And nowhere was that more obvious than at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s latest election fraud-themed event, which took place on Wednesday and Thursday in Springfield, Missouri.
Over and over during the “Election Crime Bureau Summit,” attendees ― politicians, celebrity grifters and everyday believers alike ― spoke in absolutist terms about the consequences they believed they faced for their beliefs and the punishments they wanted for their enemies.
“I am ready to meet these son-of-a-guns at the gates of hell, if necessary,” Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser and pardon recipient, said on a panel Wednesday night. Soon after, another former administration staffer and Trump pardon recipient, Steve Bannon, called out the Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney prosecuting the case against Trump, Fani Willis, who, along with members of the grand jury that handed up the indictment against Trump, has been targeted online.
“We’re going to ram the stealing of Georgia down her throat, and we’re going to ram it up the ass of the governor!” he roared. “Are you fired up yet?”
Earlier, during a roll call of local activists across all 50 states, Nevada’s Robert Beadles ― a prominent GOP donor known for citing the antisemitic propaganda text “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” ― bragged about his “lawfare” efforts aimed at Nevada officials, using a slang term for the use of the legal system to attack or delegitimize one’s opponents.
“The first boxes of evidence I brought down was 3,500 pages. That lands them in jail,” Beadles said. “The next stuff we bring in is treason, and you know what that does.”
‘If We’re Wrong, It’s The End Times’
The allegations themselves at Lindell’s conference ― despite years of fact-checking efforts, lawsuits and now criminal charges ― seemed almost miraculously frozen in time.
During the first hour of the event, for example, Lindell showed a film that singled out a Fulton County election worker, Ruby Freeman, whom conspiracy theorists have falsely accused of rigging the 2020 vote count. Freeman has since filed multiple defamation lawsuits over similar claims, alleging among other things that the lies had led to death threats and the attempted forced entry of people trying to make a citizen’s arrest at her home. The targeting of Freeman was cited in Monday’s indictment of Trump and 18 allies on charges of racketeering in the alleged plot to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.
Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani recently acknowledged making false statements against Freeman and her daughter.
The same film, which Lindell marveled was first released in December 2020, listed a number of other false claims, such as the assertion that Arizona voters were registered to a vacant lot, which was actually a former mobile home park.
Lindell reassured the crowd that the failure of these claims to overturn the election results in 2020 ― and ensuing “lawfare” in the form of defamation suits ― was all part of God’s plan.
“If lawfare didn’t happen, people would have been informed of all the truths too early, and they would have demanded that our Constitution be followed. But if that would have happened back then, we would have lost our country forever. It would have been too soon; things had to be revealed.”
And even if his movement failed altogether, Lindell said, it wouldn’t be all bad.
“Hey, if we’re wrong, it’s end times ― all of us believers go to heaven,” he said, laughing. “It’s a win-win!”
‘Maybe They’ll Thank Me Later’
The event, which was pockmarked with live MyPillow advertisements and requests to donate to Lindell’s legal “offense” fund, culminated Thursday with the unveiling of a device that Lindell claimed would allow people to check Wi-Fi networks at their local polling places to see if voting machines were connected to the internet. He previously warned the audience that anyone opposed to the device, which he referred to as “the plan to secure our elections,” should be considered “part of the evil,” Lindell’s all-encompassing term for enemy governments and domestic political forces. One creator of the device, right-wing activist Jeff O’Donnell, known online as “the Lone Raccoon,” said he estimated it would cost “in the under $500 range.”
The announcement was paired with a promotion of Frank Social, Lindell’s social network, where voter fraud obsessives are able to share notes, Lindell said.
Despite the shiny new products, the event bore the scars of the recent set of criminal charges against prominent Trump allies: Giuliani, slated to attend, was recently charged in Georgia as part of Trump’s alleged election overthrow scheme and couldn’t make the event. Nor could Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who Lindell said “was told” (by whom, Lindell didn’t specify) that he was not allowed at the event. Paxton is facing years-old charges of securities fraud, which he has denied and called politically motivated, and impeachment proceedings in Texas.
Meshawn Maddock, the former co-chair of the Michigan GOP, was barred by a state judge from attending the event; Maddock is one of the “fake” presidential electors recently charged with eight state felonies in Michigan, including multiple counts of forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery. She has pleaded not guilty. Her husband, Matt Maddock, recently warned of “a civil war or some sort of revolution” if the government continued to “weaponize” against conservatives, according to reporting from The Messenger.
The most striking impacts, though, were in the lives of rank-and-file true believers, who were highlighted during a video montage of citizen election fraud investigators.
One woman on the video spoke wistfully about how her years of research had driven a wedge between her and her family.
“In my personal life, I’m a wife and I’m a mother,” the woman, who gave her name as Erica, said. “My family doesn’t really understand my need to get involved with our elections, but that’s OK. I just tell myself that maybe they’ll thank me later.”
“I’ve spent quite a bit of time on this,” Erica added. “I feel pretty invested at this point, and I don’t think there’s any other option than to see this through.”
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