I know there's an entire cottage industry on the Left dedicated to nothing other than giving unnecessary publicity to the conspiratorial nonsense that comes from the mind of Alex Jones and the dark internet hallways of QAnon. Part of it is obviously for the sheer entertainment value – I mean, the water turning frogs gay is just comedic gold. But there's also a strategic political advantage to it as well. By publicizing the insanity and labeling it right-wing, there is an intended correlation that happens in the minds of the average citizen when they hear the same label attributed to mainstream conservatives.
There is a vast chasm that exists ideologically, psychologically, and politically between Ron DeSantis and Alex Jones, but progressives work diligently to narrow that gap in the minds of voters.
What's remarkable about that is that the Left has an entire mainstream network dedicated to the propagation of the same brand of numbskullery that they freely endorse.
Mainstream Republicans don't promote gay frogs or outrageous Sandy Hook lies. But mainstream Democrats are wholeheartedly promoting this:
Dave Rubin has called MSNBC a televised mental institution, and this segment is but a drop in the ocean of similar battiness that emerges nightly from Joy Reid, Lawrence O'Donnell, Al Sharpton, Joe Scarborough, and Chris Hayes.
There was a time that the Left attempted to pass Hayes off as a wonkish intellectual. That charade is a distant memory as the prime-time host melodramatically bellows out the same kooky chorus:
The tragedy here is that on the Left, they don't keep it confined to just a network of hired performers and intentionally recruited loons. Unlike QAnon, whose lies are relegated to the fringe of right-wing politics, these progressive absurdities are welcomed into mainstream Democrat party events and dominate the reckless rhetoric of even their most esteemed voices.
At a recent get-out-the-vote rally in Arizona, former president Barack Obama tried to spook the audience by warning "democracy as we know it" may disappear if voters don't choose his party in the midterms.
"If you've got election deniers serving as your governor, as your senator, as your secretary of state, as your attorney general, then democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona," Obama said at a rally in Phoenix. "That's not an exaggeration. That is a fact."
Just take a step back from the passions of politics for a second and consider how dumb that is to say. That the results in a single state, during a traditionally low-turnout congressional midterm election, will determine whether future generations nationwide will have the opportunity to cast a ballot of their own. Hyperbolic doesn't even begin to describe it.
Though it's probably an unproductive use of time, pause long enough to parse this mainstream Democrat Party appeal and recognize what, if they really believed what they're peddling, it actually would mean.
Progressives are telling all Americans that they have no choice in this election. They simply must vote for Democrats. Even if the voter doesn't like what Democrats have done with the economy, with crime, with social issues, with energy, or any other issue, they simply must still vote for Democrats.
That isn't telling voters that democracy hangs in the balance. It's telling them that democracy is already gone and therefore they only have one "choice." It's breathtakingly ignorant and nonsensical rhetoric, completely and utterly on par with gay frogs.
Except on the Left, it comes with an amplification that Alex Jones and QAnon only dream about.
Look, while the biannual Chicken Little routine from desperate, power-hungry pols has worn me down to the point of utter disinterest in their manufactured hysteria, I get that "democracy is falling" blather is the order of the day. So, for those who still allow themselves to be exercised by the panicked antics, just a friendly tip for today's election: HOW you vote doesn't determine your commitment to democracy, THAT you vote does.
