National security officials are used to shaking off absurd conspiracy theories, but the latest rumor that’s gripped MAGA world just hits different.
The claims by Fox News and far-right influencers that pop star Taylor Swift is part of a Pentagon “psychological operation” to get President Joe Biden reelected, and somehow rig the Super Bowl to benefit Kansas City Chiefs tight end (and Swift’s boyfriend) Travis Kelce, has been met with forehead slaps in the national security world.
“The absurdity of it all boggles the mind,” said one senior administration official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. “It feels like one of those ‘tell me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist, without telling me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist’ memes.”
When we look back on this era what are we going to say drove them to this? Like, we explain the Salem witch trials by saying that there was ergot in the water which likely had them hallucinating.
What is it now? Is TikTok this much of a problem? Is there ergot in the water? What the hell is happening…
Possibly how all the different crises like inequality, climate, capitalism, pollution all converged. People sought quick solutions and some leaders gave them solutions that were ready, quick and wrong. Blaming others went to cult like heights. Until it all collapsed.
All of these things contribute to it, yes, but I do think that there is a level of absurdity to what we are witnessing that is not adequately explained simply by coercion. Perhaps I’m wrong.
Humans do whacky shit on a regular basis, certainly if they don’t really understand what’s going on. Cargo cults come to mind.
Ive stared into the abyss. Ive studied history to try and understand this. Recently Ive studied cults and sought out reformed maga heads (know your enemy) to try and understand this lunacy. What Ive learned? The deeper you go the less it makes sense. Shit gets completely surreal in a heartbeat. Trying to apply logic to something specifically illogical will drive you insane. There is nothing to be understood here beyond pure animal rage and toddler level emotions. Theyve discarded all reality and subsist wholey on toddler level emotions and instincts in the moment.
What to do? Look inward I guess? Covid wrung out the last bit of faith I had left in humanity. I mean this cult literally overrode their very survival instinct. I didnt think that was possible. They killed themselves by the hundreds of thousands to impress the in-group, to own the libs, to prove devotion and fealty to…Donald fucking trump!!! This cant be real, right? If this was a movie script people would walk out because it was so unbelievable.
Careful staring too long into the abyss for the abyss stares back into you
Is staring into the abyss similar to staring at an eclipse? Are these things related?
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. "
Basically : tread carefully on your crusade lest you become the thing you hate
It’s a Nietzsche reference
Nah, I’d say it has broad appeal.
Nietzsche has some broad appeal, well, amongst those that read philosophy. You can’t get past the post-modernists without summiting that intellectual mountain. I suppose existentialism is somewhat Niche-ey…but what do I know, I read Zarathustra at 16. Ymmv
it’s a pun, son
🤣🥰
They joined the war on disease on the side of the disease. There’s nothing else to say, at that point. They are bereft of joy, logic, life, survival instinct, humanity, anything good you name it.
I mean, bro, we had fucking witch trials.
Witch trials.
We actually believed in witches and we burned people at the stake.
This is not the most lunacy humanity has ever seen. Not by a long shot. It’s just the most lunacy that we’ve seen with modern tools to help suss that lunacy out.
There is certainly an explanation for what’s going on. We just haven’t identified it.
We actually believed in witches and we burned people at the stake.
Only a matter of time before the cult starts talking about publicly executing LGBTQ+ people and women who have had abortions or miscarriages. Possibly by burning them at the stake.
I do not disagree. But we are not there yet, it has been crazier before. It does appear that we are on track, that’s why I’m so concerned and curious as to what the fuck is causing this shit, but we’re not there yet. Probably because of those modern tools that we have, I feel like if whatever is going on right now is going on in the 1700s we would be done for.
Or federal employees…they’re also called the deep state.
Where’d I hear that in the news recently?
A deranged MAGA cultist recently CUT OFF HIS DAD’S HEAD and posted about it online because of the dad apparently being a federal employee 😬
I’d find you a link to an article about it but frankly I dread what other search results I’d get for THOSE keywords!
Maybe lead and micro-plastics? But that’s just a guess.
Plausible. It seems apparent that this is something that’s been introduced into basically all humans water supply in the last 50 years. I’m sure it’s been getting worse and worse as time has gone on, and it could be that we are at a critical mass where it is starting to affect behaviors en masse.
Yeah “deliberately making ourselves too stupid to survive” sounds about right for some shit we’d pull off.
Lead in the water, micro plastics in the food, Reagan in the air.
Tiktok? If you find someone who isn’t a swifty on Tiktok, they probably won’t survive long.
This nonsense comes from Fox and truth social.
Didn’t Andrew Tate rise on TikTok?
I think he was YouTube. Tiktok is very short form content.
That said, the only time I’ve ever seen that guy’s face is in a mugshot, so I could be wrong.
we explain the Salem witch trials by saying that there was ergot in the water which likely had them hallucinating
Witch trials were ways for powerful people to get rid of those who challenged the established system. These conspiracies are the same as they’ve always been.
Fox News leaders aren’t pushing these stories because they’re high. It’s because they’re billionaires who don’t want to lose their power and control. Just like in the time of witch trials, these powerful people are spreading fear, doubt, and confusion in order to distract the masses from giving too much attention to meddling people making troublesome arguments against the current system.
America wtf
40 years of crippled public education and a media landscape owned by the wealthy elites that use it to push anything to distract us from the fact that our greatest enemy are billionaires.
So glad I’m not American. I can view all this like a reality TV show.
I honestly envy you.
Yeah but… ummm…you’re on the OTHER end of all our guns. No one is safe from our craziness.
Britain is effectively the 51st state so we’re always behind your guns. :p
As a half Brit half American, Britain really hasn’t been really pulling many Ws recently either
Doesn’t stop me being able to laugh at America. If you’re half British you should know one of our defining traits is self-deprecation. Britains Ls are eternal and everlasting and I will laugh at them all. But Americas - oh fuck yeah. They gimme a hearty laugh too!
How does someone be half American? Where do you pledge your allegiance?
I pledge my allegience to queen Frang and her mighty state of Hysteria
Do you drink tea or throw it in your nearest harbour?
Say “colour”…
It’s paradoxical, I throw the tea and it just spins in place in mid air
Also it’s obviously spelled C̴͉͎̘̱͙̙̣̱̜̲̖̎̂̋̔ȍ̶̻͕̬̞̰̫̙̩̯̤̳́͊̒̚͜ͅl̷̨̹̺̳͔͉͇͎̻̐̐͌̽̾̀̉͐̈́̆͗̎̚̕œ̸̢͉̜̽͛̅̚ư̸̪͍̂͐̀̀̍r̶͈̮̲͉̀̓̏̋̈́͑̌̔̽͊́͘͝͠
Until it reaches you in the form of a global economy collapse.
Of course, China could be the savior, but would that really be a win?
Why would I care about Chinese hegemony? Sinophobia is more of a Yank fear. I really couldn’t give a shit.
You should. We all need an at least semi-democratic country at the top. We need the non-democratic authoritarian kind of govgovernance to be seen to fail. Again. If American fail, we need Europe to start punching it’s weight even more. And unfortunately the crazy right (no doubt helped by enemies of freedom) is on the rise across Europe. Least in Britain, it looks like the nightmare might be over this election. It will take years to undo the economic and social damage they have done though.
enemies of freedom
Oh dear. :/
Fine, I’ll be explicit. Russia, China, etc. The authoritarian powers. They do want success democratic countries as it gives their citizens ideas.
until we drag the whole western world into a real fucking shit show. lets not forget how close tony blair and george w bush were when it came to handling iraq
Except if the Cheeto Benito starts some shit somewhere in the world due to his excellent diplomatic skills god forbid he gets elected again, pretty sure we are all in the shitter.
Yeah, except most reality TV is 99% made-up bullshit that just impacts nothing outside the “participants” and water cooler gossip.
Except Love on the Spectrum. Thats just wholesome AF.
Fuck if I know dude. I thought we had hit a low with bush. Then we went and elected a black man and holy ever living fuck did that break right-wing people. Just absolutely broke their fragile little minds and here we are.
You guys need to elect a black man with a heavy inner-city accent who enacts serious change so you can break them all the way once and for all.
I was about to make a joke about President Camacho but then, I remembered, that fucker, that HORRIBLE PARODY OF A PRESIDENT, is so much better then what we got with Trump. Camacho saw some serious shit was going on and said ‘holy fuck lets let the smart guy fix this.’
He recognized and openly admitted to his own shortcomings.
Camacho/Not Sure 2024!
He gets my vote just for that bitchin trike
Or a black woman!
Fuck, if only! Or a gay black man who does drag as a hobby.
If they can negotiate on foreign policy and domestic policy, then they can work it.
Ru Paul would be a terrible president.
Disagree! Caffeine enema days could mean leaps and bounds in policy foreign and domestic!
Also a furry
He smokes cannabis daily as he pardons himself with every puff.
MAGA crowd, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
That Billy Madison quote applies well here.
It should be set to music and become anthemic for them (or us i guess 🤣)
That Billy Madison quote applies well to pretty much anything conservatives say.
You could’ve just said incorrect…
One might even say,
USA , can you please reinstate that law (that fox news got rescinded) that requires news to be actual factual news? That way, fox must rebrand itself to “fox bullshit” and you can get actual factual news again.
I think that’d help a lot. Then get rid of the 24 hours Jews cycle as that hasn’t helped anyone but investors in news corporations, and people could actually start believing in media organizations again.
Fox news classified themselves as entertainment so that law didn’t apply to them.
It would never have applied to them.
Removed, “24 hours Jews cycle”, really?
News cycle, NEWS cycle, not Jews cycle. It’s a typo and I’m rather amazed that nobody thought of this.
My auto correct keeps changing news to Jews now btw, no idea why. I am not anti-Semitic, I have nothing against Jews or Palestinians or Mexicans or Caucasians or African Americans for God’s sake. It’s just a random auto correct issue. I’ll try and fix it, can you undelete this?
If that were your only problematic comment, I’d ALMOST buy that excuse. But it’s not your only problematic comment.
That is quite the unfortunate typo.
Are you thinking of the fairness doctrine? That only ever applied to broadcast TV, not cable TV like Fox News.
The reason for the distinction is that broadcast TV is over radio waves that anyone can receive with off the shelf equipment. The FCC has a lot of jurisdiction over that and can regulate what can be shown. Cable TV is relatively free of that oversight. Legally speaking, they could show hardcore porn at 5pm. They won’t because their advertisers would hate it, but they legally could.
I’m sure that’ll put it all to rest
shaking off
Heh
Imagine how they were rolling around the newsroom off of that zinger
I’ve worked in the newsroom. And yeah, they do love a pun more than is healthy…
They didn’t even make it to the end of the headline before including one.
These people just can’t handle anything, just anything, not being exactly as they like it, and if it isn’t, it has to be some sort of conspiracy.
That’s my dad. Trump is a god to him, and anything negative said about him is a liberal plot to stop him from his patriotic duty. The cognitive dissonance that man shows is baffling!
My stepfather is like that. I even tried to use his own logic to help him see most of these conspiracies are dumb; “you said yourself that the gov’t is incompetent. So how can they pull off a conspiracy at this scale if they can’t run the country?” - stuff like that.
It doesn’t matter, he’s fully drank the Kool-Aid, so I just keep him at arm’s distance now.
Rules of fascism
#3: “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
#4: Disagreement is treason.
#8: The enemy is both strong and weak.
That’s so sad
Yeah. We no longer talk. I had to block him from calling/emailing me.
I had to block my dad’s emails for awhile. I just couldn’t believe they just kept coming and coming. And while trying to be a good son and available should he need me, I just had to risk going no contact for awhile. Now I basically gray rock everything. 🫤
Gray rock?
“Gray rocking, or the grey rock method, is a tactic people may use to deal with abusive or manipulative behavior. It involves becoming as uninteresting and unengaged as possible so that the other person loses interest.
Some people anecdotally report that it reduces conflict and abuse.”
Thank goodness my Dad never went down that path, but honestly if he did I might just punch him straight in the face.
Violence is bad and you should rethink your attitude towards people on the Kool-Aid. Anyway go ahead and explain me the paradox of intolerance like I haven’t seen it a thousand times, I don’t care.
I need to advise you sir that your half-arsed attempt at virtuous shaming has utterly failed. Please return to your seat
“Violence is bad” is pretty basic stuff mate
Childishly so.
Guys the best quarterback in the league made it to the superbowl again, it’s a conspiracy against us. No other way to explain this.
Also some of them say, “the 49ers need to win to save the country”…but like the big conspiracy is that Taylor is supposed to make a half-time endorsement of Joe Biden… So like, how would either team eventually winning the game have any impact on the half-time show?
And now that there’s a denial, from a “senior administration official,” it’s proof-positive of a vast conspiracy. “Why would they deny something that’s not real?”
xD
Why would they deny something that’s not real, indeed.
God damn.
At this point it almost seems like more than that. It’s like they need to manufacture some outrage to keep everyone angry about something.
I am surrounded by dipshits in this country…
I remember remarking over the last couple months how Swift’s rise to superstar this past year could have a real impact on Voter turnout. I was hoping she’d pop into the political sphere and boy, Republicans just made sure she will lol.
“This past year”? Did you live under a rock? She has been a superstar for a long time now.
In a way I have, and this proves my point:
Sure absolutely, but nobody can deny she jumped to whatever the next level is called this past year. She went from another highly successful pop star a la Lady Gaga or Katie Perry to literally the most successful of all time to the point where she inundates my feeds (pre-recent politics news) where no other pop star does.
So you see a couple articles and that “proves” that now she’s a superstar?
I’d say that follows as much logic as the people touting that she’s part of some liberal conspiracy.
Buddy, I think you’re taking this far too seriously.
She’s been a superstar a whole lot longer than this past year.
She became a billionaire in the past year. You know how hard that is to do as an artist? She’s been at this a minute. Like 2 decades of superstar minutes.
Oh please… Taylor Swift is an “artist” as much as I’m a world class chess grandmaster.
Apparently billionaires should not exist… Except for Taylor Swift.
You’ve narrowed yourself down to one of 50ish people if you earned the title the same year her first album came out.
how is she not an artist?
Everything about her is meticulously curated for optimal cash flow. Her music is written mostly by a literal team of professionals whose job it is to create the broadest appeal. She’s not an artist, she’s a product line.
you seem to have a very biased perspective. even if that were true, isn’t she still a performance artist?
That’s kind of sexist, dude.
How?
… broadest appeal. She’s not an artist…
Do you figure she’s not an artist because she’s a broad?
Literally shaking right now from the pent up misogynist energy coming off your comment.
Billionaires shouldn’t exist but if one of them happens to use their ill gotten wealth to improve society, I don’t see why I should be mad?
Taylor Swift is a prolific polluter.
I don’t have the capacity to stop Peter Thiel or Elon musk from doing billionaire stuff. I also don’t have the capacity to stop Taylor Swift from doing billionaire stuff. I am going to feel positively toward positive social developments even if I am aware it’s not perfect.
Give me a button that deletes a random billionaire and I will fingerblast it until it breaks.
We should have her stay home and just do concerts from there. Let’s instead let 1000’s of fans get plane tickets and go see her instead.
If missing the point was an Olympic sport you’d be a gold medalist for sure.
Sure absolutely, but nobody can deny she jumped to whatever the next level is called this past year. She went from another highly successful pop star a la Lady Gaga or Katie Perry to literally the most successful of all time to the point where she inundates my feeds (pre-recent politics news) where no other pop star does.
I’ll deny it. She’s stayed pretty consistent, just because other artists have waned in popularity doesn’t mean she’s somehow more.
By pretty much every metric in terms of search trends, sales, concert tickets… She’s above her past average.
I’ve seen no evidence provided by you to suggest otherwise.
The Pentagon is right here.
May I have your attention, please
Tey could have just left it at “you need to calm down”
But that’s exactly what they would say if it were a psy-op, isn’t it?
I’m joking and I wish that were obvious, but nowadays it probably isn’t.
Seriously tho, can we go back to conspiracy theories about bigfoot? It’s equally bullshit, but the worst case scenario with bigfoot conspiracy theories is that people do some more hiking to try to spot him.
And here we again run into the fundamental problem with the alternative facts crowd:
Whats being said here is factually true, and not really controversial…
…Unless youre a Q Brained MAGAtard.
When you look at it from their point if view?
This is more evidence they are correct.
These people are violent, anti democratic, basically cannot be reasoned with, and there are a /lot/ of them.
This situation does not have a comfortable solution.
Of all the violence, media manipulation, lies, a LITERAL coup attempt, and what the pentagon decides to crack down in is Fox slandering A FUCKING POP STAR?!
This world is insane, it has been for a while now.
