Former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters was sentenced today to nine years in prison for trying to hack voting machines in order to "prove" voter fraud, and I think what the judge had to say in her case really said a lot about TrumpWorld:
“You are no hero,” state District Court Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters. “You’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”
“Your lies are well documented, and these convictions are serious. I’m convinced you’d do it all over again if you could,” Barrett told the 68-year-old former Mesa County clerk, who was accused of using another person’s security badge to allow someone else to gain access to her county’s election system.
She's a hero in her own mind. Just like Mike Lindell, who has gone broke, is a hero in his own mind. Like Rudy Giuliani, broke (allegedly) and disbarred, must believe. The Big Lies of TrumpWorld, and what they would do to "prove" them, give them mission: a sense of purpose, but also--attention.
TrumpWorld is an alternate reality in a way, part cult (QAnon, Pizzagate, Trump as God/King) and part a collection of conspiracy theories about George Soros, the Great Replacement Theory, voter fraud, and a lot of other incredibly dodgy things with a long history in right wing crankery. Many of the questions about previously well-regarded people who have fallen down a TrumpWorld rabbit hole that start "Whatever happened to...?" (Maria Bartiromo, Lara Logan, Lindsey Graham, etc.) probably come down to--they feel that supporting Trump gives meaning. It's something both bigger than themselves, but it also bigs themselves up. They are people who have convinced themselves that the movement is made up of martyrs. And there is admiration and fundraising and attention associated with the struggle.
These are the kind of dodos who say things like "If everyone is mad at me, I must be over the target." Because it makes more sense to them than everyone being mad at them because they are huge, wrongheaded jackasses. They are the soft-skulled crabs of the revolution. They act because they believe, and facts only get in their way.
And some of them are actually mentally ill and some are just grifters. But they've all opted out of the fact-based world and ended up here--a kind of twilight zone where believing impossible things, like Trump being a beneficent truth-teller, starts to make sense.
And, well, I'm pretty damn disturbed by that.
Bonus: She's a child of God, you guys. Don't mess with her:
Tina Peters, just sentenced to 9 years in prison, told the judge that people who want her to go to prison are in trouble because God doesn’t like people messing w/his kids & she is a child of God. She then said she couldn’t go to prison because she sleeps on a special mattress. pic.twitter.com/vKI1iOvdfG
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 3, 2024
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