Is This The Precedent I Was Warned About?
Two days ago, I defended the idea of making impeachment “a precedent” for any and every President from here on out. The same day I published that, the Q-Anon supporting Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she would be pursuing the Articles of Impeachment against Joe Biden as soon as he’s inaugurated. On 1/13/2021, she tweeted out the following:
On January 21st, I’m filing Articles of Impeachment on President-elect @JoeBiden. 75 million Americans are fed up with inaction. It’s time to take a stand. I’m proud to be the voice of Republican voters who have been ignored. #ImpeachBiden #QuidProJoe #BidenCrimeFamily
Coming from someone who has debunked many anti-Biden claims, especially the ones revolving around his son Hunter, you would think I’d be angry at this. Truth be told, I find the idea more amusing than I do enraging — if only because such a thing has no chance of happening. Republicans aren’t even a majority in either chamber of Congress, and yet this woman thinks she can impeach a President. The Democrats at least waited until they had a majority in the House to start the impeachment process, these people can’t help but show their true plans right from the start. (Oh, and there’s also the small fact that Biden is currently way more popular than Trump is — but you know.)
Ever since The New York Post first ran the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story on 10/14/2020, the story has gone out of control. Ignoring the fact that the story started as both unsourced and utter nonsense, the story was quickly telephoned into seeing who could accuse Hunter Biden of the worst thing possible. I commonly point to this Wayne Allyn Root tweet from 10/18/2020 as the worst example I saw:
BREAKING NEWS. My sources- as high up as it gets- watched videos on Hunter’s laptops TODAY. Just told me point blank…no rumor…they saw Hunter raping & torturing little Chinese children…Chinese govt has the same videos…Biden is compromised. Blackmailed. Can NEVER be Prez.
Laura Witzke, a Republican Senate candidate for the state of Delaware, also brought in her opponent Chris Coons into this, claiming he was involved with Hunter Biden’s molestation of children. Odd of all Democratic Senators, the one that was involved in the raping of children also happens to be the one that she’s running against.
Root and Witzke are not mainstream Republicans, but stories like this were spread around social media non-stop throughout October. Might I remind you, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was subpoenaed by Congress and attacked for not allowing this story on his website. Glenn Greenwald left The Intercept because the website he founded wanted to fact check his article on this very subject. Polls from right-wing groups like the Media Research Center argued that the mainstream media covering up this story is what cost Trump the election — which I thought was stolen from him anyway. It doesn’t matter that New York Post is a well known right-wing yellow journalism publication with no credibility in any form, we have to take this story seriously you guys!
Of course, I highly doubt Ted Cruz, Kevin McCarthy, Mike Pence, or Josh Hawley believe Hunter Biden to be a child molester. However, I also highly doubt Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert don’t. The idea of child molesters running the government was the premise of Pizzagate (which literally stated that powerful people in government were molesting children at a pizza place owned by David Brock’s boyfriend) and the core of the Q-Anon theory it spun out of. Of course the son of the President of the United States and of a career politician would be a perfect example, and the fact that it was a Chinese child fits all too well into the idea that Biden is a secret Chinese agent. The fact that it all fits so perfectly is, oddly, the best evidence that it’s entirely made up.
One long standing question whenever a politician says some utter nonsense is “do they believe it, or are they just pretending?” Personally, I believe that most of the top Republicans do not believe what The New York Post reported, hence why they spent more time condemning Twitter for not allowing it than they did actually defending its contents on a factual basis. (These are the same people, remember, who can not defend the idea that an election is rigged while they’re objecting to certifying Electoral Votes for said election.) However, many of the small dogs do believe it, as well as the continuing nonsense that ran rampant on social media.
This will be the biggest divide of the Republican Party throughout the Biden Administration. The difference between an incumbent and a newbie is the difference between someone who pushes Trump’s propaganda and someone who believes Trump’s propaganda. The Q-Anon crazies are acting logically if you believe their illogical premise, and that premise was sold to them by Trump supporters with much backing from the Republican Party.
