March 22, 2021 - 9:30am
In case anyone is still labouring under the delusion that the departure of Trump from the White House might see American politics return to a more normal (that is: a more twentieth-century) relationship to reality, I have bad news for you.
Trump was notorious for the at best haphazard relation of his statements to reality. Over his presidency, the QAnon conspiracy flourished, rich in baroque beliefs and elaborate conspiracies. But with the inauguration of Joe Biden and the realisation that Q was a hoax all along, many hoped the Trumpian era of unreality would prove as brief a blip as the Orange Man himself.
Signs are already emerging that this hope is misplaced. One recent video of Biden taking questions seemed to show the president’s hand in a position it couldn’t have been relative to one of the microphones, triggering a slew of ‘green screen’ accusations and a corresponding flurry of ‘fact checking’ from the respectable press. Notwithstanding the rearguard action of the reality-based community, this event was yet more grist to the mill for the trope emerging as the front-runner in post-Q paranoia discourse.
This trope comes in various flavours, but all of them centre on the unreality of President Joe Biden. Not that he is bad, or hostile – that he is a an AI bot, already dead and existing only in CGI recreation, a senile puppet ruler or in some other respect fundamentally fake.
It might be easy to shrug this all off as trivial internet chatter among conspiracy loons. But that would be to fall prey to the comforting idea that the internet only conveys political events, which happen somewhere else. Increasingly, though, the internet itself is where politics happens. And this in turn means there’s little point in trying to ringfence political debate from its mythologisation and meme-ification: the hallucinatory edge to the new politics is baked into the medium. No one would be arguing about Biden being a green-screen fake if the US President’s visibility to his electorate wasn’t mostly mediated via screens. And in turn this suggests that the efforts of Reuters and its ilk to keep the discourse tethered to facts will be read simply as one type of intervention in the general unreality.
But while this new mode of discourse may frustrate those who remember the good old days of the ‘real world’, it’s also richly informative regardless of whether it’s true or false. All that’s needed is a mental shift from factual to poetic analysis. In other words, it doesn’t really matter whether or not anyone literally thinks Joe Biden is an AI. Read as a metaphor, ‘Biden is computer generated’ expresses a growing minority consensus that American politics is a hollow charade perpetuated by high-tech oligarchs, controlling the reanimated corpses of democratic institutions as a front for their own sinister interests.
Whether or not you subscribe to this form of post-democratic defeatism, it’s gaining traction. I predict that it will be expressed increasingly openly, and with increasingly troubling effects, as the 2020s advance.
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SubscribeBefore we mock the Americans for their belief in Q-Anon and pedophiles hiding under pizza restaurants. Remember in this country a conspiracy theory about prime ministers, MP’s and the heads of the armed forces molesting and then ritually murdering children was aired in Parliament, picked up unquestioningly by most the main stream media and prompted a full scale police investigation.
I actually think the conspiracy theories held by those with power are more dangerous than the ones held by those without it.
See Russiagate for more.
There was a fire to go with that smoke. Mountbatten was a known paedophile, and introduced Jimmy Savile to the Royal Family, and he became close to both the Royal Family and Prime Minister. Everyone knew what Savile was – he didn’t hide it. I knew over 20 years ago he wore jewellery on TV made from body parts stolen from the LGI morgue. This is all well evidenced and documented, so why should people not think there was truth in subsequent rumours of paedophilia by the powerful and establishment cover-up? We know British security services colluded with loyalist paramilitaries during the troubles. You can’t read about folk like this and take the official accounts at face value… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGrath
He was talking about the discredited operation Midland botched by Hogan Howe because of Starmer’s shoddy “allegations are true” policy and Watsons righteous indignation. Two gone one to go.
Hello folks! It is i Joe Bidben, im here to inform everyone. Well not exactly everyone but only the loyal theorists in this sub, im here to debunk the speculations about my identity and existance as it is. Therefore i only want to most loyal folks that have spent so much time on getting the true answer of who i actually am to finally know the truth. Im not real. UwUJoe biben not real
For four years, we in the US were told that Russians were under every bed and around every corner. Usually, with a white supremacist accomplice.
Now Biden is busy living down to what many predicted of him. Biden is real in body, but there is no sense that he is running anything or making any decisions. His mental state was known during the campaign and nothing since has served to change that viewpoint.
Russia owns Trump-this has been proven by US intelligence services. Their useful idiot was a train wreck of inane incoherent drivel and farcical dry humping of the stars and stripes. Biden may be a bot, but he’s a democratically elected bot, and clearly not owned by Putin.
You’re right. Biden is owned by China.
I hope they didn’t pay too much for their purchases. You’ve got to watch your back pocket when you deal with that old Yankee trader Uncle Sam.
Perhaps eBay could be tasked with hosting the next US electoral pantomime?
$1.3 Billion
Iraq had weapons of mass destruction – this was also ‘proven’ by US intelligence services.
If you think Saddam would NOT have had them if possible you do not know Saddam. The French sticking their finger in the situation by refusing to back the UN on inspections emboldened Saddam, so one assumed, and very rightly, he had them when he would not allow inspectors to really check..
Finally, somewhere, under some sand dune, is likely a big pile of things – “16 March 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War in the Kurdish city of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in Kurdistan, as well as part of the Iraqi Army’s attempt to repel the Iranian Operation Zafar 7. It took place 48 hours after the capture of the town by the Iranian Army. A United Nations medical investigation concluded that mustard gas was used in the attack, along with unidentified nerve agents. The incident was the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history, killing between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injuring 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians. Preliminary results from surveys of the affected region showed an increased rate of cancer and birth defects in the years afterward”
I don’t think anyone disputes that Iraq had chemical weapons and used them in the Iran-Iraq war.
The UN inspectors in the early years of this century reported that Iraq was being fairly co-operative about inspections, yet they couldn’t find any WMD. Your “one assumed, and very rightly, he had them” is ridiculous. You may have assumed that, in which case you assumed very wrongly, as most of us now know for sure. And it’s by no means clear that Bush or Blair assumed Iraq had WMD; all we know is that they claimed this. Blair was indisputably lying when he said “There is no doubt”; he knew full well there was considerable doubt.
If no one thought Saddam was still holding WMD why spend so much time looking for them? And Saddam was continually frustrating the inspectors – approving access, then removing it. Basically playing games.
Yes Blair/Bush lied – nothing was proven. But given Saddam’s previous, there was always a suspicion.
Are you it touch with reality.
First Trump was democratically elected. Second there is no evidence whatsoever that Russia owned Trump. Third, the left set Russia up as some kind of aunt Sally when in reality it is no threat whatsoever to the US. The question is did they do this in a desperate attempt to get rid of Trump or distract attention from China.
So far as conspiracy theories go I am surprised that no one has mentioned Epstein. Sometimes the facts leave no room for any other conclusion other than there must have been a conspiracy.
The Mayor of Moscow’s wife gave Hunter Biden a million dollar diamond! For no reason apparently, and China gave him millions as part of a Billion dollar deal, and Ukraine….. crime family
My sentiments exactly on that one! The onus should be on people who say just a common or garden sexual deviant, nothing more, nothing to see, to explain why.
I believe it’s called Rupar-isation of the news. Stories become whatever you want to imagine them to be – facts and speculation blur into a woulda-coulda-mightb of magical thinking.
However, it happens on all sides. TDS and Blueanon are as equally infectious as Qanon. For instance, Matt Taibbi currently has a list of Russiagate false stories on Substack even while the Russia-did-it theory is still rattling around left-wing journalism. And you get a right-wing threat so monstrous it requires fences and the National Guard around the Capitol for 10 weeks. Magical thinking based on fear, paranoia, and fueled by political expediency.
The Russia-did-it theory is still rattling around left-wing journalism? Do you mean mainstream liberal rags like the New York Times? Most of the left-leaning press I read rejected the Russia dunnit nonsense from the word go.
I don’t think you can reasonably call the New York Times ‘the Left’.
The Woke Left?
Any more than you can say Fox News is always right!
The problem that its seems they most of the time are right, or that “liberal” “journos rats” of mainstream are just buns of “resistance” psiaudo journalist which publising complete nonsense. I think that second is more truth.
Some may prefer to conflate the two, but when discussing who is right, there is an important distinction between “right wing” and “correct”.
Not that “left” is “right” either.
Although it is true that the most northerly point in Ireland is in “the south”. Logic only gets you so far 🙂
I think the truth is simpler, and sadder.
Biden is a frail old man. Before he was sworn in he hurt his ankle playing with his dog. A couple of days ago he could barely climb the stairs to Air Force One. I don’t believe he’s mentally senile yet, but he’s definitely slow.
His handlers are minimizing reporters real contact with him. He’s too unpredictable and his age shows. This situation will deteriorate over the course of his presidency. Four years is a long time for a guy his age and in his condition.
The article is right that “American politics is a hollow charade perpetuated by high-tech oligarchs, controlling the reanimated corpses of democratic institutions as a front for their own sinister interests.” We all know it. We can all see it. We desperately need antitrust action against the big three or four tech companies to break them up and diminish their power. That, for me, is the big story of the next few years.
To be fair, he has been called Slow Joe for at least 20 years.
Gates, Dorsey, Zukerberg, Bezos, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypses. Pestilence, War, Death, Famine. Sent as a punishment from God according to Ezekiel. You Secular Humanists, you shouldn’t have been out to destroy Christian society.
Would you recommend another Crusade to boost morale?
well yes and no. To give credit to the conspiracy theorists deep fake technology, which is convincing even when done by amateurs on youtube, could conceivably by undetectable when funded by a government with media ties, its a distinct possibility these days. Is it being used here , extremely unlikely and id say obviously no. but any where Biden appears alone giving a direct to camera address it absolutely could be.
But as with a lot of these things the conspiracist cant see the woods for the trees. The Biden administration has no need to go to these lengths because it already has a compliant media which buries stories where he forgets important details ( or maybe he’s just being taking political lesson from Nicola Sturgeon?). you dont need billion dollar AI green screen tech when a billion dollar media industry already exists to sustain and support the democrats.
“Joe Biden is not real”.
He does look a bit spooky, as if he has been built from redundant parts.
What gave it away?!
“fact checking of a respectable press”-bwahahahahahahah
haha, fact checkers, hahaha
Biden is just cover for the appointment and not election of Kamala Harris to the Presidency. Harris was the Deep State’s preferred candidate. However she was so unpopular with Californian voters that she withdrew her candidacy for the Democrat nomination for the Presidency before she was humiliated in her home state. When it appears reasonable to do so, Biden will step aside on health grounds and Harris will use her gender and ethnicity as cover to do the same psychopathic stuff that Obama did.
At that point you hold the president to account, just like you did for President Trump when he got things wrong. Oh wait…
If you were going to replace Joe Biden with a robot, surely you could create a better robot than the shambling mess we see every day.
If the robot were articulate and surefooted no one would believe it.
Yes – Like most conspiracy theories this one contains an element of truth. The Joe Biden as presented to the public is likely mostly an air-burshed, make up-ed, photoshopped sanitized fiction. But like one of those TV hosts with far too much make-p on its not really convincing and people smell it. Same with a lot of what gets presented. Its no wonder some ‘exotic’ explanations are sometimes offered in response to this growing sense of being fed over-worked ‘narratives’ all the time.
This wondrous piece of propaganda from the new york times is probably the best example of this kind of simulated air-brushed Biden:
https://www.amazon.com/York-Times-Biden-Kamala-Harris/dp/1547854448/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=new+york+times+kamala+harris&qid=1616433691&sr=8-1
Chilling looking cover. Such ham fisted propaganda. Shows how the NYT takes its readers for fools.
Is anyone who believes truly, madly, deeply in the neo-Marxist account of the sin of being white and sexually whole and normal entirely human?
“COVID is a hoax.” “Climate change is a hoax.” “Evolution is a hoax.” Is it any great wonder USians now think their president is a hoax?
Covid is a ‘Plandemic’, Climate Change is used to force the Great Reset, not to reverse warming as that is impossible, Evolution is dead – Sex, Gender, Race, are all just person made constructs, ask any Liberal/Leftie.
And the president is a puppet kept locked in a basement when he is not being displayed by his handlers.
At this point I’m certain the journalists and leftos that hyperventilate about Q-spiracies know that they are being trolled, but just love the attention so much, they keep taking the bait.
The vast majority of “believers” are in it for the entertainment and sheer enjoyment of seeing the tantrums being thrown from the pedestrian political conversationist, all the way up to the highest levels of government who erect barricades and mobilize thousands of troops to protect against “insurgencies” that never happen.
Nobody believes these conspiracies more than the establishment left media/political apparatus.
Suckers.
It is hard not to see the Biden presidency as a case of elder-abuse.
Biden is very real. To anyone with a relative suffering from dementia, the signs are unmistakeable. The shuffling walk, the vacant look, forgetting where he is going even while standing around a helicopter, halting communication, with missing and incorrect words. The quickness to anger and challenge others.
My 92 year old mother once angrily challenged me to arm wrestle with her out of the blue and we could not get her off the subject. No idea where it came from, she was never aggressive before and was so frail anyone could have snapped her like a twig. Like Biden, some days are worse than others. I believe that’s why Biden’s people often call a lid early in the day. It’s just not a good day. it’s a very hard, sad thing to experience for any family.
Really need to keep Q-Anon relevant huh?
WWG1WGA
Is that supposed to mean something?
If he is a bot, I guess they must still be working to fix the bug which caused him to fall down on aircraft steps
Methinks it far easier to fake a furry microphone than an animated arm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23YWXgEsUtA
I’ll go for the senile puppet leader. Bots don’t usually fall down steps of Air Force One, LOL. Real and joke conspiracies take off because they are fun for some people and give them a way to explain what they don’t understand. One day, a conspiracy will turn out to be correct and the paranoids will rejoice. After all, even paranoids can have enemies.
Thank you Mary for again exploding the myth that Biden is “a senile puppet ruler”. Only a QAnon-inspired lunatic could ignore Joe’s obvious mental and physical competencies.
True-not many can fall up stairs. Anyone can fall down them.
It occurs to me that If the president had any great talent that he would have got there earlier. I think he and Palossi got where they are today mostly by staying alive. With the exception of Buffet no CEO of that age could be justified.
All the conspiracy theories play into the hands of the likes of Russian and China who will delight in sowing the seeds of such ideas into the heads of those gullible enough to believe them. All very sad. 🙁
“Trump was notorious for the at best haphazard relation of his statements to reality. Over his presidency, the QAnon conspiracy flourished, rich in baroque beliefs and elaborate conspiracies.”
I see – Trump had a poor relationship with reality because QAnon, which he had nothing to do with personally, advocated various conspiracy theories.
Logic much?
Never mind – I think I know the answer, Mary.
Correlation is not causation, and you may be reversing cause and effect. I believe the argument is that QAnon flourished because of the way the Trump administration decoupled politics from reality in the minds of his base.
“No one would be arguing about Biden being a green-screen fake if the US President’s visibility to his electorate wasn’t mostly mediated via screens.”
Gosh, in the nineteenth century, presidents weren’t really visible to the electorate at all! Did people waste their time debating whether Grover Cleveland existed?
In the 19th century, you could actually go see a president. Maybe no in a personal meeting, unless you were a big cheese, but certainly at various public events.
It is surreal that those controlling Biden don’t want Harris to take over because she has a functioning mind of her own and wont give them the intoxicating power they are getting as puppet masters. It is so reminiscent of the movie Being There where the loveable simpleton played by peter Sellers in his last best film in the finale is to be made the presidential candidate. Unfortunately in the reality of this election/president behind the scenes are the evil machinations and massive corruption of the West and its culture by the CCP.
I have no idea if Biden is real or unreal. But I do know Keir Starmer is a CGI bot called Max Headroom…
What, then, is ‘Mary Harrington’?
Hello folks! It is i Joe Bidben, im here to inform everyone. Well not exactly everyone but only the loyal theorists in this sub, im here to debunk the speculations about my identity and existance as it is. Therefore i only want to most loyal folks that have spent so much time on getting the true answer of who i actually am to finally know the truth. Im not real. UwU