• This story by Jack Nicas is an incredible read: “He pretended to be Trump’s family; even the president was fooled.”
The “He” in that headline is “Josh Hall, a 21-year-old food-delivery driver in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.” Hall spent most of 2020 spreading lies on social media posting under a host of identities:
He had posed as political figures and their families on Twitter, including five of the president’s relatives. He had pretended to be Robert Trump, the president’s brother; Barron Trump, the president’s 14-year-old son; and Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator. The accounts collectively amassed more than 160,000 followers.
Using their identities, he gained attention by mixing off-color political commentary with wild conspiracy theories, including one that the government wanted to implant Americans with microchips, and another that John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash in 1999, was alive and about to replace Mike Pence as vice president.
He also pretended to run something called “Gay Voices for Trump,” which doesn’t exist despite being endorsed by all those relatives of Donald Trump (as impersonated by Hall). He doesn’t yet seem to realize the trouble he may be in for collecting thousands of dollars in a GoFundMe for that fake organization, which, like his other impersonations, he claims was meant as “satire.” (There is no indication in this story that Hall knows what satire means.)
Then there’s this baffling statement:
“There was no nefarious intention behind it,” Hall said. “I was just trying to rally up MAGA supporters and have fun.”
I don’t think Josh Hall is the only MAGA spending hours spreading what he knows to be falsehoods on social media while simultaneously trying to convince himself that it’s all just innocent “fun.” I’m not sure even he believes his contention that it’s in any way possible to knowingly bear false witness against his neighbors without “nefarious intention” or malice, but I can see why he needs to try to believe that.
As a reward for his contribution to the cause of “MAGA supporters,” Josh can console himself with knowing that Trump and the rest of MAGA-world are trying to make sure that Josh’s own vote is nullified and that he, his entire family, all of his Door Dash customers, the rest of Mechanicsburg, and everyone else here in the commonwealth is completely disenfranchised. Because whatever “Make America Great” means to these people, it doesn’t include democracy.
• An epic poem on an epic moment: “Witnessing Grace: In Be Holding, celebrated poet Ross Gay interweaves the legacy of one of basketball’s greatest moments with a meditation on Black resilience.”
If you didn’t already know, you wouldn’t believe me when I tell you that the ball in that picture will find its way into that basket — from the other side — before the man holding it there eventually chooses to allow gravity to bring him back to earth.
What about it is sublime? The spontaneity of it. The elegance of it. The improbability of it. In other words, against the probability of seeing yet another Black man profiled, shot, or incarcerated, there stands (or, rather, soars) Erving, defying odds and gravity itself—at least for a moment. Rather than witness the emphatic or visceral dunk, Gay has us witness finesse and ingenuity. We witness, thereby, a Black man embody not brute stereotypes or terror, but sheer improvisational grace. The lane closed off, forced out of bounds, the backboard a barricade and defenders at the ready, Dr. J’s unlikely score becomes an allegory for outwitting and out-beautifying systemic racism: “the daily evasion of which is / . . . / a version of genius.”
• Dave Ramsey, the anti-Jubilee salesman of Buy My Stuff To Get Out Of Debt consumer products, is intent on killing his own employees: “Dave Ramsey, Christian personal finance guru, defies COVID-19 to keep staff at desks.”
Ramsey Solutions, the company founded by the bestselling author and radio host, plans to host “Boots & BBQ,” a large in-person Christmas party, for hundreds of staff members at the company’s Franklin, Tennessee, headquarters, despite an outbreak of more than 50 cases at the company’s headquarters as late as mid-November.
… Ramsey Solutions does not require masks at its offices — Dave Ramsey himself has been a vocal opponent of mask-wearing and other COVID restrictions. In a clip from his daily radio show, posted on YouTube in November, Ramsey railed against what he called “totalitarian” government restrictions and mask mandates, saying he wanted to “start a crusade” against them.
Ramsey is also a vindictively litigious fellow — he’s suing a hotel for refusing to host a conference as a mid-pandemic, no-social-distancing, mask-less free-for-all:
The company has also continued to hold large events during the pandemic, including its “EntreLeadership Summit” in July. That event was scheduled to be held at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida, near Orlando, but Ramsey moved the event to its Franklin offices after the Gaylord informed the company of significant COVID-19 restrictions, including mask checks, according to a lawsuit filed by Ramsey Solutions.
The summit was one of a series of “high-end experiences” put on by Ramsey, attracting thousands of business owners and other attendees, “each of whom spends between $5,000 and $15,000 to attend, inclusive of hotel,” according to the amended complaint in the suit.
The COVID-19 restrictions at the hotel, which included no buffets or other self-service food along with limited use of the pool or other amenities, made having the conference there untenable, Ramsey Solutions stated in the complaint.
So Ramsey thinks Marriott should pay him $10 million. He also told the hotel chain that “We’re not going to have someone pay $10,000 for a ticket to have some $8 an hour twerp at Marriott giving them a hard time about wearing a mask.”
Look up James 2:6 some time. That’s about Dave Ramsey. Not only Dave Ramsey, of course, but very much him.
• The title of this post comes from a line in Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” which I’ve argued should be included among our Advent hymns.
Most American Christians don’t really do Advent, of course. We just do a “Christmas season” that starts on the holy day of Black Friday and ends on December 25. That makes sense for us because Advent can’t make sense for us. Advent is for people living under empire, not for the empire itself. When you’re the empire, the Magnificat sounds like bad news.
Anyway, here’s Joe Strummer’s version of Marley’s song:
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In