It’s the holiday season, and with all due respect to any relatives who may have colorful opinions on vaccination requirements, critical race theory, and the Rittenhouse decision, Mike Lindell is without a doubt the craziest uncle of 2021.
For over a year, the pillow tycoon has been asserting vehemently that the 2020 election was rigged, that he can prove it, and that it won’t be long until everyone sees the truth and Donald Trump is re-elected president of the United States. Lindell just said that Trump would return to office on Thanksgiving. He has advertised a 96-hour holiday weekend livestream in which he would dissect “the historic United States Supreme Court lawsuit on the 2020 election,” which he claims will reinstall Trump in the White House.
Lindell is a buffoon who is easily mocked. So is the notion that there is any legal road for Trump, who lost by a wide majority to President Biden, to be returned as president. But just because something is simple to parody does not imply it should be dismissed.
Since January, the MAGA movement has been propagating the notion that Trump will be re-elected. According to a Politico/Morning Consult survey released in June, 29 percent of Republicans predict this will happen before the end of the year. According to a YouGov survey taken in early November, 28 percent of Republicans say Trump will be back in office by the end of the year, either “very likely” or “somewhat likely.”
In other words, millions upon millions upon millions of individuals, like Lindell, have lost contact with reality to genuinely alarming levels. Many of them are determined to remain in orbit, constantly establishing and resetting dates on which Trump will undoubtedly return to power this time. It might be difficult to keep track of all of these deadlines, so here’s a guide to one of the year’s most bizarre conspiracy-theory rabbit holes, which seems to have no bottom.
Jan. 20: QAnon is founded on the premise that the world is ruled by a conspiracy of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, and that Trump, as president, would bring these individuals to justice. The fact that he was defeated by Biden in November hastened the timing for this to occur, and after the election results were verified on Jan. 6, conspiracy theorists determined he would do it on Biden’s inauguration day, while also announcing a hidden plan to stay in office. This did not occur. QAnon members were perplexed, but not discouraged. In fact, they were more unafraid than anybody imagined conceivable.
Yes, Biden was inaugurated on January 20. What’s the big deal? According to conspiracy theorists, the true Inauguration Day is March 4, and Trump will be sworn in for his second term on that day in 2021.
The thesis was based on the premise that in 1871, Congress transformed the government into a business, and thus every president since then has been illegitimate. Prior until 1933, when the 20th Amendment was written, March 4 was Inauguration Day, and it was on this day that Trump would be inaugurated as the 19th president, or the first rightful successor to Ulysses S. Grant. (Don’t get too caught up in the reasoning here. It’s not meant to make sense.)
The hypothesis gained traction to the point that hashtags like #march4th and #19thpresident began to circulate on social media. The Capitol Police even issued a warning about a “potential conspiracy to breach the Capitol by an identified militia organization” on the day, prompting the House of Representatives to postpone its planned session.
March 20: Nothing occurred on March 4th. What about the 20th of March? Isn’t it practically the same thing? When you think about it, the only things that distinguish the two dates are things like time and arithmetic, both of which are pushed on us by liberal scientists. Can we simply assume he’ll return on the 20th?
There were some QAnon members who did assert this, referencing the Presidential Enhancement Act. The legislation, which was passed into law in 2020, is intended to facilitate the transfer of power by, among other things, giving specific assistance to the president-staff elect’s for 60 days following the inauguration. Conspiracy theorists understood this to suggest that Trump would maintain control of the military for 60 days after his inauguration, and that the actual transfer of power would not occur until March 20.
Met Ken, who informed me that Trump is still in command of the military, and Trump will be inaugurated again on March 20. (Biden is acting as president as a ruse while the Pope and others are rounded up.) pic.twitter.com/uau56ZqwSx
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) February 28, 2021
Okay, so March was a rough month for conspiracy believers. It was time to take a step back and figure out when Trump would return to power. Lindell declared on March 29 that it will take place in August, citing all of the proof of electoral fraud that he planned to present before the Supreme Court.
Mike Lindell declares that as a result of voter fraud lawsuit he’ll soon be filing, “Donald Trump will be back in office in August.” pic.twitter.com/5Ewtd9SZ1O
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) March 29, 2021
Lindell wasn’t the only one. As Maggie Haberman of The New York Times wrote in June, Trump has been telling individuals that he expected to be back in the White House by August.
Lindell set a date for the wedding in July. “By the morning of Aug. 13 it’ll be the talk of the world, going, ‘Hurry up! Let’s get this election pulled down. Let’s right the right. Let’s get these communists out, you know, that have taken over,’” he told right-wing conspiracy theorist Bannon Howse.
Nov. 25: Nothing occurred in August, either, which is OK. Lindell shortly after tagged Thanksgiving as the new day Trump will return to office, based on his promise to present his “historic” election fraud lawsuit to the Supreme Court earlier this week, which would be signed by state attorneys general. In September, he said, “I talked to all the lawyers today,” he said in September. “One hundred percent we are getting this before the Supreme Court before Thanksgiving. That is locked in stone, everybody.”
This did not occur.
Lindell explained to Steve Bannon why, claiming that the attorneys general he claims to have talked with “have so much going on right now that last Friday they gave them until today to fight these mandates where kids had to take the vaccine.” … OK. There are also the attorneys general who are refusing to sign on to the complaint and, according to Lindell, “don’t want to help save our country.”
“You know a lot of things are happening out there that are very suspicious,” he added.
Lindell also criticized Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, whom he accused of pressuring attorneys general not to sign the lawsuit during his webcast on Monday. “How dare the RNC try and stop this case from getting to the Supreme Court,” he raged. “Shame on you, RNC! You are worse than Fox now! You can’t tell me why Ronna McDaniel, the head of the RNC, made a statement saying Biden won three days before this Supreme Court complaint was supposed to go to the Supreme Court.”
Lindell even filed a lawsuit alleging that all of these traitors hindered him from submitting in time for Thanksgiving. It’s 82 pages lengthy, full of debunked conspiracy theories, and the complainant is listed as “State of [Insert Your State Here].” Lindell has said that the lawsuit is so strong that the Supreme Court will decide unanimously in favor of [Insert Your State Here], resulting in Trump’s re-election.
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