Good reminder that a lot of the MAGA base should be pitied not pilloried, they're vulnerable and in need.
With Patriot Party News, Michael Chesebro found a sense of community, and a place where conspiracy theories could become real in the form of the “medbed.”
Michael Chesebro awoke to the same reality as he did each morning, with pain radiating up his spine and into his shoulders before he opened his eyes. He remained still for a moment, summoning the courage to reach from his bed to his night stand. He rolled onto his back, which was fused together with metal after almost 20 years as a paratrooper in the military. He extended his arm, which he had broken several times while wrangling bulls and horses on his ranch outside Cheyenne, Wyo. Finally, his hand found his cellphone, and he logged on to the online universe where he spent most of his days.
“How’re we all doing this morning?” asked Michael, 63. “I’m hurting again — too much time spent jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.”
“You served our country well,” a retired teacher from Kansas responded.
“Hang in there, patriot,” a truck driver in Texas said. “Remember, the pain’s only real if you believe in it.”
“Distract me,” Michael said. “What part of our country is falling apart today?”
On the other end of his phone were hundreds of people in a live voice chat for Patriot Party News, one of about a dozen far-right media platforms that has grown in both size and influence over the past few years, not only by creating an ecosystem of disinformation but also by providing an authentic sense of community. The company was co-founded in 2020 by Warren Armour, a conservative with no media experience who runs a flooring company in Tennessee, but Michael admired the Patriot Party News slogan when he first saw it shared on Facebook last year: “If you hate mainstream media, you are going to love us!”
Michael started watching the site’s daily videos about election fraud and vaccine pseudoscience, some of which have now been viewed more than a million times. He signed up for the company’s social media platform and paid $8.99 a month to join the audio channel, which functions like an old ham radio and promised him the chance to “meet comrades in our battle for the soul of America.”
On some days, Michael listened to the channel for as many as 12 hours, with the audio feed piped directly into his hearing aids to drown out the tedium of his pain. He narrated his daily ranching tasks for the group and sent photos of his crops. Other members responded with recipes, virtual prayers for rain and a steady drumbeat of extremist political ideology that increasingly mirrored his own. In a fracturing country, here was an echo chamber with the power to turn fringe conspiracy theories into widely accepted political dogmas — that the Covid vaccine was poison, the mainstream media was deceitful and the federal government was controlled by a “deep state cabal” that had stolen the 2020 election from former President Donald J. Trump and was now trying to orchestrate his assassination.
“I saw somewhere this morning that the vaccine’s killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined,” said a woman who went by the name Truth and Freedom Fighter.
“It’s genocide, 100 percent,” Michael said, as he pulled himself out of bed.
“I want handcuffs and perp walks for all those criminals,” someone else said. “Who goes first? Fauci, Obama or Biden?”
“Let me think on it,” Michael said. “That’ll keep me entertained while I feed the horses. The wife says I need to quit running my mouth and get going on my honey-do list.”
Cheryl Chesebro, 61, had known her husband to be a realist for most of his life. Michael had enlisted in the Army at 17 because he couldn’t afford to pay for college and then agreed to jump out of planes for a $2,500 sign-up bonus. But after a total of 42 surgeries on his back, shoulders, ankles and knees, he’d come to distrust the government he’d served. He invested in wind and solar power so his family didn’t have to rely on the U.S. power grid. He bought gold in case the U.S. financial system collapsed and then started collecting shoe boxes full of foreign currency from the Middle East and Africa, believing that it could eventually be as valuable as the U.S. dollar.
For the first time in his life, he became consumed by politics and then enamored with Trump, another government skeptic who sometimes spoke in the language of conspiracy theories. The former president had helped popularize lies about Barack Obama’s birthplace, widespread election fraud and the “hoax” of climate change — all of which had become part of the founding DNA of Patriot Party News.
“Whatever they’re telling you on that website, it’s all basically hogwash,” Cheryl told him.
“A lot of it’s wacky, but 10 percent is the real deal,” he said. “That’s better than anyplace else.”
“What kind of hocus-pocus are they going to come up with next?” Cheryl asked.
Michael walked outside to check on the horses while he listened to people on the audio feed talk about how Trump was anointed president by God, and how George Soros was building mansions in Hollywood to house undocumented immigrants. He turned up the volume and spoke back to the group over the wind as the unrealities in his ears continued to become the reality of his life.
“Thanks for helping me get up and going this morning,” he said. “I never thought I would be on a platform with people I’d never met and hear this many I love yous.”
“I’m so glad we’re in this war together,” said an aircraft mechanic who went by the name Oath Keeper Bill. “We need you healthy and strong. Have you been following the latest news on medbeds?”
“Oh yeah. They’re here, and they can heal anything,” someone else responded. “Cancer. Dementia. Broken bones. Arthritis. Forty-five minutes in one of those beds, and you’ll never be in pain again.”
“Come on,” Michael said. “Really?”
With Patriot Party News, Michael Chesebro found a sense of community, and a place where conspiracy theories could become real in the form of the “medbed.”
Michael Chesebro awoke to the same reality as he did each morning, with pain radiating up his spine and into his shoulders before he opened his eyes. He remained still for a moment, summoning the courage to reach from his bed to his night stand. He rolled onto his back, which was fused together with metal after almost 20 years as a paratrooper in the military. He extended his arm, which he had broken several times while wrangling bulls and horses on his ranch outside Cheyenne, Wyo. Finally, his hand found his cellphone, and he logged on to the online universe where he spent most of his days.
“How’re we all doing this morning?” asked Michael, 63. “I’m hurting again — too much time spent jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.”
“You served our country well,” a retired teacher from Kansas responded.
“Hang in there, patriot,” a truck driver in Texas said. “Remember, the pain’s only real if you believe in it.”
“Distract me,” Michael said. “What part of our country is falling apart today?”
On the other end of his phone were hundreds of people in a live voice chat for Patriot Party News, one of about a dozen far-right media platforms that has grown in both size and influence over the past few years, not only by creating an ecosystem of disinformation but also by providing an authentic sense of community. The company was co-founded in 2020 by Warren Armour, a conservative with no media experience who runs a flooring company in Tennessee, but Michael admired the Patriot Party News slogan when he first saw it shared on Facebook last year: “If you hate mainstream media, you are going to love us!”
Michael started watching the site’s daily videos about election fraud and vaccine pseudoscience, some of which have now been viewed more than a million times. He signed up for the company’s social media platform and paid $8.99 a month to join the audio channel, which functions like an old ham radio and promised him the chance to “meet comrades in our battle for the soul of America.”
On some days, Michael listened to the channel for as many as 12 hours, with the audio feed piped directly into his hearing aids to drown out the tedium of his pain. He narrated his daily ranching tasks for the group and sent photos of his crops. Other members responded with recipes, virtual prayers for rain and a steady drumbeat of extremist political ideology that increasingly mirrored his own. In a fracturing country, here was an echo chamber with the power to turn fringe conspiracy theories into widely accepted political dogmas — that the Covid vaccine was poison, the mainstream media was deceitful and the federal government was controlled by a “deep state cabal” that had stolen the 2020 election from former President Donald J. Trump and was now trying to orchestrate his assassination.
“I saw somewhere this morning that the vaccine’s killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined,” said a woman who went by the name Truth and Freedom Fighter.
“It’s genocide, 100 percent,” Michael said, as he pulled himself out of bed.
“I want handcuffs and perp walks for all those criminals,” someone else said. “Who goes first? Fauci, Obama or Biden?”
“Let me think on it,” Michael said. “That’ll keep me entertained while I feed the horses. The wife says I need to quit running my mouth and get going on my honey-do list.”
Cheryl Chesebro, 61, had known her husband to be a realist for most of his life. Michael had enlisted in the Army at 17 because he couldn’t afford to pay for college and then agreed to jump out of planes for a $2,500 sign-up bonus. But after a total of 42 surgeries on his back, shoulders, ankles and knees, he’d come to distrust the government he’d served. He invested in wind and solar power so his family didn’t have to rely on the U.S. power grid. He bought gold in case the U.S. financial system collapsed and then started collecting shoe boxes full of foreign currency from the Middle East and Africa, believing that it could eventually be as valuable as the U.S. dollar.
For the first time in his life, he became consumed by politics and then enamored with Trump, another government skeptic who sometimes spoke in the language of conspiracy theories. The former president had helped popularize lies about Barack Obama’s birthplace, widespread election fraud and the “hoax” of climate change — all of which had become part of the founding DNA of Patriot Party News.
“Whatever they’re telling you on that website, it’s all basically hogwash,” Cheryl told him.
“A lot of it’s wacky, but 10 percent is the real deal,” he said. “That’s better than anyplace else.”
“What kind of hocus-pocus are they going to come up with next?” Cheryl asked.
Michael walked outside to check on the horses while he listened to people on the audio feed talk about how Trump was anointed president by God, and how George Soros was building mansions in Hollywood to house undocumented immigrants. He turned up the volume and spoke back to the group over the wind as the unrealities in his ears continued to become the reality of his life.
“Thanks for helping me get up and going this morning,” he said. “I never thought I would be on a platform with people I’d never met and hear this many I love yous.”
“I’m so glad we’re in this war together,” said an aircraft mechanic who went by the name Oath Keeper Bill. “We need you healthy and strong. Have you been following the latest news on medbeds?”
“Oh yeah. They’re here, and they can heal anything,” someone else responded. “Cancer. Dementia. Broken bones. Arthritis. Forty-five minutes in one of those beds, and you’ll never be in pain again.”
“Come on,” Michael said. “Really?”
