It was on October 20th when Russian asset MAGA podcaster/influencer Benny Johnson posted a video of him at a run-down gas station in a mixed neighborhood of Tampa, Florida that he allegedly rented out and spent his hard-earned rubles to cut the price of a gallon down to $1.84 for a few hours. The four-eyed propaganda-producing penis titled the video “I Built A Trump Gas Station And Charged $1.84 Per Gallon | What Happened Next is INSANE…” which was already a lie since he didn’t build the station. The still image above is a lie because the station doesn’t look anything like that. All Johnson and crew did was print a large vinyl placard that was held up by a low-rent version of “MAGA rapper” Forgiato Blow, as if the real Forgiato Blow isn’t low-rent enough himself.
Then there’s that $47.91 / 15.45 gallons = +/- $3.10 per gallon. This is one of at least two instances in the video in which Johnson showed footage of the pump display where the sale total works out to a 2024 price, which was just under the average in the state of Florida that week. What actually happened we have no idea and it is quite possible he was simply straight up lying to these people about how much they were paying, only showing their reactions before they found out how much it was. Or maybe he gave them cash for the difference afterward. It certainly was not however an editing error since this fucking idiot literally slapped that obnoxious “MEAN TWEETS AND CHEAP GAS” sticker on the pump a second before the screenshot above, while the display was ticking.
The flaws in the propaganda exercise aside, the nucleus of the idea wasn’t Johnson’s, it was the convicted felon president-elect’s. That week the Washington Post counted 19 times during the campaign that the fat fuck had said something along the lines of “When I left office… gasoline had reached $1.87 a gallon. We actually had many months where it was lower than that… But we hit $1.87, which was a perfect place, an absolutely beautiful number,” like he did at his stupid “Froot Loops and Folgers” press conference at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Surprise, that was also a lie because, per the Post, the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded was $1.87 in April of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that he abysmally mismanaged, when nobody was driving anywhere and oil producers were paying buyers to take it off their hands. It was up to $2.38 by January 20, 2021, which is both closer to where it is now at $3.15 and where Trump and his ballsucking cultists should probably be setting the goal post.
If they even want to come back to it. Benny’s certainly pointing his stiff little Johnson elsewhere.
🚨BOOM: Trump Appoints Kash Patel FBI Director, Internet Rejoices! Deep State On Suicide Watch, PANIC pic.twitter.com/esM655NAN5
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 1, 2024
Oh he’s thrilled alright, if the blatant homoeroticism of this lame-ass video didn’t make it obvious enough. So much winning, so much MAGA, so many libtards howling in pain and anger that the author of the children’s storybooks “The Plot Against The King” and “The Plot Against The King: 2,000 Mules,” will in all likelihood be leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation come early next year. A career federal prosecutor confirmed 92 to 5 by the US Senate in 2017 after the previous FBI Director was fired for not squashing a criminal investigation into Trump is about to be fired and a guy who was granted immunity for testimony against Trump two years ago nominated to replace him.
Yet ask the people who showed up to that gas station and (maybe) got the coronavirus price per gallon to fill-up their tanks if they know who the current director of the FBI is. Ask them if they know who Kash Patel is. Ask them if they know about “Crossfire Hurricane” or the “FD-1023” form on Hunter Biden or the “Unmasking” saga that was Patel’s original claim to fame when he was a staffer for now-Trump Media and Technology Group CEO Devin Nunes or any of the other fucking tedious storylines of the “Deep State” soap opera over the last eight years, too numerous to count.
They’d probably look at you like you were sharing an opinion of how the animated version of “The Curse of the Black Freighter” was edited into the “Ultimate Cut” of Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen. All they gave a shit about was the price of the gas they (may or may not have) paid.
"The objective here, obviously, is to reform the DOJ and the FBI and get it back to its mission of going after CRIMINALS," says Rep. @lawler4ny.
"That's what my hope is as the DOJ moves forward under Pam Bondi and the FBI under Kash Patel." pic.twitter.com/JnVpxMDSkt
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) December 1, 2024
We picked up this tweet this morning to note how the Trump team included the moment this fucking worm Lawler says he doesn’t “think the American people are interested in a revenge tour,” as in he’s trying to allay fears that Patel would use his position to bring unending federal law enforcement harassment to bear upon journalists, elected Democrats, prosecutors, and so on and so forth.
However what Lawler’s saying is truer than he realizes: The American people aren’t interested in watching a revenge tour, because they don’t care what happens to Stormy Daniels and Adam Schiff and Fani Willis and Alvin Bragg and all the others who may legitimately have to move to Canada.
“The American people voted for cheaper eggs,” writes @davidfrum. “They’re going to get only noise, conflict, and chaos”: https://t.co/aZjdWZvOQr
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) December 1, 2024
Dedicated anti-MAGAs are going to react to shit like this by aping a Trump voter saying “Yeah but eggs were too expensive” as if that isn’t EXACTLY the fucking point, minus the “Yeah, but.” It’s just that eggs were too expensive. This election proved far too many voters think in those terms – and sadly that far more of them simply wouldn’t show up for Kamala Harris than did vote for Trump for the first time because of the eggs or the gas or they feel like crime is worse than it was in 2019.
It’s painful to come to grips with this. The cold, austere truth is that the American people decided that they didn’t give a fuck that a twice-impeached, four-times-indicted rapist who stole classified documents from the government and incited a deadly riot at the United States Capitol because he couldn’t stand losing a free and fair election was worth returning to power because gas was a little cheaper during his term and especially so when the economy collapsed due to a pandemic he mishandled. He was too fucking incompetent to successfully cover up a payoff to a pornstar he boned for all of two minutes and got convicted of 34 felonies for that and yet your average low info voter is thrilled by some limp-wristed wiener simulating what a “businessman” can do for them.
All those hours thrilling to all the legal drama around Trump and Rudy Giuliani’s impending death in poverty from alcoholism, Matt Gaetz’s career ending, and a handful of currently-stalled state cases against his minions are going to have to suffice as our consolation prize. But that worked both ways.
Just under two years ago we slapped together a piece titled “Voters Really Don’t Care, Do U?” an utter evisceration of the steady diet of absolute horseshit the right wing media were feeding their audience at a time when they were pissed off and demoralized over the GOP’s weak midterm gains.
Every word of it still rings true, as does the impotence of Rick Scott whining that “Americans have got to get mad” over fucking Twitter and Facebook throttling the Hunter Biden laptop story in the days before the 2020 election. His constituents at that gas station in all likelihood cared about that just as much as they cared about Trump being found liable for rape by a federal judge.
Don’t expect that to change when FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi order the arrest of parents who get puberty blockers for their trans kids and investors who shorted $DJT. The howls of outrage from liberals will ring like sweet, heavenly music to the ears of the fanboys.
Thank you @realDonaldTrump 🇺🇸🫡 pic.twitter.com/EkaPDPcy27
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 22, 2024
You could however show up to that gas station in April and see how much they’re charging, keep a tab on whether the price is down to $1.84 a gallon yet. You could keep an eye on your electricity bill, see if it gets cut in half by the end of next year. You could keep an eye on your rent, your mortgage rate, your car insurance and so on, see if there’s been any significant reduction in those costs.
The tariffs are a wait and see thing. We’re still somewhat bearish on whether Trump’s actually going to have the balls to do it in any way that has significant and/or visible enough impact on the voters he suckered into MAGA or at least away from Dems. If he backs down, great. If he actually follows through on all the shit-talking about Canada, China, and Mexico then we’ll be your huckleberry.
For now however, let the $1.87 or $1.84 goalpost be the north star here. As painful as it will be to watch American democracy and the rule of law be further eroded, the forward path is paved with the economic pain the fat fuck promised to heal and the unrealistic goalposts he planted on it.
This sword is as double-edged as it is sharp.
POSTSCRIPT
Don’t take this as a full-blown surrender to fascism at the DC level. We’re still going to cover the day-to-day of all the bad shit that’s about to happen. It’s more of a recognition that all the things we called “base maintenance” when it was some stupid bullshit subpoena or hearing by Jim Jordan, James Comer, and the rest of those dumb fucking hicks don’t have as much electoral impact as you want them to when the shoe is on the other foot – with the important caveat that the forces against MAGA have indisputably collected more scalps than the forces of MAGA over the years. Hell MAGA has collected more MAGA scalps in terms of ruined political careers and lives (See Pence, Michael R, and McCarthy, Kevin O, for example). This is more of our heads-up that we’re simply not going to spend as much energy on all the abuses and scandal that are going to result from the Trump Reich’s resurgence as we would have in an earlier era. It’s not now and never will be “Mueller Time.”
Call it a curse of clarity that Republicans were right when they said “The American people are more concerned with their grocery bill than they are with President Trump stealing nuclear secrets from the White House and keeping them in a bathroom and the FBI had to collect them.”
Down this dark road ahead there in all likelihood will be PLENTY of opportunity to say “The Kash Patel FBI was so concerned with cavity searching David Frum on his front lawn in front of all his neighbors that they failed to prevent this massive cyberattack on AT&T” and the similar. But that’s months away. For now we just have to start working on our scorecards: Economic metrics, campaign promises, any and every check that fat orange fuck wrote and his ability to cash is dubious at best.
The bills are going to come due and National Zero will be there to collect. The rest of the left-aligned media will do very well to pledge to do the same instead of ripping their hair out over some downstream warnings issued by public health experts about fucking Robert F Kennedy Jr.
We’re probably stuck with him. Take that L and start working on some Ws.