The handwriting is on the wall in neon, that a lot of people who are apparently outliers from society, with a surplus of guns and a paucity of brains or maturity, listen to Fox News or read radical dogma on Parler, 8kun (home of QAnon) or the like, and then they explode at one point.
Landon Copeland is accused of attacking a police officer during the Capitol insurrection and from what has been released at this time, he is screaming banana bonkers. He called into a pre-trial hearing on Zoom, and it’s lucky for him it was on Zoom. The same behavior in a physical courtroom would have gotten him bodily removed for contempt.
He promised he'd shut up, and then as the magistrate was trying to explain pre-trial release, he interrupted again and asked, "is any of this negotiable?"
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 6, 2021
Imagine a Zoom magistrate hearing with this guy, and then imagine something worse. pic.twitter.com/DzI9vWINqq
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 6, 2021
Incidentally, for those following along on this whack magistrate hearing, Copeland's mom called into the Zoom and had to be directed to the public line.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 6, 2021
"Hello! I'm alive!" Copeland's ready for his close up.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 6, 2021
"The government stealing all my money, 70% seven zero. Come fuck with me. Come get me."
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 6, 2021
For those asking abt his attorney–there's a lawyer in UT he trusts, but he's being repped by FPD in DC.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 6, 2021
Reminder: Copeland's mom is probably listening in on the public line.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 6, 2021
Note: We haven't gotten to whether govt wants him detained, but there's an FBI Agent here to testify, so presumably USG WILL ask to have him detained.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) May 6, 2021
This is pure grievance from a guy who’s obviously a loser with no self control — make sense why they love Donald Trump so much? Trump is like looking in a mirror, except here’s a jerk like them who has a great looking wife and a plane and a penthouse and billions of dollars — they are told. The fact that he was born with a silver spoon and a gold toilet and his father regretted what a dummy he was, is never touched upon.
We see what we want to see. This guy, like so many others, was idle and aggrieved. He and others were radicalized by Fox News. While I’m no defender of Fox News, I will say that if you can’t look at Fox and discern that it is a bit twisted, then you are probably not capable of discerning much at all, or making too many sane decisions. So you’re going to end up where you’re going to end up, and in this guy’s case that might be a jail cell.
And maybe that’s where we are. After all, 73 million people, who apparently think like this man, voted for Donald Trump. That is the stat that haunts my dreams. That and 70% of Republicans think the election was stolen. I don’t know what happened to the Great Society, but somehow it became greatly ill.
Any nation that believes it can be both ignorant and free, believes in something that never was, nor will ever be. Thomas Jefferson
This makes me think of Dave Chapelle’s cynical yet adroit SNL opening monologue last year, where he outlines the grievances that these white supremacists cite, and says he knows how that feels but don’t expect society to care.
That’s the anger we see here…this guy realizes he’s been moved to a lower rung of society (deservedly) and he’s outraged. So he’s acting out, and that process is going to put him on an even lower rung.
A man who has blown all his options can’t afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can’t afford to admit — no matter how often he’s reminded of it — that every day of his life takes him farther and farther down a blind alley…
-Hunter S. Thompson,
He needed mental health care years ago, and isn’t going to improve soon. I wonder how much of realilty he understands any more.
Ursula, I love you, and “bad behavior” is not the criteria for any diagnosable mental health challenge. You said it, It’s pure grievance. I’m a clinical social worker. This guy appears to just be a jerk. The diary’s title is misleading, those kinds of comparisons contribute to stigma and discrimination.
https://www.prweb.com/releases/over_70_of_republicans_believe_that_trump_was_cheated_out_of_the_election_but_americans_agree_that_violence_is_not_the_answer_new_survey_from_cloudresearch_com/prweb17530360.htm
OK, as of the latest Gallup poll (2021 Mar 1-15), 25% of those surveyed identified as Republicans. That corresponds to the Republicans in the other survey where 70% of Republicans believe Trump was cheated out of the presidency, because in that survey independents were polled as a separate group, as here. So following that logic, 70% of 25% equals 17.5% of Americans. That’s bad, I agree, but it doesn’t sounds so horrendous as 70%. The fact is, only one fourth of Americans identify as Republicans at all, and 30% of them DON’T believe Biden won fair and square.
I meant 30% of them DO believe Biden won fair and square.
And “Biden captured a higher percentage of Republicans than Trump did Democrats.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/12/this-is-how-biden-eked-out-his-2020-victory/