By Manny Otiko
While most of the world watched in horror as an angry horde of Americans attacked their own country on Wednesday, there was a funny side to the insurrection. American democracy bent, but it held. The country was also aided by the fact the coup plotters were so darn incompetent. I bet ISIS is looking at them and saying, “Amateurs! Is this the great America we’re supposed to fear?”
Weaponized stupidity
The common denominator running through this coup was ignorance and weaponized stupidity. How can anyone believe in the QAnon conspiracy, which is laughably insane? QAnon sounds like an Internet hoax that got out of control. Satanic elites who drink blood? Really? My nurse friend points out the human body can’t ingest blood. Plus, with all the diseases out there, these so-called elites would probably be riddled with HIV and Hepatitis unless they asked for the victims’ health records. But that’s applying too much logic to an insane idea.
Additionally, these numbskulls trusted Donald Trump, a gold-plated conman with 40 years of criminality under his belt. Trump’s told 20,000 lies since he’s been in office and CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale has given up trying to debunk him. Trump is a sociopath who tells lies like most people drink water.
You’d be stupid to trust anything he says, but thousands did. During his pre-insurrection rally, he said he’d march with them. He didn’t. After the attack, Trump’s big worry was that his supporters looked “low class.”
As shocked jock Howard Stern said, Trump “despises,” the blue-collar stiffs who worship him.
Let’s look at some of these geniuses who recorded their crimes and broadcast them to the world:
An employee of Navistar Direct Marketing went to a riot and took his name tag. Easy to find this moron because he came with his calling card. The firm forwarded the Facebook pictures to the FBI.
White supremacist Richard Barnett was pictured with his feet up in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. He also stole her mail and shared his crimes on Facebook. He was arrested two days after the attack. Now Barnett is facing at least three federal crimes.
Rosanne Boyland was a poor, deluded soul who believed that QAnon was real. She was trampled to death while carrying a tea party “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. Ironic.
And genius Kevin Greeson came armed for action but managed to taser his testicles. He later died from a heart attack after that shock to the system. According to CNN, “Greeson had a history of high blood pressure and suffered a heart attack amid the excitement, his family said in a statement to CNN. He was an advocate of Trump and attended the event to show his support.”
However, there were several legislators who attacked their own government and sank their political careers forever. One of them was West Virginia Del. Derrick Evans who live-streamed his crime. He was arrested on Friday. His grandma blamed Trump for filling her grandson’s head with dumb ideas.
Less defense spending, more on education
You have to admit this is both hilarious and terrifying. Maybe America should spend more on psychological counselling and education instead of billion-dollar weapons that didn’t protect us. And perhaps make critical thinking a required course to graduate high school. According to Malcolm Nance’s “The Plot to Destroy Democracy,” Finland requires high school graduates to take a critical thinking course. As a neighbour to Russia, they’ve been subjected to decades of propaganda and have learned how to filter out weaponized “fake news.”
“The [Finnish] curricula are very much focused on critical thinking and problem solving, project-based learning, and learning to learn,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, co-director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.
More education and accurate information might have stopped this debacle and saved some of these lives. I tried not to laugh at this. I failed.
*Manny Otiko published this viewpoint in Medium under the title: MAGA Morons Revolt, Step on Their Own Collective Dicks
Otiko who writes on race, politics and sports is on Twitter @mannyotiko.
