Reap the Whirlwind

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
–  Hosea 8:7

As usual, politicians and the mainstream media are pretending that a disaster they helped create, born from an evil they planted at the turn of the century and have lovingly tended and fed since then, has absolutely nothing to do with them.  As the internet meme expresses it, “But we didn’t think the face-eating leopards would eat our faces!”  So they point fingers and try to cover their tracks and repeatedly “explain” how an explosion happened while ignoring the powder residue all over their hands and clothes.  The Capitol riot was the direct result of hysteria that politicians of both major parties, aided and abetted by the US journalism establishment and supplied with propaganda by hordes of religious fanatics, violent thugs and sociopathic profiteers, have enthusiastically promoted for a generation in order to trick useful idiots into accepting ever-increasing levels of surveillance, censorship, and police violence.  Yet their reaction to this is akin to that of a lifelong smoker pretending that his lung cancer was due entirely to his most recent pack:

Sen. Ben Sasse…blasted GOP lawmakers who had…tacitly endorsed QAnon in an op-ed in The Atlantic…warning that the Republican Party risks destruction if it doesn’t repudiate the crackpot conspiracy theory…Sasse said the riot was a “blossoming of a rotten seed that took root in the Republican Party some time ago”…the…Party “faces a choice,” Sasse says: “Dedicate ourselves to defending the Constitution”…or be a “party of conspiracy theories, cable-news fantasies, and the ruin that comes with them…We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies”…

But Sasse isn’t the only one who refuses to recognize that QAnon is nothing more than the most recent flowering of the “sex trafficking” hysteria; look at the number of edits I needed to make to bring this Washington Post article into line with reality:

…the failed insurrection illustrated how the p[opular “sex trafficking” mythology]…has radicalized Americans, [justified extensive tyranny] and gained a forceful grip on [American] belief.  Born in [approved government anti-sex and anti-migrant propaganda], QAnon played an unmistakable role in energizing rioters during the real-world attack on Jan. 6.  A man in a “Q” T-shirt led the breach of the Senate, while a shirtless, fur-clad believer known as the “Q Shaman” posed for photographers in the Senate chamber…The [Evangelical Christian-] base[d narrative which has developed into a myth]…which imagines Trump in a battle with a cabal of deep-state saboteurs who worship Satan and [harvest] traffic[ked] children for [a magical life-extending chemical in their blood], helped drive the day’s events and facilitate organized attacks…The…movement’s evolution, from an [official fantasy intended to justify increased government surveillance, internet censorship, and oppression of sex workers] to a hallmark of pro-Trump violence, is a signal of the danger [moral panic, whether natural or synthetic,] poses to s[ocie]ty…“The takeaway from this is that [even government-approved] disinformation is a threat to our democracy,” said [psychologist] Joel Finkelstein…

Neither Biden nor Harris nor any of their cronies will ever publicly admit their complicity in this disaster.  But if we’re very fortunate, they may quietly distance themselves from the lunacy they’ve so enthusiastically promoted for many years, allowing it to at last die the natural death politicians’ sponsorship has to this point prevented.