THE FAKE ISIS FLAG IS A VERY DEEP RIGHT-WING CUT

Your right-wing uncle thinks someone on the left built and sent all those bombs to try to make Republicans look bad, but would a lefty do this?

An image on the explosive device sent to former CIA Director John Brennan on Tuesday appears to be a parody of an ISIS flag taken from a meme that has been circulating on right-wing corners of the internet since 2014.

The print-out appears to show a parody flag that replaces Arabic characters with the silhouette of three women in high heels, and a middle inscription reading “Get ‘Er Done” — which is the catchphrase of standup comedian Larry the Cable Guy....

The “Get ‘Er Done” flag was originally created in 2014 by the right-wing parody site World News Bureau, for an article titled “ISIS Vows Retribution For Counterfeit Flags.” It has since been shared as a meme on right-wing websites and forums....

it is a mock "Hillbilly" version of the flag captioned "Get Er Done" with 3 suggestive silhouettes on top. pic.twitter.com/8dKYSsuHBT

— Real Elzo Smid (@elzosmid) October 24, 2018

I'm a lefty who's been lurking at right-wing sites for many years, and I've never seen this. It's not just a joke right-wingers enjoy -- it's an extremely deep cut. Most lefties know a few right-wing in-jokes, some of us know a few more, but this is very obscure.

At the same time, it's not a blatantly right-wing message. It's not overtly Republican or Trumpy at all. If you were a lefty faking a series of right-wing bombs and you wanted to send a sign that you were a genuine right-winger, wouldn't you be much more likely to include a "Make America Great Again" flag, or the still-popular Tea Party "Don't Tread on Me" snake flag, or maybe something with "Molon Labe" on it, or Pepe the Frog? Maybe, if you wanted to be really contemporary, you'd include a reference to NPC. But why this?

NPC is probably too contemporary a reference -- which brings me to another point I want to make. Your right-wing uncle undoubtedly agrees with Rush Limbaugh that these bombs were sent because the Democrats' long-anticipated blue wave isn't working out and the Kavanaugh and caravan news are so effective at motivating Republican voters.

But if that were the case, it would mean the bomber constructed and mailed all these bombs in the past few days. Does that make sense? Even if the bombs were poorly made, or were built to frighten rather than to blow up, it would have taken some time to pull everything together. Sending multiple bombs through the mail isn't an act of impulse. But that's what a lot of your fellow citizens believe.