“It never got weird enough for me,” says Hunter S. Thompson — or, rather, Bill Murray as Hunter S. Thompson in 1980’s kinda sorta Thompson biopic, Where the Buffalo Roam.  “I moved to the country when the boat got too crowded. Then I learned that President Nixon had been eaten by white cannibals on an island near Tijuana for no good reason at all.”

Thompson died by his own hand in 2005, no longer at the top of his gonzo game but still the reigning champion of American non-fiction (very loosely construed) and psychoactive substance ingestion (perhaps not quite as loosely construed).

I woke up this morning thinking about Thompson, wondering if Election 2024 might just possibly have changed his mind on how weird it can get.

More than 50 years ago, Thompson manufactured, and managed with some success to sell, a rumor that Democratic presidential contender Ed Muskie’s erratic public behavior stemmed from a crippling addiction to a psychedelic, ibogaine.

Muskie’s public meltdowns — and, for that matter, the candidacy-ending revelation of1972 Democratic vice-presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton’s  history of shock treatment — seem downright tame by today’s standards, and today’s politicians and celebrities don’t need Thompson’s assistance on the weirdness front.

On September 10, former and possibly future president Donald Trump indignantly informed the American public, on live television, that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are “eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there” (actual body count so far, one goose … maybe).

Then Taylor Swift, just maybe the most popular person in the world, endorsed Trump’s opponent, vice-president Kamala Harris, dubbing herself (in response to previous weirdness from Trump’s running mate, faux-hillbilly venture capitalist and US Senator JD Vance) a “childless cat lady.”

But wait! There’s more! The richest man in the world (Trump-supporting Elon Musk) then publicly offered to help Swift ditch the “childless” part. You can fill in the details as to how that might happen yourself, but you might not want to on a full stomach.

The “political junkie” side of me kind of wants to see “serious” policy discussions and debates on “the issues,” not a never-ending episode of The Jerry Springer Show with the Kardashian family and Ed Muskie’s ibogaine stash as the guests.

The “voracious reader of history” in me recalls a presidential election  in which dueling polemicists described John Adams’s “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman,” and called Thomas Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.” Perhaps the venom, and the weirdness, aren’t nearly so new as they feel.

My internal “Hunter S. Thompson fan” voice says “hey, bring on the ibogaine and let’s see what happens.”

Thompson possessed strongly held convictions and tried his hardest to call forth “the better angels of our nature.” He didn’t ACTUALLY consider elections inherently devoid of practical value outside their entertainment potential.

But 2024 just might have convinced him.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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In early September, the US Department of Justice announced criminal charges against two employees of RT (formerly Russia Today), alleging that the state media outlet “orchestrated a massive scheme to influence the American public by secretly planting and financing a content creation company on U.S. soil.”

Separately, DOJ announced its theft (“seizure”) of 32 Internet domains supposedly used to “covertly spread Russian government propaganda with the aim of reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election. ”

The victims, per US Attorney Damian Williams? “[T]he American people, who received Russian messaging without knowing it.”

US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland weighed in as well: “The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts.”

Oh, really?

Garland, once nominated to serve on the US Supreme Court, surely knows better. There is no “unless the ideas originate with parties I happen to dislike, or include content I disagree with” exception to the First Amendment’s free speech and free press guarantees.

DOJ doesn’t even enjoy the fig leaf of an “in extremis” excuse, such as a state of war existing between the US and Russia or an imminent threat of attack which the indictments and domain thefts might have thwarted.

Does the Russian regime “meddle” in US elections? Of course it does. All powerful regimes meddle in other countries’ elections.

The US regime has a long record of doing so, up to and including sponsoring coup attempts when other countries’ elections don’t go its preferred way.

Even smaller regimes get in on the election meddling game. The Israeli regime, acting through unregistered foreign agents, has openly and unashamedly meddled in US elections for decades, and to the tune of more than $100 million this year alone.

It’s not the Russian regime that Merrick Garland and friends mistrust. It’s you, the American voter.

Part of that mistrust may be simple paternalism: You’re too naive, perhaps too stupid, to sort matters out for yourself. If anyone not aligned with Merrick Garland and friends is permitted to talk to you, they’ll fill your head with nonsense and you’ll vote “the wrong way” in November.

Another part of it is raw, undalderated fear: If you hear things that might be true but that don’t line up with the goals, purposes, and desires of the US regime, you might make up your mind for yourself instead of just doing as you’re told.

The “Russian election interference” narrative is now into its third consecutive presidential election cycle. It slices! It dices! It juliennes!

It was Hillary Clinton’s excuse for running a poor campaign in 2016.

It was the mainstream media’s excuse for burying disclosures from Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020.

This year it provides cover for the bipartisan US military misadventure in Ukraine.

Garland and Co. fear your opinion … if it’s formed without censorship on their part.

Ask yourself why.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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“The transgender thing is incredible,” said former president Donald Trump in late August, addressing the Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warriors” summit in late Washington.  “[Y]our kid goes to school, and he comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child.”

Wait … what? That’s not true.  That’s not even close to true. The next time a kid comes home from school with different genitalia courtesy of government medical “generosity” at taxpayer expense, with or without express written parental consent, will be the first time.

But Trump said it, and some people no doubt believe it — because Trump said it.

Trump, the demagogue, is a midwife, always attempting to deliver the next big moral panic (“widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society”).

The members of every audience he addresses, directly or indirectly, are the prospective mothers.

Their credulity is the birth canal.

Fear is the bouncing baby [insert random gender identity here].

Fear is also the single most effective tool in a politician’s arsenal.

Fearful people are more likely to support politicians who pose as their savior — even if their fears are completely unfounded, and even if those politicians were the ones who scared them in the first place.

Where you find fear, you’re likely to find lies as well. Why? Because lying to you is easier for a politician than discovering you’ve been lied to is for you.

Most people want to believe what they’re told, especially by those who claim to support and defend their interests.

Many of those people, once lied to, close their minds to the possibility that they HAVE been lied to, no matter the actual evidence.

And both groups, are, in different measure, more likely to support the politician who lied to them … because they’re afraid, and believe that politician can and will “save” them.

No, Donald Trump isn’t the only demagogue out there. In fact, he’s not the only demagogue in this particular presidential race. Or, probably, in whatever room he happens to occupy at the moment.

He is, however, the best EXAMPLE of a demagogue currently on offer because his fear-inspiring lies are so over the top, so hare-brained, and so easily disproven that they don’t require reams of fine print analysis to rebut. Only the naive and credulous believe them for even a moment, and only the MOST naive and credulous believe them for more than a few minutes.

Unfortunately, he tells so many whoppers that an enthusiastic, if small, constituency exists for each one. He’s building a Coalition of the Afraid.

Oh, for emergency contraception against moral panic.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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