I typed out “this is getting sad,” then deleted it. This got sad about the time conservatives started denying evolution. So the conservative battle with reality has been going on my entire life. But lately, it’s gotten much, much worse.
Witness T-Shirt Trutherism. You’re all familiar with the photo above. Some racist jerk shows up at a Romney rally wearing a t-shirt reading, “Put The White Back In The White House.” The shirt is festooned with a jaunty Romney-Ryan sticker, lest you mistake him for an Obama supporter. Still, that doesn’t keep the right from concluding that Mr. Skinhead here is a backer of that secret Muslim terr’ist.
I can pretty much guarantee that this man photographed at a Romney rally in Lancaster, Ohio, is not in fact a Republican, but rather is a plant sent out by the Democrats as a dirty trick.
- Clue #1: Wearing a “Romney/Ryan” sticker on the back of his T-shirt. Nobody does this. Nobody.
- Clue #2: It’s kind of chilly in Ohio this time of year, and the guy’s wearing only a T-shirt, while those around him are wearing coats.
My guess is that this guy also wore a coat when he entered the rally, then stationed himself toward the back of the crowd (in front of the riser where the press photographers are stationed) and then removed his coat to expose the T-shirt, with the explicit purpose of having it photographed.
… aaanndd, Clue #3: No name? A press photographer is going to take a picture like this and make no effort to ID the guy? Nuh-uh.
So Robert Stacy McCain can “pretty much guarantee” that the guy is a plant, because reasons. And not very good reasons. After a largely fact-free process of rationalization, he concludes it’s all a grand conspiracy — because it’s always a grand conspiracy.
Look, let’s apply Occam’s razor here. Which is the simpler and more elegant explanation?
- Democrats, desperate to discredit MItt Romney by smearing his supporters, send one guy to one rally in Ohio and manage to get a Reuters photographer to catch him on camera. Luckily, no one at this rally notices the incredibly offensive t-shirt in their midst and throws him out — which they obviously would do because there isn’t a single racist in the entire Republican Party.
- Mitt Romney’s campaign of dog whistle racism attracted a dog.
And there we go. There is no fact that can’t be dismissed with an insane conspiracy theory. People like to say that Mitt Romney has ushered in the dawn of post-truth politics, but the fact is that they’ve been working toward this for a while. The Republican Party has gone insane.
