THE FICTIONAL HILLARY CLINTON WHO LIVES IN CONSERVATIVES' HEADS

I thought Hillary Clinton conducted her campaign with poise and dignity. Of course, I say that because I was watching the real Hillary. The fake Hillary who dwells in right-wingers' heads was, by contrast, a real mess.

At The American Spectator (yes, it's still around), R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. (yes, he's still around, too) writes:

Sources have told The American Spectator that on Tuesday night, after Hillary realized she had lost, she went into a rage. Secret Service officers told at least one source that she began yelling, screaming obscenities, and pounding furniture. She picked up objects and threw them at attendants and staff. She was in an uncontrollable rage. Her aides could not allow her to come out in public. It would take her hours to calm down. As has been reported for years, her violent temper got the best of her. Talk about having a temperament ill-suited for having access to the atomic bomb. So Podesta went out and gave his aimless speech. I wish we could report on Bill’s whereabouts but we cannot. We shall work on that.

Breitbart, naturally, picks up on this, adding:

Bill appeared the following day at Hillary’s belated concession speech wearing a purple tie but, thankfully, no purple marks about his face, suggesting experience dictated avoidance the previous evening.

“People say they’re amazed Bill’s marriage survived,” Tyrrell noted to Breitbart. “I’m amazed Bill survived his marriage.”

But Tyrrell and Breitbart aren't the only ones making this claim. Even before Tyrrell's Spectator post went live, there was this:

CNN reporter tells me Hillary became physically violent towards Robby Mook and John Podesta around midnight; had to be briefly restrained.

— The Kincannon Show (@kincannon_show) November 14, 2016

Followed by these:

She was. I posted about that too. She was in a "psychotic drunken rage" according to my reporter friend. Doctor added sedatives to the mix. https://t.co/jZv376ydDM

— The Kincannon Show (@kincannon_show) November 15, 2016

The CNN reporter didn't fail to report it. His editors will not let him. CNN has banned all "Hillary in the bunker" stories. https://t.co/Iq7WlezU4i

— The Kincannon Show (@kincannon_show) November 15, 2016

These tweets were posted by Todd Kincannon, who was once the executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party. He's now, it seems, a full-time political provocateur and sometime radio host. He was (temporarily) banned from Twitter for offensive tweets such as these:







Kincannon has been accused of domestic abuse (which, by the way, he blamed on prescription cough medicine), and he's had his law license suspended for sending “multiple emails and facsimile messages” that were said to contain “menacing language and images.”

But he was a reliable enough source for Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit, who helped to make this story go viral.

This is the kind of nonsense that's been spread about Hillary Clinton for a quarter century. It's always poorly sourced, but conservatives don't care. Their idea of an excellent news source is anything that reinforces their preconceptions, even if it's full of lies. You want to know why Facebook was flooded was fake news this election season? It's because right-wingers have developed an insatiable craving for phony news over the past twenty-plus years. They'll believe anything that makes them feel good, or makers them feel righteously angry, no matter how credible it is. And that's how we wound up with a fake-news president-elect. Trump became political while immersed in this culture. He's a creature of it. It's effectively mainstream now.