The best way to picture the ReAwaken America Tour is as a sort of flat-Earth conference for political junkies. The second-best way is to get one of those Ronco inside-the-shell egg scramblers, attach it to your skull, adjust the setting to “Don Jr.,” and commence pureeing your brain until Mike Flynn, Roger Stone, and Mike Lindell appear in your mind’s eye, screaming bilious nonsense about the “stolen” 2020 election.
But however you want to picture it (one totally legitimate option is “not at all”), it’s likely coming to a venue near you, whether you want it to or not. But that doesn’t mean you have to stand for it. Indeed, one upstate New York city is pushing back—hard.
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle:
A scheduled appearance in Rochester by a caravan of far-right and conspiracist speakers, including Gen. Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, has drawn cries of protest and calls for cancellation from community leaders.
The ReAwaken America tour has a scheduled stop at the Main Street Armory on Aug. 12 and 13. According to a video on its website, the lengthy speakers list is drawn from "people that are actually at the tip of the spear, working directly with President Trump on a day-to-day basis to save this nation."
In case you were wondering, “working directly with President Trump on a day-to-day basis to save this nation” is code for “destabilizing the legitimate government of the United States and installing a fascist autocracy like in 1930s Germany, only this time with (nearly) unlimited Egg McMuffins.”
Among them: Flynn and Stone, who both received pardons from Trump related to Russian election interference; Stella Immanuel and Simone Gold, vaccine-disputing doctors who previously have warned of disease-causing alien DNA (Immanuel) and entered the U.S. Capitol building during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection (Gold); and Scott McKay and Gene Ho, men with clear links to the nebulous QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely posits a global child molestation and sacrifice ring led by prominent Democratic politicians.
If you’re unfamiliar with the tour: Congratulations! Your time has been much better spent than mine. And I don’t even know what you’ve been doing with your time. But unless the answer is “building an industrial elf abattoir for Keebler,” you win!
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I’ve stumbled upon this tour many times while researching my doctoral thesis on Mike Lindell, and it is—in a word—bonkers. Its speakers have included a kooky cabal of 2020 election truthers, anti-vaxxers, QAnoners, and other assorted weirdos—weirdos like Immanuel, the demon sperm doctor whom Donald Trump, the actual president of the United States at the time, retweeted to his millions of witless followers.
However, in a heartening development that suggests not everyone on the planet has lost their fucking minds, pushback from many of Rochester’s community leaders has been fierce.
“This tour features a who’s who of far-right religious extremists, Trump aides, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and other reckless figures,” wrote Monroe County Legislature President Sabrina Lamar in an open letter. “At every stop along the way, this nationalist tour has left in its wake a trail of dangerous disinformation that can lead to increased bigotry, hate, and, at its most extreme, violence.”
Another letter, from Rochester’s community, business, and faith leaders, noted that the event was scheduled for the five-year anniversary of the deadly “Unite the Right” Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which actually succeeded in uniting much of the country against the right—and its slovenly suzerain, Donald Trump. A third letter, from the state Legislature’s Democratic caucus, cited the recent shooting in Buffalo, which was inspired in part by Republicans’ racist “great replacement theory.”
But aside from potentially creating unrest, the tour has been the exclusive source for information about the satanic portal that appeared above the White House when President Joe Biden moved in—the very same portal that can now only be closed through prayer.
No, really. As in: They’re really saying this shit.
No word—yet—on where the satanic portal goes, what it’s for, or why Satan would build it out in the open above one of the most photographed buildings in the world, instead of, say, in a Long John Silver’s bathroom stall in Des Moines. But Roger Stone never lies—and if he does, he gets pardoned for it anyway.
There’s also no word yet on whether the Reawaken America Tour will come to Rochester.
So keep your eyes peeled, folks—and if this caravan of carnies comes anywhere near your town, be prepared to fight back, fight early, and fight hard.
It’s only your country at stake, after all. No biggie.
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