Friday, February 20, 2026

The Brain-Rot Pandemic

Let's be honest with each other for a minute and look at the landscape of American politics in this, the year of our Lord 2026. We aren't just fighting over marginal tax rates or parts per billion of carbon in the atmosphere, or whether we should build a bridge to nowhere anymore.

Posted by A_Friend at 09:05 PM | 11 COMMENTS | permalink

Comments

snip ...

We are locked in a cage match with ghosts, hallucinations, imaginary demons, and a very specific, very aggressive form of collective psychosis.

The era of the sane political disagreement is in the rearview mirror, and it's currently being devoured by a pack of feral conspiracy theories that have moved from the damp, mildewy basements of 4chan directly into the West Wing and the halls of Congress.

We've moved past the "fringe." There is no fringe anymore. The fringe is the fabric.

If you'd told me ten years ago that a significant portion of the GOP, the party I spent decades building, for better or (mostly) worse, would believe that the world is run by a child-abusing cabal of subterranean lizard people who operate out of a pizza parlor, I would have told you to lay off the peyote. If you'd told me that once Donald Trump's name appeared in the case, that 90% of them would declare their own deeply held previous beliefs as a hoax, I would have taken the peyote.

#1 | Posted by A_Friend at 2026-02-20 09:06 PM

snip ...

But here we are. Conspiratorial thinking is no longer a bug in the system; it is the operating system itself. It's the "Big Lie" of the 2020 election on steroids, washed down with a gallon of anti-vax snake oil and a side of "Deep State" paranoia.

Why? Because conspiracy theories are the ultimate political comfort food.

They take a complex, terrifying, and often random world and turn it into a binary morality play. They tell the guy whose factory closed down and whose kids don't call him anymore that it isn't because of automation or his own shitty personality; it's because of Them. The Globalists. The immigrants. The Elites. The shadowy figures pulling the strings.

It's seductive. It's addictive. And it is rotting the American brain (both the right and left hemispheres) from the inside out.

Let's talk about the mechanics, because there's always a dollar sign attached to the delusion. The people peddling this garbage, the podcasters selling survival food, the Sinclair, CBS, and OANN "news" anchors who look like they were carved out of ham, and the orange-tinted deity himself, know exactly what they're doing.

They aren't true believers. They're carnies.

Can lead a horse to water...

...but cannot make it think.

#2 | Posted by A_Friend at 2026-02-20 09:09 PM

... The Brain-Rot Pandemic ...

The obligatory mention ...

BrainDead
en.wikipedia.org

... .BrainDead is an American political satire science fiction[1][2][3] comedy-drama television series created by Robert and Michelle King.[4]

The series stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Laurel Healy, a documentary film-maker who takes a job working for her brother Luke (Danny Pino), a U.S. Senator, when the funding for her latest film falls through.

Assigned as his new constituency caseworker, she discovers that Washington, D.C. has been invaded by extraterrestrial insects which are eating the brains and taking control of people, including members of Congress and their staffers.

Much of the internal comedy of the series was that, in the altered reality of Washington, D.C. politics, only a few people noticed.

CBS announced a 13-episode straight-to-series order on July 22, 2015. The show premiered on June 13, 2016. ...



I also note that when I watched that series, in the background of many of the scenes was a TV set showing then candidate Trump speaking.


imo, it was an amazingly prescient TV series of the time.


#3 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-02-20 09:25 PM

Did you know that longtime DR poster Boaz' entire perverted worldview is decoded in the First Protocol of the Elders of Zion?

Political Rosetta Stones are like that. Internet Archive has a free copy. No need for thanks. You're all welcome.

#4 | Posted by pumpkinhead at 2026-02-20 09:34 PM

@#3 ... Assigned as his new constituency caseworker, she discovers that Washington, D.C. has been invaded by extraterrestrial insects which are eating the brains and taking control of people, including members of Congress and their staffers. ...

Maybe fmr Pres Obama's comment about aliens is real, and alien brain-eating bugs are what has given u MAGA?

Kidding, of course.

Or am I?

;)

#5 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-02-20 09:43 PM

@#3

Do we really know that Pres Trump's cognitive processes have not been taken over by an alien existence?

#6 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-02-20 10:11 PM

Faux "News" should be banned, and all their employees set on fire.

#7 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2026-02-20 10:28 PM

@#7 ... all their employees set on fire. ...

There are still a couple three Fox reporters I have a good opinion of in their reporting.

Sadly, though, the number seems to be diminishing, as more seem to be moving towards just spouting the MAGA alternative facts.

The brain worm seems to be spreading. ...


#8 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-02-20 10:34 PM

If I was working for a criminal enterprise, I'm still a criminal.

They should have all resigned.

#9 | Posted by LegallyYourDead at 2026-02-20 10:48 PM

@#9 ... They should have all resigned. ...

In one respect, I do not disagree.

But in another respect, (and this is personal for me), maybe stay around and try to institute change before just quitting.


Stand up to the brain-eating maggots.


#10 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-02-20 10:54 PM

@#10

And, I will mention that that stance did not work out well for me.

I was shown the door ...

Afterwards I heard from those in the company. ...


#11 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-02-20 11:20 PM

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