No Weird Group of Supporters is Too “Lunatic Fringe” for Trump
On This Day In 2019
At the time, QAnon wasn’t much of a thing. It had started, in part, with the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory which claimed that Hillary Clinton and other Dems enslaved children and sex trafficked them from the basement of a pizza joint in Washington, DC. The QAnon buzz kinda died away from there, until along came Donald Trump.
OTDI 2019, Trump fed QAnon rocket fuel by endorsing one of their crazy candidates, Marjorie Taylor Green, for a congressional seat in Georgia.
“Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up – a real WINNER!” Trump tweeted. Green responded: “You inspired me to run and fight to Save America and Stop Socialism!! No one will fight harder than me!!” This is the same MTG who proudly posted a video of herself desperately harassing 18-year old Parkland shooting survivor and gun control advocate David Hogg.
MTG went on to fame for her outrageous behavior. One of her biggest hits included blaming forest fires on Jewish Space Lasers. She's advocated for the execution of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. She maintained that Clinton had JFK Jr. killed because he was a “political rival,” and that Nancy Pelosi was spying on fellow congresspeople with the “Gazpacho Police.” She also tweeted that three fellow-Republican senators were "pro-pedophile" because they supported the confirmation of a new SCOTUS justice. She's spiteful, racist, homophobic—and a favorite of Donald Trump's.
Because GOPers kept the concept of QAnon simmering, conversations about the group popped up repeatedly during the 2020 campaign. During his debate with Joe Biden on October 15, Trump was provided the opportunity to finally distance himself from the lunatic fringe group—but he refused to do so!
Btw, are you concerned that “lunatic fringe” is too extreme a term for us here at OTDI to be using about Trump’s buddies? Well, decide for yourself. Here’s one of dozens of types of merch online which announced that John F. Kennedy Jr. would return from his Clinton-inflicted wounds to serve as Trump’s running mate. The fact that JFK Jr was buried in 1999 didn’t seem to concern these people too much. This is, of course, is batshit-crazy stuff…and Trump seems to love them.
Get Weirder; Dive Deeper
PBS reports on Trump’s endorsement of Marjorie Taylor Green
Guardian reports on Trump refusing to disavow QAnon during debate:
Rolling Stone describes some of the QAnon craziness
The Advocate chronicles MTG’s top outrages