The Earth is flat, Democrats are demons and other news from the GOP

NYT offers a peek into the fever swamps inhabited by Tucker Carlson and the rest of the Republican brain trust

By Sam Bellamy

In the run-up to last fall’s election disaster, when roughly half of America lost its mind again, I somehow missed the news that Tucker Carlson had been visited by a demon.

Oh, sure, I was aware the Tuckster campaigned for Donald Trump with remainder-bin broadcaster Alex Jones, the model MAGA citizen who relentlessly abused the grieving parents of children slain at Sandy Hook until they won a $1.5 billion settlement against him.

And I recall that Carlson had interviewed a self-described historian on X who informed us that Winston Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II and that Hitler killed all those Jews simply to save them from starvation after the Nazis realized they were “completely unprepared to deal” with all the people they’d kidnapped. (Carlson described this vile man as “the best and most honest popular historian.”)

I knew about those demons. I’m referring to the conventionally clawed, presumably bad-breathed demon that – according to the disgraced but still fabulously wealthy former Fox News host – pawed and bloodied him in bed one night.

“I was totally confused,” Carlson tells the fellow with the suspiciously devilish beard in the video linked below. “I woke up and I couldn’t breathe, and I thought I was going to suffocate, and I walked around outside, and then I walked in, and my wife and dogs had not woken up, and they’re very light sleepers.”

Both men blithely roll past the phrase “woke up,” a detail that would strike most detectives (and intellectually honest) people as at least somewhat relevant.

Carlson – the fastidious truth-seeker who said voting machines in the 2020 election were rigged for Trump until a $787.5 million court settlement by Fox and his dismissal from the network prompted him to rethink the whole thing – says in this video that he awoke with claw marks on his body and blood on his sheets.

Let’s think of some possible explanations, shall we?

Probably not a bear because it would have disturbed his wife and the four dogs sleeping in the bed with them. But maybe spider bites? Chiggers? Bed bugs? Perhaps one of the pooches chasing a squirrel (or a Democrat) in its dreams?

Nah. Demons.

I bring this up all these months later not because it’s enjoyable to mock Carlson, a once-serious and talented writer – it is – but because of a New York Times piece this week that thoughtfully provides us an assessment of the current state of batshittery in America.

Spoiler alert: Pretty bad. Pretty damned bad.

Although this look is quite persuasive to MAGA viewers, it apparently wasn’t enough to fend off an attack by demons. Or spiders. It could have been spiders.

The article was written by Tiffany Hsu, who “covers disinformation and conspiracy theories,” according to a note beneath her byline. (That’s apparently a thing now, by necessity.) I recommend the article to Times subscribers, who might want to share it with friends and family. It’s probably best to read in broad daylight, though, to avoid one’s subconscious making the bed, so to speak, for a demonic visitation.

Much of the wingnut parade described in the piece is familiar, but I wasn’t aware, for instance, that local Republican parties in Georgia and Minnesota have elected flat-earthers to top positions and that another is running for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor in Alabama.

I’ve never understood why somewhere between 4% and 10% of Americans, according to various polls, believe that scientists since ancient Greece have been lying to us and that the earth is actually more or less a soggy pancake floating in space. What’s the point of the conspiracy?

In some cases, this bold stand by folks who do their own research appears to have something to do with a contempt for globalism, which upsets the notion that all the white people are supposed to stand over here and everyone else is to move over there.

This, incidentally, brings us back to Carlson, a believer in the “Great Replacement Theory,” which posits that Democrats aren’t interested in protecting our southern border because they’re working on a grand plan to subjugate whitey.

I should hasten to add, though, that I’ve not seen a report that the demon-ravaged Tucker believes the earth is flat. That would be ridiculous.

At the end of piece in The Times, we learn that demon sightings are increasing in Republican ranks. Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters is quoted as saying he is “pretty bullish on demons as the next big one” for conspiracy theorists. (The link is to a piece on demon chasers in Colorado. Let’s just say if you have a “coexist” bumper sticker on your car, you’d best ski in another state.)

Years ago, I was amused and perhaps not as unsettled as I should have been when some Republicans took to calling the opposing party “Demonrats.” They thought it was delightfully clever, which sort of explains the success of Fox’s Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters.

The Times notes that Trump referred to “demonic forces” on the campaign trail (again, not Alex Jones) and called the Democrats “a very demonic party.” And Dan Bongino, the bonkers talk show host who is now deputy director of the FBI, has said on his show that “demon energy is real.”

“It’s no longer an abstraction — it’s about straight-up demons,” Carusone said. “The fever swamps are all of our reality right now.”

I’m not sure what we should do with all this information, other than maybe kick the dogs out of our beds.

Or, alternatively, keep the dogs and kick this demonic mix of gullible and deceitful out of all positions of power.