

    Pierce R. Butler@43 I think they are chickenshits who love the armed cosplay but have no intention of ever putting their lives on the line. Plenty of crying Nazis out there: Why are you guys being so mean to me? I was just expressing an opinion.

    In consideration of an argument I recently had with a family member, the ones who are veterans of Bush’s Forever War are indeed capable of putting their lives on the line. I don’t think that’s most of them, though. I hope not.

  36. Pierce R. Butler says

    PaulBC @ # 44 – There are few enough Michael Reinoehls on the progressive side that most Boogers* need have little immediate fear for their own safety as they strut around menacing society.

    *My shorthand for “Boogaloo Bois” and related reactionaries.

    After all, their side suffered none of the death and injuries at Charlottesville, but came out of it much weaker than they went in. Most of the white supremacist (etc) shooters and bombers of the last several years seem to have expected they would catalyze a mass of other murderers to follow their lead, but at most triggered a few generally ineffective copycats. I think/hope whatever they do next week may well follow the same pattern.

  37. unclefrogy says

    this country is mostly a middle class one in values while fear of the other is easily whipped up people mostly want to just get on with their simple family life and resent politics intruding. They are very content to not ask questions until things become obvious that what they have been told and what they see are very different which I think is demonstrated by the reaction to all the cell phone videos of police violence lately. The violence is by no means new at all but the cell phone video are. I hope I am correct in thinking that the majority are not predisposed to violence and are itching to go to war in the streets.
    Time will tell I am still very apprehensive
    uncle frogy