The Dumbest and Most Dangerous Political Stunt of My Lifetime?
An American elected official has either just fired at Russian troops or pretended to have done so, bragging about it on social media. Click this link to watch the video, but here’s a screenshot:
Close up of the bottom right corner:
Note that Fitzpatrick is wearing a gray shirt in some photos, suggesting that the shell was signed on a different day than it was fired [ADDED LATER: or that somebody told him it was unwise to go to the front in a shirt with bright yellow patches], but that’s still pretty clearly him in the black shirt with his hands on the controls of an artillery piece. Here he is in Ukraine in that black shirt in a Ukrainian newspaper story:
Here’s the video on Facebook that the image came from.
The reactions on social media strike me as reasonable. Sample:
I’ve emailed the State Department for comment, but it looks like an American elected official just fired at the troops of a foreign nation. Artillerymen, talk me out of it. What is he doing in the bottom right corner of this footage?
Media coverage so far says that he “signed a missile” — really — but they don’t seem to be taking notice of the fact that Fitzpatrick posted video of himself sitting behind the artillery piece during active firing from a position on the Russian border.
More if I hear from the State Department.
I just realized: Somebody in Congress managed to out-stupid Chris Van Hollen on a foreign trip this week. What an accomplishment.
Me I'd say it's good this happened. Why? Because it provides, in brief narrative form, an unmistakable instance of the grave danger of performative politics.
I immediately thought of the lefty activist last year who shouted at city council members that she'd find them and murder them. Not understanding that her virtue-signaling was actually a crime, and that she would be locked up for it.
This twit is riding the same performative high, fishing for likes and shares, and his yen for going viral has made him forget: "Oh. Yeah. World War III? Hm. I guess I got a bit too inspired by the moment."
It'd be worthwhile to write a book on this scourge of mimetic politics and its real cost to us. Chris Bray would be the man to do it, each chapter dealing with a different area of concern.
I remember also the recent case of the woman who was trying to get up-close photos of a shark swimming near her. She lost both hands.
It's across the board in our society. The Instagram-tier forgetting that your post, as digital artifact, and the real world are not the same thing. A mass psychosis that sadly affects women more than men. But this "tough guy" representative?
You go, girl!