So, listen. I’m not generally a conspiracy theorist. I know everybody immediately assumed the White House Correspondent’s Dinner attempt was fake, and then immediately, in the interest of both sides-ing it or covering their ass from a litigious president, decided to pretend maybe it wasn’t.

I personally think we are right to be suspicious. Certainly, there’s arguments both ways. On one hand, President Rotting Orange has given the world more than enough reasons to hate him. Fuck all that shit about Democratic rhetoric turning the heat up – those folks are mostly cowardly, hedging their bets every chance they get. Donald, on the other hand, ratchets up to a hundred pounds of hateful rhetoric and bullshit every time he opens his mouth.

That said, maybe the hateful rhetoric spewing from his piehole (and his minions’ pieholes) is enough to spur someone to violence, in anger, in retribution, in a misguided attempt at justice (and justice does need to come, though preferably, not with bloodshed).

On the other hand, this administration and its orange cult leader have flooded the world with so many lies, so much bullshit, so much flagrant dishonesty, that you could hardly blame anyone for taking anything they say with a healthy dose of skepticism. We all immediately start asking, what are they really after? What are they really trying to do?

And that’s a hundred percent valid. You don’t fight fascism by letting it lie without examination.

Add to all this the fact that they are literally running the fascist playbook, as example after example after example of past authoritarian leaders will show you, and it’s pretty clear they’re looking for their Reichstag moment.

A moment, you’ll recall, was fake.

Butler was bullshit – a hundred percent staged no matter how you slice it. The coordination of MAGA influencer accounts and MAGA politicians who with fast came out with the same coordinated message of “build the ballroom!” within what? A hour, hour and a half of the assassination attempt?

Yeah, my credulity is strained, and it was essentially nonexistent before, again, because of the firehose of deceit that gushes out of every Republican and MAGA influencer’s mouth.

You are the boy who cried wolf, and despite the fact that no one believed you, you kept crying wolf over and over again. And unlike in the story, where eventually there was a wolf and no one believed him…

There’s still not a fucking wolf.

Target: 1500 words
Written: 987 words, novel: Father Lightning

Read: Against The Fall Of Night, Arthur C. Clarke (shades of 2001, this, before 2001 came to be)
Comics: Spartan: Warrior Spirit 4, Grifter 6, Zealot 3, Grifter/Badrock 2
Music: Flag Of The Shiners, State Radio