The Most Terrifying Threat to America Is Middle-Class White Guys Cosplaying a Fascist Uprising
We have seen the enemy, and he is Greg from Accounting
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By now, you’ve seen the “QAnon Shaman.” He’s the man who stormed the U.S. Capitol, bare-chested and sporting a set of horns last seen on Hagar the Horrible, and climbed atop the vice president’s seat on the Senate floor to accuse Mike Pence of participating in an imaginary conspiracy to abduct children and drink their blood.
His real name is Jacob Chansley, and he has become the most apt symbol of Trump supporters’ attempted — and likely ongoing — insurrection against the lawful government of the United States. Details about Chansley keep surfacing in the press, each one both hilariously pathetic and deeply horrifying. Consider, for example, the prosecutorial filing stating that Chansley stashed his most prized coup possessions — including a furry coyote-tail headdress and a six-foot spear — in his 2003 Hyundai, or the fact that cops figured out he was lying about not being on drugs because he has a podcast (of course he does) on which he discusses his habitual use of psychedelic drugs (you don’t say). After his arrest, Chansley’s mother told reporters that he was refusing to eat because the detention center didn’t serve organic food.
As Trump prepares to exit the White House, Chansley stands as the most vivid symbol of our outgoing president’s legacy. After years of hearing journalists frame Trump as the candidate of “the white working class,” a would-be dictator somehow accidentally bolstered by innocent blue-collar farmers and factory workers, it was validating to see who actually went to battle for him: middle-class white people, often middle-class white men who fantasize about being action heroes. These are guys with midlist foreign cars and podcasts and real estate jobs — weekend warriors who think they’re ready to die for the cause and are unprepared for the taste of prison food. They’re well off enough to buy expensive weapons or elaborate costumes — a…
