National security officials are used to shaking off absurd conspiracy theories, but the latest rumor that’s gripped MAGA world just hits different.

The claims by Fox News and far-right influencers that pop star Taylor Swift is part of a Pentagon “psychological operation” to get President Joe Biden reelected, and somehow rig the Super Bowl to benefit Kansas City Chiefs tight end (and Swift’s boyfriend) Travis Kelce, has been met with forehead slaps in the national security world.

“The absurdity of it all boggles the mind,” said one senior administration official, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. “It feels like one of those ‘tell me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist, without telling me you are a MAGA conspiracy theorist’ memes.”

  • Eddie Trax@dmv.social
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    8 months ago

    MAGA crowd, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

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    8 months ago

    These people just can’t handle anything, just anything, not being exactly as they like it, and if it isn’t, it has to be some sort of conspiracy.

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      8 months ago

      That’s my dad. Trump is a god to him, and anything negative said about him is a liberal plot to stop him from his patriotic duty. The cognitive dissonance that man shows is baffling!

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        8 months ago

        My stepfather is like that. I even tried to use his own logic to help him see most of these conspiracies are dumb; “you said yourself that the gov’t is incompetent. So how can they pull off a conspiracy at this scale if they can’t run the country?” - stuff like that.

        It doesn’t matter, he’s fully drank the Kool-Aid, so I just keep him at arm’s distance now.

        • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Rules of fascism

          #3: “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

          #4: Disagreement is treason.

          #8: The enemy is both strong and weak.

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        8 months ago

        Thank goodness my Dad never went down that path, but honestly if he did I might just punch him straight in the face.

          • JimmyBigSausage@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            I had to block my dad’s emails for awhile. I just couldn’t believe they just kept coming and coming. And while trying to be a good son and available should he need me, I just had to risk going no contact for awhile. Now I basically gray rock everything. 🫤

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                8 months ago

                “Gray rocking, or the grey rock method, is a tactic people may use to deal with abusive or manipulative behavior. It involves becoming as uninteresting and unengaged as possible so that the other person loses interest.

                Some people anecdotally report that it reduces conflict and abuse.”

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      Guys the best quarterback in the league made it to the superbowl again, it’s a conspiracy against us. No other way to explain this.

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        8 months ago

        Also some of them say, “the 49ers need to win to save the country”…but like the big conspiracy is that Taylor is supposed to make a half-time endorsement of Joe Biden… So like, how would either team eventually winning the game have any impact on the half-time show?

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      8 months ago

      And now that there’s a denial, from a “senior administration official,” it’s proof-positive of a vast conspiracy. “Why would they deny something that’s not real?”

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      8 months ago

      At this point it almost seems like more than that. It’s like they need to manufacture some outrage to keep everyone angry about something.

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    8 months ago

    Remember, a lot of young conservative men were convinced Taylor Swift was a white nationalist who posted with them on 4chan.

    When she started telling people to go vote (she didnt even say for a specific party, but just telling people to vote is enough to convince them you’re a democrat) they took that as Taylor Swift betraying them.

    So much of what conservatives engage with is completely made up and exists only inside their own heads.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      These are some of the same rocket surgeons that believe(d) that Hillary was using a pizza parlor with no basement to run an international pedo ring out of the basement of the pizza parlor.

      Not really known for their application of reason and logic.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      I mean, those same young conservative men are convinced that Taylor Swift and Lorde both have nudes posted on 4chan, because of the “tits or gtfo” rule.

      Note that the speculation has existed since Swift and Lorde were both like 16.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      High voter turnout typically means Democrat victory, as the only people who make sure to vote EVERY election is the paranoid “Keepin’ up with the Jonesses” suburban America types

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    8 months ago

    “They add that she’s not, in fact, part of a psychological operation to sway voters to Joe Biden.”

    MAGA - “Yeah, but that’s just what they WOULD SAY! THIS PROVES IT!!!”

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      This is completely sarcastic but it’s so, so, SO dumb that this is in fact the sentiments of the ppl on the new the_donald website. Smh

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    8 months ago

    The Qtards should be treated like Al Qaeda or ISIL operating in the United States. All their communications should be monitored. They should be infiltrated and any time one of them make threats or start making plans to do anything illegal, as many as possible are arrested, locked up and embroiled in the justice system as much as possible - prison time, time in court, etc.

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    8 months ago

    I love that the Pentagon is referring to dank memes.

    Reality really is stranger than fiction.

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      Just think of all the tax dollars wasted paying law enforcement to surf 4chan… It’s funny because you know that’s a real job…

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        I don’t think it’s a waste of money. There’s plenty of pedophiles sharing CSAM on 4chan and probably a terrorist or two as well.

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          Yeah, at least 4chan pretends to moderate posts these days. Back when it first started, it was the fucking Wild West of the internet. You’d be scrolling, and see naked 13 year olds getting pounded by sweaty old dudes with their faces blacked out, right below terrorist beheading videos and memes about triforcing. It was like if LimeWire had a stream of consciousness.

    • SkyeStarfall
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      I mean, people who grew up on the internet can get up in high-ranking positions too, especially as we all get older.

    • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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      Fuck if I know dude. I thought we had hit a low with bush. Then we went and elected a black man and holy ever living fuck did that break right-wing people. Just absolutely broke their fragile little minds and here we are.

        • Doesn’t stop me being able to laugh at America. If you’re half British you should know one of our defining traits is self-deprecation. Britains Ls are eternal and everlasting and I will laugh at them all. But Americas - oh fuck yeah. They gimme a hearty laugh too!

          How does someone be half American? Where do you pledge your allegiance?

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            It’s paradoxical, I throw the tea and it just spins in place in mid air

            Also it’s obviously spelled C̴͉͎̘̱͙̙̣̱̜̲̖̎̂̋̔ȍ̶̻͕̬̞̰̫̙̩̯̤̳́͊̒̚͜ͅl̷̨̹̺̳͔͉͇͎̻̐̐͌̽̾̀̉͐̈́̆͗̎̚̕œ̸̢͉̜̽͛̅̚ư̸̪͍̂͐̀̀̍r̶͈̮̲͉̀̓̏̋̈́͑̌̔̽͊́͘͝͠

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Until it reaches you in the form of a global economy collapse.

        Of course, China could be the savior, but would that really be a win?

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            You should. We all need an at least semi-democratic country at the top. We need the non-democratic authoritarian kind of governance to be seen to fail. Again. If American fail, we need Europe to start punching it’s weight even more. And unfortunately the crazy right (no doubt helped by enemies of freedom) is on the rise across Europe. Least in Britain, it looks like the nightmare might be over this election. It will take years to undo the economic and social damage they have done though.

            Edit: English

      • billwashere@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Except if the Cheeto Benito starts some shit somewhere in the world due to his excellent diplomatic skills god forbid he gets elected again, pretty sure we are all in the shitter.

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        Yeah, except most reality TV is 99% made-up bullshit that just impacts nothing outside the “participants” and water cooler gossip.

        Except Love on the Spectrum. Thats just wholesome AF.

      • Clubbing4198@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        until we drag the whole western world into a real fucking shit show. lets not forget how close tony blair and george w bush were when it came to handling iraq

    • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
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      40 years of crippled public education and a media landscape owned by the wealthy elites that use it to push anything to distract us from the fact that our greatest enemy are billionaires.

  • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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    I’ve always known maga people are dumber than shit, but now they’re just running the world’s worst D&D session online and on Fox.

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    I’m gripped by a strong urge to start anonymously sending some Taylor Swift / KC Chiefs merchandise to family members and acquaintances who have been guzzling the red-hat Flavor Aid for the last decade. It’s probably not the most productive use of time and money but this whole thing is just goddamn ridiculous.

    • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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      There’s probably a Taylor Swift email notification service for upcoming concerts and such that you could sign them up for.

      Free, and guaranteed to stir up the Trumpanzees in your life without putting a target on your own back.

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        8 months ago

        Anonymous remailers exist, I’d just have to ship it to them in a package they could open and reseal before sending it on. There are some other rules involved as well, turns out there’s some risk of those being used for less than savory purposes.

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    Dark Brandon gives their supersolders the hardest battles.

    Agencies has so many stories and gossips of coups, secret weapons and psychological experiments like MK-ULTRA, and they used Taylor telling people to vote as their psy-op?

    Big scary government that can hear every your word and can even say them for you, can track and kill you at any time - uses a pop-star to make a point?

    Who buys that bullshit? Is it, again, the weak but strong enemy? That’s a story even Onion wouldn’t publish.

    • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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      Wait for it. Win or lose, once they realize how embarrassing this episode should be, it’ll become something that none of them actually believed and besides, it was all started by some lefty trying to make fun of them. The real conspiracy turns out to be (in hindsight with the benefit of selective memory and heavy retconning) a push to drive up merchandise sales. They’ll make a reference to globalists, lizard people and something about “controlling the media” without a specific J-word for plausible deniability.

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        You can’t say jewelery without a J-word, don’t you? They are stupid rich and are out to get you. Hide your kids, hide your wife, as they’d come to you to take them, and dance Hava Nagila over your cold dead body. Stupid leftists think I’m insane now, but who’d they ask to help, when jewish reptiloids would take their children and farm them for adenochrome? Not me, I’d shoot them on sight as any other trespasser. God bless America.

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            We live in some form of post-reality where whatever our sci-fi visionaries said years ago as a precaution gets picked as an instruction to action. I hate that, and I’m happy someone picked it without a cowardly added s/.

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            I’m in my mid-40’s and i cannot recall a time when this wouldn’t have been the case.

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      I mean, if agencies theoretically wanted more dem votes, there are worse ways than getting a mega superstar to ask her fans for them. But if they were in the business of controlling US elections we probably wouldn’t have the entirety of the shitshow that is existence right now.

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    I’m waiting for one of them to call for a protest of the 2024 election because it’s rigged, convincing thousands of MAGA to not vote. We’re nearly there…