I know everyone says it’s best to just stick to “said” as a dialogue tag bc it disappears and that’s true and I mostly do but I want to take a moment for my all-time favorite dialogue tag, “lied.” Absolutely nothing hits like “‘I’m here to help,’ he lied.” NOTHING.
this shouldnt be the funniest thing in the world to me but here we are
So, I hate to be That Guy, but this is legit terrifying.
I can’t claim any particular expertise in loony tunes fascist beliefs, but I follow a number of people who are experts. To grossly oversimplify, “mutant” is fasc-speak shorthand for non-humans who pass as humans. This is the part of the RW ecosystem that literally believes there are humanoid reptiles who wear human costumes to pass among the general population.
Like so much fascist belief, when you write it out that way, it just looks silly. The mythos is deliberately constructed to make it as hard as possible for “normies” to take it seriously. (See Sartre’s quote about debating fascists.)
The point is not belief or non-belief in reptile people. The point is that the leader of a fascist movement is telling his followers that they’re correct, there are non-humans trying to subjugate us by prosecuting me. What immediately follows is that it’s okay to kill them. They are, after all, not human. This group of mutants includes trans people, queers, Jews, Muslims, and Democrats.
He’s calling for violence. He’s just doing it in a way that everyone who isn’t on board already can’t hear.
Put another way, he’s playing with matches in a fireworks factory, and there are a lot of people who should know better who are helping him do it.
Other explanations I’ve seen:
Really wish the journalists reporting this bothered to do the actual research to understand what he’s saying instead of shrugging it off as “crazy talk”.
ALT
