Alright class, it’s time for Gaslighting 101. Hang onto your stuffed bunnies, and do make a blender full of margaritas, anything that it takes to comfort or numb will be welcome here. The ghost of MAGA past is ready to reemerge, and you will want to scream, when you see the Queen of the Tea Party fruitcakes.
Michelle Bachmann is still on the scene. You recall a day and age when Bachmann was so embarrassing that she was actually asked by the GOP not to seek reelection to Congress — or decided to retire of her own volition. Both theories are out there. What century was that, you ask? Oh, why, that was 2013, I believe. The GOP wasn’t totally gone round the bend yet. Reince Priebus even suggested to Donald Trump after pussygate that he could go the way of Barry Goldwater if he didn’t resign then and there. We will never know exactly what Trump said to Priebus, but reportedly it was short and very profane.
Bachmann even ran for president, you may recall. She gave Mittens a run for the money in 2012. The end came shortly thereafter, when Bachmann had the Federal Elections Commission, the Office of Congressional Ethics and the FBI all investigating whether her campaign concealed payments to an Iowa state senator who did work for her 2012 presidential bid. Nowadays, such trifles wouldn’t even register as scandals, as shell shocked and battle weary as we have all become. In any event, here is Bachmann in 2022, a mere nine, ten years later. Still crazy after all these years.
Former Rep. Michele Bachmann still claims the Jan. 6 insurrection was a scheme to brand Trump and his MAGA supporters as terrorists. She spoke at a Family Research Council town hall on Wednesday. https://t.co/qOFL9oSMsO pic.twitter.com/UJAPCfbYst
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) October 14, 2022
January 6 was just a nice, MAGA picnic, that’s all. Sheesh, you guys, you get so upset when people smash doors and windows and beat up cops and smear a little caa caa on the walls and floors. I mean, what do you guys do for good, clean fun? This was all about “biblical values,” Michele would have you know. She just said that, in fact.
See, there’s an understanding soul.
Take five minutes and watch this tape compiled by The Bulwark. THIS is who was out there that day and THIS is what they were talking about. (Bottom clip)
Sure, there were absolutely peaceful protesters that day and many that were praying (in vain). But lets listen to what the actual insurrectionists say what happened that day. What were their plans? pic.twitter.com/3xIiRqrQfi
— NerdyDog (@NerdyK9) October 14, 2022
The descriptor “batshit” was applied to Michelle Bachmann early on and managed to stick. Little did we know that she would, in point of fact, be somewhat normal in the years ahead. In 2012 we didn’t know we would be dealing with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, Lauren Boebert, any of it.
Well do I remember the memes of Bachmann in a strait jacket. And now? Now, if anything, people yawn at her and the voices of the real crazies drown her out.
I never saw Bachmann as harmless, however, and I don’t see her that way now. It is traitorous to label January 6 as a Democrat-led rebranding exercise, or in fact as anything other than Donald Trump’s mess.
Bachmann is as much of a traitor as anybody who breached the Capitol that day. She is defiling that occasion in our history, just as the violent insurrectionists did, merely in a different way, by whitewashing and lying about what happened. If anything, she’s more dangerous than the loonies with the poles and the bear spray. You know they’re crazy. When all rationality has fled and people have to literally beat other people with fists and weapons, to get a point across, civility is a thing of the past.
But to deny that the violence ever took place, to call it by some name other than what it is, is in many ways the greater evil. And that is what Bachmann has done here, invoking “biblical values” which only trashes the Good Book (as it was called when I grew up, and uber religious phonies like this didn’t exist. At least, not in these numbers.)
This is the religious right. I’m sure the angels must weep when they behold them, even as we do.
I’m not a Christian so when I call someone evil, it must mean something different, but she is evil.
S’OK babe, I AM a Christian, and evil is evil. It knows no labels or identities. It’s just evil.
I am also, and you are correct. However, there are people whose values are upside down, and some of them (too many) call themselves Christians. For them “evil”does indeed mean something different.
Unless I missed something during the coverage of the insurrection, she wasn’t even present in D.C. on 6 January. I understand how un-tethered from reality she is, but even a blind person listening to the coverage of the insurrection would not have come away with the thought it was non-angry and non-violent.
Well, see there’s your mistake, spike. You made the assumption that she was even listening to the COVERAGE.
Most likely, her TV was tuned to Fox News which, as the Daily Beast notes, “Despite the chaotic scene unfolding before their eyes in real time, the network’s much-touted “hard news” team kicked off its coverage of the events at the Capitol by suggesting there was nothing of concern, early on labeling it a “peaceful” protest.” (www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-coverage-during-the-jan-6-riot-was-even-worse-than-you-remember)
From the same source: “Over wide-angle footage of the mob violently clashing with police officers, clouds of tear gas visible in the foreground, Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich touted the “energy” of the MAGA mob and how “it can be funneled to places where it can make a difference next time around.”
Daytime anchor Harris Faulkner gushed over her colleague’s remarks: “Yeah, I love the positivity of that,” she said.”
And:
“Moments later—and perhaps unaware that just minutes earlier rioters broke through windows of the Capitol and entered the building, forcing the Senate to gavel into recess and Vice President Pence to be removed from the floor—chief political anchor Bret Baier reported: “It’s not like it’s a siege. It seems like they are protesting.”
If that was the case, is it any wonder that MissHell’s memory of events might be a little bit off?
All I want to know is, if these idiots think it was a peaceful protest, what in the world are they drinking? Must be the TRUMP CONMAN MAGA KOOL-AID.
“Batshit” was what we called her–but compared to the current vrop.of nut burgers, she was a genius and an elegant reserved lady. I mean Gohmert was the competition, but these days, they both seem.relatively sane.
Who is she and was she actually at the capital on J6. These snowflakes just don’t quit.