Rogan O’Handley is a self-invented right-wing cultural hero, who grasped the P.T. Barnum aspect of Donald Trump early in the game and decided to go for the gusto and cash in. Of course, he frames it in considerably more dignified and noble terms. A graduate of top rated University of Chicago law school, O’Handley had set himself up to make big bucks as a Hollywood entertainment lawyer but then he heard the siren call of Donald Trump, whom he calls “the best vehicle we have for ushering in the defense of the constitution.” So the closet conservative, who was chagrined because he couldn’t openly support Trump in Los Angeles — he’s got that part right — decided to leave the law and open an Instagram account. Under the handle DC Draino he gained 1.9 million followers by talking that talk, you know the talk, the one that made Rupert Murdoch a billionaire. The Federalist:
“I couldn’t publicly support President Trump,” O’Handley told me in a phone interview. Living as an entertainment lawyer in California, “If you believed anything to the right of communism, you got shunned,” he said. “After 2016, if you vocally supported the GOP, President Trump, or even just conservative ideas, you lost friends, you lost job opportunities, you got unfollowed on social media.”
O’ Handley’s social and vocational collateral declined as he was punished for his beliefs. Although O’Handley had yet to embrace full-throttle conservatism, he’d always been a moderate Republican, the son of two “diehard Democrats” who raised him in Massachusetts.
O’Handley was elected president of his student government at Northeastern University, fueling his growing interest in politics, which continued into law school. After three years of working in corporate finance and another three in entertainment law, O’Handley hit a career sweet spot. “It was very challenging but very lucrative,” he recalls.
As Trump basked in his win, O’Handley watched as California shifted further left. Antifa started running around Berkeley. The state’s fiscal policies ballooned into skyrocketing tax rates. Leftism wasn’t just hit or miss, but pervasive. The successful lawyer started to feel some serious cognitive dissonance between his belief system and the place he dearly loves. […]
“My primary goal is to wake up as many patriots as possible and get as many involved to help save America, because right now oppressive leftism is kicking the door and making its way in,” he says. The riots and protests we’re observing now, O’Handley says, are an example of “as bad as it gets.”
To that end, he shares a friendship with black activist Candace Owens. Despite the army of haters any viral account is sure to draw, O’Handley’s anchor and his compass are one and the same: “Protect and defend the Constitution. Reveal leftist lies. Examine the data and explain what’s really going on.”
And here is what the man says is really going on.
Attorney and MAGA influencer with 1.9 million Instagram followers Rogan O’Handley went on OAN to argue that there should be govt subsidies for people to get free firearms, since BLM protestors are murdering, looting and burning down cities. pic.twitter.com/NX4Z99UXCV
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 16, 2021
He says he does “zero law” now and “100% social media citizen journalism” — which is another term for bullshit, justified by a non-existent social conscience. The right-wing “patriots” that practice their so called brand of citizen journalism do so without adhering to even the most basic tenets of journalism, such as citing the source of your facts. They just make it up on the fly.
O’Handley plans to open up his own social media company and he’ll doubtlessly be appearing more on OAN and he has appeared on Fox Business as well. There’s big money in catering to right-wingnut delusion, as O’Handley and many others have found out. Maybe he and Kellyanne Conway can open up a communications school, or at the very least teach un-democratic propaganda as guest lecturers. Oh wait — the colleges are all libs, they better do it at the University of You Tube.
Two narratives, two Americas. You may have grown up watching the Twilight Zone, now you live there.
That guy is full of BS! Subsidies I don’t think so. I think we need to talk about everyone having license just like you do. to drive and also insurance. I think we need to make it harder not easier to own a gun.
He’s just ginning up a new talking point. What happened when Trump ran for president is that it became obvious how many incredibly stupid people there are in America. What we see now is GOPers, elected and non-elected, making up crap that will scare people and make them easier to control. We are headed for fascism if this doesn’t stop. I don’t mean to be a fearmonger, but it’s obvious.
One overwhelming uneasy feeling I get from watching extensive interviews embedded in various documentaries about the rise of fascism in Europe leading to ww2, are all those who underestimated the evil people are capable of, in the grip of mass delusion, fueled by cathartic release of rage, & scapegoating whomever they were told was the problem.
All *what* rioting, looting, and murdering? He’s making sh1t up to get clicks and follows.
Haven’t you heard, P J? All those mass shootings (which seem to happen on a near-daily basis) are ALL nothing more than some devious BLM strategy, with the nefarious help of Antifa. For some nebulous reason that can’t be explained .
I’m honestly surprised that little faked bit of conspiracy theory hasn’t been making the rounds yet.