The Loudoun County MAGA Outrage Machine has been cranked up again. This time it’s a close replay of the bogus scandal of 2021, when liberals in a Facebook group said hurtful things about local neo-fascists.
Then it was a private anti-racist parents’ group. (It’s rural Virginia, where anti-racism is controversial.) At least one person in the group suggested illegal harassment of a political adversary. Nobody actually did anything. At any rate, this was inflated into a group conspiracy that rendered everyone in the group guilty, of something. Enough of a fuss was raised to prompt an investigation by our local Trumpy sheriff, one Mike Chapman. The investigation found nothing illegal.
Now there is, or was, another Facebook group called Loudoun Love Warriors. I was offended to not be invited to join. After all, I was one of the original hippies, and there’s no love like hippie love. I’ve been called a Gangster of Love.
A general point about online hygiene that people in the group evidently failed to learn from the 2021 affair – don’t write anything online that you are not comfortable being circulated to the whole wide world.
The scandal is being ginned up by the local MAGA-media tag team of Neal Minnock of WJLA (a Sinclair fake news station) and the Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak. Once again, the Facebook group had been infiltrated and its discussions reported to the enemy. Apparently, the county sheriff’s office was monitoring the group chats, instead of chasing moonshiners through the hills. Notwithstanding the utter lack of evidence of any actual wrongdoing, unless talking smack about one’s political opponents is a crime, our MAGA Members of Congress and governor have weighed in.
The group babble aside, nobody in the group seems to have actually done anything. Our intrepid reporter proposes some testimony by local MAGA activists, absent any proof, that maybe somebody’s employer was approached.
2023 is an election year for local offices in Virginia. In the first version of its story-telling, WJLA’s Minnock posted pictures of a bevy of local, elected Democratic office-holders, on the grounds that some people associated with them were in the group.
Do I have to repeat no evidence has been offered to support the accusation that anybody actually did anything besides shitpost?
Here is Prosecutor’s Exhibit A, part of an LLW Enemies List:
Oh, the humanity! The Daily Wire article repeats the antisemitic dog-whistle, “Soros-backed prosecutor.” The language in the story is telling in other respects. A private Facebook group is a “secret clique.” They are said to plot to shield politicians from the fallout from a “transgender rape.”
Of course, there is no such thing. There is rape, but there is no black rape, white rape, gay rape, or Armenian rape. Anyone, any nationality, any gender, can commit sexual assault. What would the reaction be if a crime was described as “a case of Negro rape”? Of course, you can’t say that now, but you can say “transgender rape.” That’s why I say transgender is the new black.
The article is replete with factual errors and hyperbolic paraphrases of cherry-picked parts of the group’s discussions. For instance, a group member is quoted as saying “we can and will silence the opposition.” If one troubles to take in the context, it is clear that ‘silence’ means nothing more than overwhelm the opposition by legal political mobilization. The shit list in the picture is described as a “dossier.” Some dossier. I hope the CIA is taking notes on how to collect intelligence. Loudoun County Public Schools are described as embracing a “radical transgender agenda.”
The racist undercurrent in the MAGA tale is made obvious by the included picture below. On the right is a hunky black group member with a surly look on his face, a local rapper, juxtaposed to the name of Loudoun’s leading local Democratic office-holder, Phyllis Randall. Of course, Randall had nothing to do with the group. A local Democratic activist named in the story had left the group prior to any sketchy dialog.
If there was any serious threat to anybody, it would be elementary procedure for the sheriff’s office to lurk in the group rather than leak any information, the better to catch somebody committing a crime. Of course they did no such thing. Perhaps Sheriff Mike didn’t want to be sent on another wild goose chase. Or maybe he is waiting for the state attorney-general to swoop in again with another bogus investigation.
Truth be told, LCPS are highly rated and should continue to be, unless these loons are allowed to take over the school board this year. Don’t let them! It has happened in other places. You can do your bit by checking out the Loudoun Democratic Committee endorsees for school board and supporting their campaigns.
To make things easy, here is a list with links to their donation pages:
Harris Mahedavi (dude, get your ActBlue page up!)
The MAGA tactic here is a replay of 2021. Raise a fuss in the run-up to an election, hoping to trigger an official investigation. The investigation does not get resolved until after the voting, but in the meantime, a cloud hangs over the targeted Democratic incumbents running for office.
I could add that nothing said in the group is any worse than public statements by local and national MAGA luminaries, including our unlamented 45th president. Meanwhile, Trump has announced he would let the miscreants of January 6th off the hook. People who actually committed violent crimes, in public. But that hardly compares to somebody talking shit in a private conversation.
Now I HEAR YOU….
Gangster of Love is some moniker!