Mike Lindell's visitor

The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum says Mike Lindell could "destroy" America

Normally, I don't entertain their propaganda, but this is one of the exceptions. I read it sometimes to get an idea of what makes them tick.

Evidently this piece was written with the intention to deconstruct Mike Lindell. But Applebaum does it so sweetly-and-innocently-seeming. She starts off saying some nice things about Lindell, but then adds in some really dark stuff.

She doesn't offer much insight in why she thinks he's wrong, but it sure is bad. She takes what the government officialdom says as gospel, and by golly, the world will end if you start to doubt it. How "dangerous" it is, she gasps. She seems to deny that there even exists a "left" in the media. She assures the reader that she isn't one of "those" kind of people.

She goes on and on about Steve Bannon. I thought this was about Lindell? Oh, Bannon is helping Lindell get his message out because, because... Fox ignores him. She says that Bannon lives outside the Fox bubble too and inhabits an "alternate universe". Question: if Fox is in a bubble, and Lindell is in a bubble, does that mean that she and those like her aren't? Well, an assertion like that COULD be true, but she doesn't get into the whys and wherefores on how it could be, and why she is not in one herself.

She tries her best to discredit Lindell via the Covid-19 route. This isn't proof of anything being asserted with regards to the salvation of our country. If Covid is anything like the cold or flu, there is no cure. She might have a point is Lindell says that there are cures for the cold or flu, because if there are, I must have missed it somewhere. But I am pretty sure Covid has been the hype of the century. Yes, and I think the lack of cooperation with the authorities is a symptom of the distrust of those who continue to hype it.

She goes into "conspiracy theories" and their alleged purveyors. Once again, there is no proof of the whys and wherefores of how these theories are wrong. But she seems to know, because her betters tell her so, that they are wrong.

She seems to get into a darkly ominous conflation when she said Lindell started to advertise more heavily immediately after the January 6th panty raid. Why, she has the entire sentence underlined, as if that meant something super special suspicious. She doesn't call it a panty raid of course. It was an attack. It is now an "attack", not an "insurrection". But the leaders are never wrong even though they keep changing their stories.

She then goes into the latest thing from Lindell. She proclaims that it is yet another "conspiracy theory" bigger than all of the others combined. It's so super duper conspiratorial that it makes me super duper curious to look into it further.

She makes light of Lindell's symposium on the latest of Lindell's findings. Not all the hotels are booked. I suppose the media blackout and gaslighting had nothing to do with any of that.

The game is given away when she starts throwing in the names of those who supported the Bolsheviks and even Hitler's name made an appearance.

She blames the profound distrust out there to the likes of Lindell. No, I don't think Lindell is the cause. I think the profound distrust is caused by a lot of profoundly dishonest people out there. She's not shedding any light on the matter by refusing to delve into the reasons for this distrust. She is more consumed with pointing and wagging her finger in disapproval.

How does it harm America to ask questions? She claims that this will only lead to repeats in the future. No, the repeats will only end when the truth is revealed. But the truth is constantly being hidden, so yes, disputed elections can happen in the future, especially if the results go against her favorite candidates.

There's more, but this should give the picture. Rather than to deep dive in what really happened in our recent past, she already has a made-up mind that it is all a conspiracy theory, and to question our betters is something really dangerous. On that point, she may be right. But that is not a good enough argument against doing it.