QAnon's cowboy-themed "Patriot Roundup" sure sounds like it was full of horseshit
Aux Features Roundup
Howdy again, pardners! Say, do y’all remember that “For God & Country Patriots Roundup” weekend? You know, the QAnon conference scheduled to saddle up at the (taxpayer-funded) Omni Hotel in Dallas, Texas, hence the hackneyed cowboy theme? Well, despite a petition garnering well over 20,000 signatures in protest, the death cult convention went off without a hitch over this past weekend, and by golly, was it just plumb full of all the prerequisite ultra-rightwing nihilists, MAGA Country A-Listers, insurrectionist pablum, and constitutional law analysis reflected through gold filagreed funhouse mirrors.
As VICE’s “Roundup” roundup described over the weekend, there was a veritable, steamin’ crock of shit pot full of choice moments, including disgraced Gen. Michael T. Flynn buttering up the crowd with his support of a Myanmar-like military coup, Roger Stone’s “social media advisor” pantomiming hanging from a noose after mentioning Hillary Clinton, and the QAnon-spewing lawyer, Sidney Powell, wearing a leather biker vest emblazoned with MAGA patches struggling to sing the national anthem.
People also paid thousands of dollars at a Q-themed auction for items like a quilt signed by Mike “MyPillowGuy” Lindell, which we feel is painful enough to envision, and doesn’t require any more elaboration.
But now the Chauvinist Stampede is receding into the distance, haloed within the setting sun by a cloud of F-250 diesel plumes, Camel Crush cigarette smoke, and Lone Star farts. Don’t retire your spurs just yet, though, cowpokes. This year’s Patriot Roundup may have ended, but rest assured there will undoubtedly be additional QAnon rodeos, MAGA hootenannies, and 8Chan corrals in the months ahead. Like a wild pony, the Q movement refuses to be broken—no matter how many attempts you might make at reining them in with logic and provable facts.
So saddle up, sycophants, the rodeo’s just starting. Yee-fuckin-haw.
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112 Comments
Conspiracy theories make stupid people feel smart.
That’s exactly the type of statement a George Soros bot account would make!
That’s not a George Soros bot account, you fool!That’s George Soros’ real account.
Hi George!!! Thanks for the paycheck, George!!!
Stealing that.
And they make smart people feel depressed.
So do politicians who are just as stupid as they are, or at least act like it. That’s been the point all along. These are people who were too fucking dumb to genuinely participate in political conversations until Trump came along and all you had to do to be “involved” was endlessly lie to suit your needs and call people names. “Hell! I can do that!” Honestly. I think that’s the key to the entire goddamned thing. Make stupid people feel like stupid is the new smart.
Yes, I’ve long thought this. The craving these people were feeling before pumpkinboy came along was not so much for respect as it was for self-respect. With his nitwitted bellowing, he made them feel smart – an alien feeling for them – and thus proud of themselves, and this was, and is, a drug they can not get enough of.
Hasn’t Fox News been providing that feeling for years before Trump became president, though? I guess having that feeling rammed down your throat from the White House feels a lot better, though.I retract my rhetorical question.
Conspiracy theories make stupid people feel smart.Absolutely.It also provides a nice loophole to the ol’ “personal responsibility” guiding principle* of being a Republican: “I’m personally responsible for every single thing in my life, but what hope is there if the gAY FRoGs oF tHe DeEp STatE are out to kill me and my family?!”*guiding principle, in this case, would be a standard by which to judge others, never one’s self
Trump’s reportedly been telling people he’ll be president again by August.
Running that seed faith offering scam that Paula White taught him.
Does he feel the sound of an abundance of rain?
Maybe he’ll start a little book club, and he can be president of that.
As long as he doesn’t actually have to read a book for it.
“People are saying that this is a good book!”
he and his cultists are a bunch of pathetic delusional losers. I am growing impatient that he isn’t using this idiotic ruse to hustle these rubes out of their money by unironically asking (as an alleged billionaire) for money for his “defense fund” or whatever he wants to call this hustle, because if they’re not giving up on him, I want to see him angrily turn on them and hurt them as he has so many others in the past who went too far kissing his ass (Christie, Romney, Priebus, etc.) and were summarily humiliated for their efforts.
I’m torn. I normally root against Trump but watching these people repeatedly be swindled out of their money is kind of entertaining. Like I sit back in amazement. I feel there’s a good money-making opportunity here if I was less moralistic.
luckily for T***p he is surrounded by lots of amoral felons who will happily defraud his cultists. I keep hoping for the improbable–that they finally start to turn on him after he hustles them over and over and over. I mean they’re still cultists so they’ll eat a LOT of his shit before turning on him, but at least plant that seed of doubt in their brains that no, just because he got “elected” president and made you feel superior to the libtards for a while, doesn’t mean you’re actually superior, you’re still a dumb racist piece of shit.
Thats all well and good, but in the meantime, the angry ugly underbelly of America might do another January 6th if he keeps stirring them up.
Yeah, I keep wanting to start up a right wing blog then beg for donations. Writing a few hundred words every so often about how the liberals are shit and Trump is awesome would be the easy part.
It’s likely that many of the folks making money off the QAnon faithful, like Q himself (who vanished after the election), don’t actually believe any of this bullshit, but know a mark when they see one.
Forget morals, though. I don’t know if I could stand to have all the conversations with these folks required to fleece them.
“Right wing grifter” has to be the easiest fucking gig on the planet. Stupid conscience.
Honestly, wouldn’t it be in all of our best interests if he sucks his followers dry, and they all in turn become destitute? Ideally, they would starve or they would be forced to become the welfare queens they hate so much. As a pretty liberal guy, fuck this “be nice even though they’re mean” bullshit. I hope all republican lawmakers have to help their daughters get abortions
that’s a great thought experiment. On one hand, I don’t want to give them one dime of my money because in general they’re shitty selfish people who wouldn’t reciprocate if they were forced to, but that’s the price I’m willing to pay for being a member of society, so OK. But I don’t mind watching them suffer until then for their shittiness, because they deserve it.
What exactly is the benefit of a quarter of the country starved or forced on welfare for the very narrow financial improvement of a loud, selfish idiot?
Dude if you subscribe to every thought and word that comes out of a single, loud, selfish idiot, defend every word and action, and suck the literal taint off the guy, you deserve what you have coming. The right loves complaining about welfare while conveniently forgetting most red states suck the most resources. Maybe if their lives are ruined, possibly losing a kid or something, they would stop voting against their best interests. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Voting for Donald Trump, among being racist/xenophobic, was a stupid thing to do. I believe bad decisions should not be ignored or moved past. You made a selfish decision that would fuck many others, who you don’t agree with, over. The benefit is maybe their kids aren’t as thick skulled as they are, get educated, and break the chain of poverty and ignorance once and for all.
“maybe if their lives are ruined they would stop voting against their best interests” “maybe their kids will get educated and break the chain of poverty”
Neither of these sound likely. And, given those odds, not clearly “in all of our best interests.”
I am growing impatient that he isn’t using this idiotic ruse to hustle these rubes out of their money…Isn’t he hustling them for money, though? I thought there was a report of a fundraising email he was circulating—one that automatically enrolled them in a recurring payment or something…?
yes, but that was during last year’s campaign, and a court recently forced him to reimburse all the people who had “donations” automatically taken from their credit cards, because they built in a message basically saying “unless you want to be branded as disloyal, you’ll agree to let us automatically take money from your account” (LMFAO). I have zero doubt that when it comes time to do something like that again, he will.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/04/trumps-campaign-scammed-donors-auto-checked-box.htmlthis is an excellent story summarizing not only the hustle that forced him to pay back $121 million, but a reminder that those same idiots still idolize him and don’t blame him for it. Why isn’t he sucking every possible dollar out of these idiots??? They’re practically begging to be hustled.
LOL that checkbox“I mean, I guess if you uncheck this, you’re technically a godless antifa-er, but you know, that’s fine. It’s your decision. You’re free to do so. This is America, the land of the free, after all. I mean, for now.”Okay, so I get what you’re saying: you want him to keep bilking these people for money. Yeah, I’m down with that. 🙂
PS on his idiotic website that he just closed because no one was visiting it, there was another donate button and the options were “donate” or “no—prefer big tech” LOL. oh how I hope as he gets more desperate and contemptuous of his cultists he gets more brazen with shit like this, because I am here for it!
LOLOL Of course that button exists! Oh, man, that is too good. I appreciate folx like you who brave those corners of the Internet and report back to cowardly folx like myself. I guess I’ll just content myself with Mexican cartel videos for now. Sigh.
nah I stumbled on that little detail on Variety or Forbes or wherever. I avoid the right-wing websites like the plague. My own FB feed full of liberal echo chamber websites raises my blood pressure just fine, I don’t need to dive headfirst into anything more insane than that. Enjoy the cartel videos LOL.
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, the ol’ BP is gonna get raised if you have you head even halfway outta the sand. Fun times. Giant Meteor 2024 and all that.
And when it doesn’t happen, it’s because all of you didn’t contribute enough to his effort. Pledge more cash and he’s in by Suckers and Losers Veteran’s Day.
$5 says he just names himself President of something. With a big wooden placard thingy.
I’ve gotten breathless notifications about his “return to politics” all day, and honestly, every journalist involved in those stories should be ashamed (or fired). Campaigning is the easiest and most reliable way he has of making money now. It’s also the one bit of “work” he enjoys anymore, since he gets to stream of consciousness blah blah blah for as long as he likes while friendly audiences watch and cheer. Honestly, if he says he’s going to be president by August, we may finally have gotten a timeline as to when he expects to be indicted. “Donate now! We need to hire criminal defense attorneys who won’t just take a Trump IOU for their services!”
on one hand, I also thought the second he was able, he’d be out holding his idiotic rallies and “campaigning” because why not? He gets to indulge his verbal diarrhea for 90 minutes, whine about how unfair everything is for him, and they slobber over him like hungry brain-damaged dogs, AND he can charge them for concessions, shitty t-shirts, etc. It’s wins all around for him.On the other hand, I do believe his niece (the clinical psychologist) who said losing was such a blow to his ego that he may not run to avoid the possibility of another blow to his ego if he were to lose (and maybe I’m being horribly naive, but I kinda pray he is the GOP nominee, because Biden is dull but he’s getting shit done, and he won’t be able to whip up nearly the amount of anti-Biden animus that T***p did, and without that there’s no way T***p can make up a 7 million vote deficit).
The Loser of the 2020 Election’s niece has some sharp insights, but I don’t buy that one. That was basically the same theory that the entire Republican field was counting on in the 2016 primaries: that he would eventually drop out of the primary, because he wouldn’t risk losing and he wouldn’t want to expose his various shady dealings to the exposure the nominee would get. What that view underestimates is the Loser of the 2020 Election’s tremendous supply of unearned confidence. He believes his own bullshit. He wraps himself in a cocoon of flatterers and fans who tell him he can’t lose. And the way he keeps those people around is by continuing to pretend that they’re right. If he quits, he becomes yesterday’s news, and the cheering crowds might need to find someone else to cheer for. The Loser might be scared of losing another election (given the fact that he’s convinced a majority of Republicans that he actually won, despite there being absolutely no evidence to support it, I don’t know why he should be) but I’m betting he’s terrified of being a has-been.
these are all good points, and I think he’s torn—I think some self-doubt has crept in, he’s an old fart and I’m sure the thought of obsolescence is something he cannot abide. Plus it ties in so well with all of his idiotic “stay tuned!” tweets during his presidency. You’re the fucking president, not some C-grade game show host or “the life of the party”; we don’t want to be kept in suspense whether we’re going to war with North Korea or not. Jesus he is so much like Michael Scott it’s scary.
He just needs another $200m to get started
Then, around 09/01, he’ll insist he never said August.
Hell, knowing him, he’ll be saying he never said August on 8/15.
“Sir, this is a Wendy’s”
I’m curious. Presumably he doesn’t _really_ want to do the kind of damage to America that that would entail, but wants to get _just close enough_ to juice things in 2022 and lock him in for 2024. I.e. what he tried to do in 2016, get just close enough to the presidency to get his new media career off the ground, without actually winning it (which would be a disaster!). I think I see a problem here.
counterpoint: T***p is a fucking moron who isn’t capable of the type of forethought you just described. He just suffered the biggest, most conspicuous loss of his life, which confirmed his inner voice (which sounds like his dad’s voice BTW) telling him he’s a LOSER, and he will do ANYTHING to silence that voice, including beginning the quixotic process of winning back a job (that he didn’t actually “win” in the first place) that he doesn’t actually want–he just wants to soothe his bruised ego and say “see? Told you I won.” (and again, the “you” in that statement is his dad)
My aunts, my wife and I were doing one of what will most likely be hundreds of postmortem assessments of the Trump presidency, and at one point, my aunt just shook her head and said: “The amount of destruction and cruelty all in service of one person’s ego is just…”And yes, I know that we can attribute so much destruction and cruelty to any given president’s ego, but with Trump, it was just…
Whoa, seriously?
There is always a lot of overlap between the RWNJ’s political life and his social one. I think their obnoxious political views make them lonely, and they find camaraderie at these kinds of events, and they get more political and so on and so forth.
is it bad that whenever I see someone proudly and conspicuously use the word “patriot” I feel like I know EXACTLY what their deal is, and am rarely proved wrong?
Well if you’d like them to go away, it would appear that a patriot roundup is the beginning of that process.
true, as long as they use those high-voltage tasers. BTW love your user ID, LA Confidential is one of those movies that I ALWAYS watch when it’s on, no matter when I turn it on. Great movie with so many great actors on their way up (and so many Australians!).
I feel that way whenever I see someone wear anything with an American flag on it when it’s not the 4th.
Like “family values”.
Amazed at how they elevate ‘patriotism’ far far above anything else, like, fellow countrymen.
Pretty much. There’s so many words like that now where I know where said person stands as a person as soon as they say it (see also: anyone who uses “woke” derisively and “cancel culture” unironically)
No, you’re 100% right.Repeating a lie to yourself will actually make you believe it at some point, that’s why they do it every damn hour
I just wish they’d have the epiphany that their problem with the current government is NOT like the problem the people had with the king of England back in the day, causing them to leave; I know Fox News tells you on the reg to feel aggrieved and repressed but you’re actually NOT, it’s more like you didn’t achieve what you thought you deserved out of life in most cases because you’re lazy or dumb, which is not the same thing as a “conspiracy” against you. And now the same dumbshits who feel a connection with the guys who fought the British back in the day, want a fat orange fuck to be their king.
The “American Dream” somehow became “American entitlement” for a lot of these couch potatoes yes. I mean, who the fuck has time for all these rally’s to begin with, I’m fucking working and taking care of my kids.
The regressive reactionary right wing rabble has hijacked plenty of words to fit their agenda. For instance, the second someone mentions “socialism” there’s a 99% chance they have no idea what the word even means. Or when they talk about their make-believe “freedoms” that democrats have stolen from them.
wow you get an A+ for alliteration! LOLbut yes, I guarantee anyone who uses the term “socialism” derisively cannot explain it if you give them 60 minutes and a whiteboard. Nor would they admit that the “liberals are coming for my guns”, or any RWNJ paranoid narrative you can name, has ever happened or will ever happen. They’re just not happy unless they feel both powerful AND threatened at the same time.and as for stuff they hijacked, I’m still mad about the flag. Whenever I see someone flying the flag NOT during a federal holiday, I automatically assume it’s some Fox News dipshit. It is IMO a pretty flag, love the colors, the stripes are kinda unimaginative but the stars are nice. Whenever I am in a foreign country and I see the flag it makes me a little homesick, and then I check out my FB page and am reminded how shitty this place is in so many ways.
ultra-rightwing nihilists
Don’t retire your spurs just yet, though, cowpokes. This year’s Patriot Roundup may have ended, but rest assured there will undoubtedly be additional QAnon rodeos, MAGA hootenannies, and 8Chan corrals in the months ahead.Coming soon to a shitpile near you…
Joel: “And the crowd goes wild!”all: “yaaaay.”
Flynn’s just straight-up asking for a court-martial, arrest for sedition, or both, right?
Money, actually. He says somethign stupid, there’s a reaction, and then gets to send fundraising emails out mentioning how the media is trying to shut him up. Works every time.
Who’s going to prosecute? The same people agreeing with him?
Seems like they could at least take his pension away. Of course, I’m sure he makes way more than that on the Q circuit, and it would just give him more to complain about, so I guess nothing much can be done.
If you’re writing about his supporters and their conspiracy theories, are you really no longer writing about Donald Trump?
I would like to remind everyone who wishes Q and Trumpism would go away that one of America’s 50 states is run by the Mormon Church, a similar movement born of rubes and credulism started by scheming hucksters that survived an actual extermination order in Missouri, a westward trek that made them resort to cannibalism, and their spewing enough violent anti-American rhetoric once they established “Deseret” (now Utah) that the US Army came in to occupy it and sent their leaders scurrying to Mexico to avoid arrest for polygamy.There are now significant Mormon governmental and cultural strongholds in Utah, Arizona, and Idaho, and the church has a net worth of billions of dollars, including tremendously large real estate holdings, investments, media conglomerates, and other assets that are only sketchily described to the members who pay them money. Mormons are also to be found in key corporate positions as well as US government entities like the FBI and CIA, because they are committed prosperity gospelistas as well as bred bootlickers due to the authoritarian nature of their religious infrastructure. All of this persists, even taking into account that the Mormon origin story didn’t even survive a half century of fact-checking before it was thoroughly debunked by scientists and historians; not to mention the fact that it was literally preached as the Word of God from the Salt Lake Tabernacle as late as the mid-1970s that Black people were basically born of Satan and would never be worthy to be anything but menial servants in the afterlife.If that’s not frightening enough, there’s also Scientology – a massive worldwide religious phenomenon started by a truly terrible science fiction writer with a concept that is so ludicrous as to defy explanation.What I’m saying is that in 50 years, Q/Trumpism will have religious protection under the Constitution and you might be getting a day off work for “MAGA Day.” And there’s nothing we can do about it.
So what you’re saying is that we should give the Q people their own state and keep them all there. I vote Iowa because, I mean, who cares?
I would prefer not to, honestly, but if they’re eventually going to take one, I’d suggest North Dakota.
Don’t do that to the Natives there. They don’t deserve more hardships. Send them to Florida.
Good call. NASCAR’s quartered there, after all, so they’ll already have their built-in temple!
Why not? Florida is pretty Q-central at this point.
Can we at least keep Orlando for ourselves as a West Berlin type enclave?
I’ve never been to Florida, so humour me here: is Orlando cool?
It’s where the theme parks are. I’m not giving that up!
Push them where there is no indigenous tribes.
Local tribes would care.
Can we do Nebraska instead? I have an aunt who lives in Iowa
“And lo, the Trumpian Angel Qroni presented the golden plates to Joseph 4chan…”
The big difference being that you could buy your own golden plates for the low, low price of $1,000/plate on the Official Trump Golden Plate Store (act now, and you get a free steak!).
Yep. Sure was fun having those fuckers around town all weekend.
Unpopular opinion: these people are insane, that much is certain. But I think it’s a very VERY bad idea to dismiss them as ineffectual or harmless. At this point, they are America’s Taliban, and it’s seemingly only a matter of time until they become as vile as Daesh and actually become organized enough to be an even greater threat. The FBI, NSA and Justice Department need to intervene and arrest not just the insurrectionists responsible for Jan 6th, but also any politician that aided and abetted them, like Hawley, Ghoulhmert and Cruz. The inaction is jarring and scary, frankly.
“Unpopular opinion: these people are insane”That’s not unpopular, that’s tired. These people are simply straight up fascists. Every single one of their political or cultural opinions is in service of a rigidly hierarchical world where they, the chosen people, will sit at the top where they feel they belong.
Every single one of their political or cultural opinions is in service of a rigidly hierarchical world where they, the chosen people, will sit at the top where they feel they belong. Gravy-stained shirts and all.
No, I’m an idiot; you are correct – I was trying to make a point about the rest of my post, not that their insanity is questionable..they are unquestionably insane, but also not harmless.
My wording was dumb.
I don’t think most people really think they’re harmless, either. They elected the fucking president, for god’s sake. It can be fun, in a gallows humor sort of way, to mock them because they’re a crowd of flamboyant idiots and assholes, but large groups of idiots and assholes have historically caused many of our biggest problems. I’d much prefer they didn’t count dozens of sitting congress critters among their numbers.
Where are they getting their Q info now? Isn’t the website gone?How do they explain Q just disappearing?And hasn’t every single one of Q’s predictions been wrong?
There are still a lot of QAnon influencers out there and new anonymous forum posters claiming to be secret government insiders have been popping up, so they still have content to keep the movement going. The movement has been splintered in different directions, so the movement’s followers haven’t really reached a consensus on what comes next.
They are religious extremists. It’s not like facts and evidence has any effects on them.
As I understand it, once Q disappeared there were a bunch of grifters in the Q-adjacent community that swooped in to fill that void and it’s just kept on trucking. Despite many Q predictions never coming to pass, the movement has kind of evolved past Q into this grab bag of different ideologies operating under the Q umbrella. With no real figurehead or main set of ideas, it makes the grift pretty easy depending on who you want to target.
For the next convention, I’ll provide the fireworks!!!
Is that kosher?
I’ll just tell them they will be the best fireworks, the biggest fireworks ever seen! they’ll be begging me to do it.
I can’t stop picturing the proud dumbass that would wear a hat like that.
Mike Lindell is what a guy who think he looks like Don Draper actually looks like.
If Don Draper quit smoking and drinking sometime in the 70’s, and made it to today, he probably would look like Mike Lindell, and pretty much have the same politics. Sally would be apologizing for him on Twitter, unless she went the other way, and was one of the people storming the capitol.
I do hope that pack of squalid rubes were crowded very close together with nary a mask in sight.
Mike Lindell signs quilts but not pillows? Because they start with a Q? A pillow changes so easily to a qillow, both typographically and photographically.
I hate this country
I smugly asked myself if this person asking the question could actually pronounce ‘Myanmar’ and my smugness was not disappointed.
What, you’ve never been to Minnamar?
Wasn’t that where the orig Top Gun was set? derp
Hey now, let’s leave Lone Star farts out of this.
Did they just call their followers cattle?
I didn’t even now this event was happening. Did the ex President show up?
what percentage of the nitwits in this video:1. normally wear cowboy hats2. never wear cowboy hats but tentatively agreed to have them Photoshopped onto their heads to prove their “patriot status” (LOL)3. told the makers of the video “if you Photoshop a cowboy hat on my head I will sue your ass”?and don’t even get me started on the conspicuously placed bottle of “truth serum”. I just can’t even with these idiots any more.
America really needs to introduce an IQ test before allowing people to vote because if the majority of these idiots are allowed to then the entire world is screwed. You should only be allowed to vote if you can demonstrate that you understand both parties policies. Some of these idiots were allowed to vote in the last election who believed that the Democrats were gonna introduce abortions for babies already born, that they’d be sold off for spare parts and are totally into the whole Qanon shit too.
As supposedly certain of their opinions as these clowns are, they’re remarkably unfocused as to specifics. Trump will be “reinstated” in August? Gimme the date, guys. Prove you’re committed to the bit.[Look, I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned a particular date – I’m at the point where I just skim all these reports on these superspreader gatherings.]