If it’s Monday, that must mean it’s time to freak out about something that doesn’t matter. Our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the press are bored with screaming about how the Joker movie is going to kill us all, so now they’re collapsing onto their fainting couches over a Trump meme. Again.
Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, NYT:
A video depicting a macabre scene of a fake President Trump shooting, stabbing and brutally assaulting members of the news media and his political opponents was shown at a conference for his supporters at his Miami resort last week, according to footage obtained by The New York Times…
The video, which includes the logo for Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, comprises a series of internet memes. The most violent clip shows Mr. Trump’s head superimposed on the body of a man opening fire inside the “Church of Fake News” on parishioners who have the faces of his critics or the logos of media organizations superimposed on their bodies. It appears to be an edited scene of a church massacre from the 2014 dark comedy film “Kingsman: The Secret Service.”
The disclosure that the video was played shows how Mr. Trump’s anti-media language has influenced his supporters and bled into their own propaganda.
And the NYT goes on and on about it. Over 1,000 words. This must be a disturbing video indeed, huh?
Judge for yourself. WARNING: This video depicts violence against corporate logos and people Trump doesn’t like.
5. As much as I hate to post this, given how much people are talking about this story, and that it involves the president’s club, his supporters, and an organization that supports him, here’s the video in question: pic.twitter.com/qqtllitsIP
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 14, 2019
That’s it. That’s what the media gatekeepers are so upset about today. The video has been on YouTube since July 2018. You can find it here, assuming it hasn’t been taken down now that the important people are upset about it. The video didn’t hurt anybody for over a year, but because it was playing in an empty room in a building owned by Trump, now it’s very urgent news.
There’s a big empty room here with TVs and projectors playing videos by that “carpe donktum” guy pic.twitter.com/O87stQDfrc
— CJ Ciaramella (@cjciaramella) October 11, 2019
Originally, that scene in Kingsman: The Secret Service was an over-the-top comedic depiction of ultraviolence against rural Christians. It was part of a ridiculous James Bond-parody plot involving a madman’s scheme to destroy the world, using mind-controlling cellphones that turned people into violent maniacs. That scene, set in a church in Kentucky, was one of the results of that scheme. It was just a dumb, crazy action movie, and that was the dumbest, craziest scene in it. Back in 2014, a movie showing a church full of homophobic rednecks in flyover America getting massacred was okay. Finding sick humor in that was fine. That sociopolitical commentary, in the form of a frenetic action scene, was no big deal.
But now that somebody on the Internet made a weird, dumb, not particularly funny pro-Trump meme out of it? Red Alert!!
I want Matt Vaughn, 20th Century Fox & if possible Colin Firth to publicly disown the use and abuse of the KINGSMAN massacre scene by a pro Trump PAC edited to show him murdering journalists, media outlets, politicians and celebrities. This is a fascist’s wet dream.
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) October 14, 2019
This makes no sense, of course. What do any of those people have to do with it? If I photoshop a MAGA hat on Wajahat Ali, does that make him a Trump supporter?
How disconnected from humanity must you be to find humor in a depiction of a mass shooting of journalists inside a church—knowing, surely, that Americans have been slaughtered in churches & newsrooms, that it’s not a fantasy for the families that those shootings made incomplete?
— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) October 14, 2019
Ironically enough, as news spreads of that meme video, a dozen colleagues and I are headed to hostile environment training. Feels a bit more necessary than ever. pic.twitter.com/HGd9v1U3LX
— Steve [Halloween Name Pending] Mullis (@stevemullis) October 14, 2019
CNN statement on video shown at @realDonaldTrump supporter conference at Trump’s Miami resort last week: pic.twitter.com/BVKI5N5a17
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) October 14, 2019
If memes are outlawed, only outlaws will have memes.
Fantasizing about killing your political opponents is bad. Isn’t that right, NYT?
Just yesterday, @AuthorZoeSharp published a violent piece fantasizing about the assassination of President @realDonaldTrump in the pages of the @NYTimes.
This sort of stuff is wrong.
No matter the person.
No matter the politics.
No matter the President.https://t.co/SBfHaxlZjQ pic.twitter.com/XK8x8vSPOI— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) October 24, 2018
My thoughts and prayers go out to all the brave journalists who are bravely opposing the president with their bravery. I hope you don’t wind up in the next dopey meme that the NYT writes about as if it matters.
Update: I just discovered another reason to be outraged by that video, if you need one. The meme-maker put Hillary Clinton’s head on a man’s body. That’s called misgendering, and it’s literally violence against the LGBTQ community.
Update: Trump condemns the thing he’s supposed to condemn. I’m sure that will lower the volume not one bit.
Update: Speaking of political violence, which meme inspired this attack?
After the @realDonaldTrump rally in Minneapolis, his supporters were attacked by left-wing extremists. An unprovoked assault on a woman was caught on camera by @AlphaNewsMN. Mayor @Jacob_Frey defends charging Trump campaign $530k for public safety. #antifa https://t.co/fGBzUiMMOQ pic.twitter.com/MgbsDh60NR
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) October 14, 2019
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