Finally, a conspiracy that was more than a theory
What ails the “United” States today? Lots, and some of it was encapsulated by a particular news story this month. In an age of countless make-believe conspiracies pushed by that nation’s Reich-wingers, an actual American conspirator confessed to falsifying documents and paying actors to fabricate a crisis. Ironically, this conspirator did exactly what rightwing nutjobs like Alex “Sandy Hook” Jones incessantly accuse others of doing. And before the world got a look behind the curtain, it fit neatly into the Right’s rich tapestry of fantasies regarding their nation.
So, what happened this time? Army veteran Sharon Toney-Finch not only conspired with others to fabricate a story about homeless veterans in upstate New York being displaced from housing by migrants. She went the extra mile and paid homeless people to pretend they were homeless veterans who were displaced by the bogeyman. Fox “News” ran with this hoax without investigating or confirming anything, which only further illustrated how devoid that organization is of actual journalists.
[Read more about the hoax at the Military Times and/or Task & Purpose.]
Apple pie, baseball, and death threats
Consistent with the true spirit of today’s America, real death threats were issued by Reich-wingers against a hotel for its imaginary vet/migrant transgression. How do we know it was white nationalists who issued the death threats? Because they’re always the ones who issue death threats, whether towards citizens who aid migrants, evidence-based healthcare providers, Representatives who don’t conform to Trumpist orthodoxy (e.g., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s probably received more death threats than any U.S. politician this century), or companies who dare to advertise to any demographic outside of those deemed acceptable by the anti-woke mob.
Bloviating old-school fascist Laura Ingraham issued a mild correction a few days after having a meltdown about the story, but by then, the national damage had been done. The tens of millions of MAGAts who’ve been classically conditioned by Ingraham’s type of propaganda had already received the conditioning reinforcer of this hoax (“you are better than those nasty migrants who are being treated better than war veterans”). Good luck trying to convince a MAGAt that something they heard from a preferred fascist is false, even if the correction comes from the mouth of that very same fascist.
Ironically, this small story was turned national because it hit so many of the contemporary rightwing pleasure buttons that it simply needed to be amplified by the well-funded rightwing media machine. But let’s not dismiss it just yet. Let it remind us of the Reich-wing methodology for evaluating humans. Ironically, it tends to be the worst Americans who view migrants as the worst people living in America (although it’s difficult to say with certainty, given how many of the nation’s subpopulations the MAGAts hate). In the rightwing hierarchy, homeless Americans are placed just slightly above migrants, unless the homeless person is a vet, in which case the humanity of the individual is recognized. Years of classical conditioning permit very little humanity in the hivemind of the American Right — and it’s only getting worse in the 2020s.