What if you gave a protest and no one showed up?
That was the case of the “The Media is the Virus” protest outside the Washington Post. Despite being promoted by veterans of the People’s Convoy and other Q-adjacent groups, this anti-vaxxer demonstration drew zero participants to the nation’s capital.
This was supposedly a worldwide event to draw attention to “media lies” about the covid pandemic. The Q folks believe that media outlets coerced the public into taking a vaccine that will allow “globalists” to control them.
Back in the real world, I walked down K Street and saw a couple of cops in vehicles monitoring the empty sidewalk. I left to get coffee and then visit my favorite local used book store.
Not even the local chuds could be bothered with “The Media is the Virus” demonstration, for they have a much better grift with the
J6 prisoner movement. After a year of failure with the the People’s Convoy and the 1776 Restoration Movement (1776RM), the livestreamers that hung on discovered their cash cow: January 6th.
What’s worse than the insurrection? Profiting from it.
There’s a vast right-wing ecosystem making bank from the January 6 defendants held in the DC Jail.
At the top of the pyramid is, of course, Donald Trump who conned supporters out of $250 million while trying to overthrow the government. Following in his footsteps are operators like the Patriot Freedom Project, which recently tried to do a fundraiser in suburban Baltimore. J6 families have complained that they don’t know what these “patriots” are doing with the money they raise on behalf of their cause.
Scooping up the crumbs are the YouTube livesteamers broadcasting from the nightly prisoner vigil outside the DC Jail. They gather to say the pledge of allegiance, receive prisoner calls and chant the names of the J6 convicts with the liturgical response: “Hero!”
It’s a disgusting spectacle on a dead-end street next to a graveyard.
But evidently a profitable one, for they’ve been doing it for months, despite having fewer than a dozen participants.
For the livestreamers outside the DC Jail, it doesn’t matter if no one shows up. They’re interested in a different number. What counts to them are the online donations, which continue to roll in through YouTube and the Cash app, as Trump supporters pay to show their support for treason.
The grift goes on, grubby and eternal, a bottomless well of money from the deluded, available for anyone willing to mouth conspiracy theories and put their face on camera. There is no Republican Party. All that’s left is fleecing the rubes.
