I am not a big Hilary Clinton fan, but I voted for her (or, more accurately, against Donald Trump) in 2016. What astonishes me is the level of vitriol leveled against her. I was struck this week reading about Angela Rubino, who is now quite active in politics; now, that is, that she is able to scroll through scurrilous and incendiary lies about politicians, and about Hilary Clinton in particular.
Consider this gem: Rubino asks, “Did you ever see that clip about Hilary Clinton where she cut a girl’s face off and she wore it?” She was referring to a fake video, the likes of which she routinely sees in her social media doom-scrolling.
No, I didn’t see it, and don’t plan to: the very notion that someone could cut someone’s face off and then wear it is plainly idiotic. Marjorie Taylor Greene is Rubino’s political idol, and Greene is a self-proclaimed QAnon believer. In 2020, QAnon revived the smear on Clinton and John Podesta that they were running child sex trafficking ring from the basement of the Comet Ping-Pong Pizza in Northwest D.C. Or worse, that they enjoyed eating babies.
The Business Insider notes that in 2019 a book about the bizarre QAnon theory — which claims Democrats eat babies — became an Amazon best-seller and was “being boosted by the site’s algorithms.”
https://www.businessinsider.com/qanon-book-pro-trump-conspiracy-amazon-charts-2019-3?op=1
My wife and I went to Comet Ping Pong Pizza on a lovely evening in June, enjoyed some wonderful pizza, and watched as families did the same, with kids playing (you guessed it) ping pong on two tables in the back of the restaurant. Supposedly, according to the 2016 Pizzagate lie, there is a basement where trafficked children are being held.
In 2016, a North Carolina man took his guns there to liberate the children, and fired off three shots before giving himself up. He never found the basement there, because there isn’t one. And never was. But Pizzagate survives on Tik-Tok, and there are still true believers of this utter falsehood.
It must feel good to hate and demonize, because so many people do. They ask, “Who but a demon (like Hilary Clinton) would cut off a girls face and put it on her own?” So, hate and vitriol might feel righteous and good to some folks –– “Lock her up!” –– and there are no laws against it. But this kind of hatefulness is sheer idiocy. Yes, it is “perfectly legal” to indulge these hateful fantasies, and the First Amendment protects your right to say absurd things. But this is far from right. A dear friend of mine had a father who was wonderfully smart and very successful, who often said “99% of the human race are idiots.” My friend and I have for many years refused to believe this, but, sadly, it’s becoming more and more believable that at least a sizeable portion of our electorate are, if not “deplorables,” at least certifiable idiots, doom-scrolling toward the demise of our democracy.