Once upon a time, a candidate who claimed her ideological opponents were harvesting baby parts as part of a sprawling worldwide satanic conspiracy would have been laughed out of the room—but no longer. In 2020, Kristina Karamo, who’s currently running for Michigan secretary of state with the backing of an actual former U.S. president (come on, you know which one), claimed just that. Because if you’re following the recipe for 1930s-style German fascism, you simply can’t leave out the blood libel, now can you?
Now, even if you don’t know who Karamo is, you likely do remember Melissa Carone, the MAGA “election fraud” witness who was so embarrassing that lifelong ethanol enthusiast Rudy Giuliani had to shush her during one of his infamous fake hearings. She’s part of this story, too. As is Satan. And the newly Brundlefly’d MAGA and QAnon movements. In other words, we’ve got a heapin’ helpin’ of spicy right-wing stew for you—except instead of beef or Beyond Meat, you get yards and yards of chewy tripe.
A bon appetit to you, courtesy of VICE:
VICE News obtained an audio recording of Karamo’s appearance on a QAnon podcast called Redpill News just weeks after the 2020 election, where she said that abortion is “child sacrifice” and boosted false claims that the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were “Antifa posing as Trump supporters.”
“If you go to the Satanic temple website, they have an entire five-minute video explaining why abortion is a religious ritual,” Karamo said in the interview, which also featured Rudy Giuliani associate Melissa Carone. “They literally say that it is a sacrifice, it is a religious ritual for them to have an abortion, it is sick. And as you mentioned, the baby body parts… they sell the organs. There’s a ton of money involved in freshly harvested organs. There’s so much evidence out there.”
As VICE points out, one of QAnon’s core beliefs is that the “global elite” abduct and murder children in order to harvest adrenochrome, a chemical that these weirdos apparently think can make people live longer. Of course, just because one marginal group—that happens to worship a different imaginary deity than the majority—calls abortion a “ritual,” that doesn’t mean that’s what it is. (That said, I suspect the Satanic Temple is being somewhat tongue-in-cheek in most of what they do and say.)
It’s no surprise that Karamo, who wants to oversee Michigan’s elections as its next secretary of state, is an election denier in good standing!
Karamo became a minor star in the GOP after she claimed to have witnessed voter fraud during the 2020 election while acting as a poll challenger in Detroit. Her affidavit was used as part of a lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that challenged the election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The lawsuit was thrown out by the Supreme Court in December 2020.
Of course, Karamo has denied ever supporting QAnon conspiracy theories, even though she appeared at a major QAnon conference in Las Vegas last October. VICE’s review of her online posts and talk show appearances also uncovered a history of homophobic, transphobic, and Christian nationalist statements. And in 2018, she posted a since-deleted video in which she said, “I'm seeing drag kids, oh, genderfluid kids, and ’It's nothing wrong with being trans or giving kids hormone blockers.’ I mean, this is straight demonic. It makes absolutely no sense.” In the same video, she claimed, “I know a lot of people who criticize people who are struggling with same-sex attraction [...] you fornicating so you're, you're doing your awful engagement, sexual sin. It's all bad.” She also falsely claimed that same-sex couples can’t “love and care for a child.” And in yet another 2018 post on her website, she said, “[I have] such strong feeling towards secular progressives, that I’ve in my heart wished them harm and/or misfortune.”
Okay then!
RELATED: Michigan's Republican secretary of state nominee warns demon possession is sexually transmitted
One is tempted to say these MAGAs are wolves in sheep’s clothing—or maybe just Trumpies in Glenn Youngkin’s sweater vest—but are they even trying to hide their extremism anymore? Between Karamo and fellow Great Lakes State gubernatorial candidate and conspiracy theorist Tudor Dixon, it sure doesn’t look that way.
Michiganders, if you want an electoral system that’s basically broken from the get-go, by all means, vote for Karamo. But if sanity and preserving democracy are more your speed, a vote for the Democrat, Jocelyn Benson—and, indeed, every Democrat on the ballot, as well as a Yes vote on the democracy-saving Prop 2—would go a long way toward saving this country’s soul from, you know, the real Satan.
RELATED: Voters in Michigan, you can protect democracy with a Yes vote on Prop 2
We’re deep in the homestretch before the all-important midterm elections, but it’s not too late to Get Out the Vote or rush a donation to a worthy Democratic candidate of your choice. Let’s do this, people!
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.