A CONSPIRACY SO VAST THAT ITS MEMBERS CAN'T STAND ONE ANOTHER

I told you this morning that Shadi Hamid's prediction, in The Atlantic, of Portland-style unrest all over America if Joe Biden loses the election was "conflat[ing] Democrats and window-breakers, in the way Fox News does." It's also a common rhetorical trope of Donald Trump and his surrogates. We see it in the paranoid rant of Michael Caputo.

The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus made outlandish and false accusations on Sunday that ... left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election....

Mr. Caputo predicted that the president would win re-election in November, but that his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., would refuse to concede, leading to violence. “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin,” he said. “The drills that you’ve seen are nothing.” ...

Over all, his tone was deeply ominous: He warned, again without evidence, that “there are hit squads being trained all over this country” to mount armed opposition to a second term for Mr. Trump. “You understand that they’re going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that’s where this is going,” Mr. Caputo added.

The usual shorthand for this on the right is "antifa" -- that's who's to blame for all the violence, we're told, and, of course, antifa works hand in glove with the Democratic Party, in the Trumpers' fevered imagination.

Really?

I wanted to know what antifa groups actually think of Joe Biden. So I searched the Twitter feeds of several of them for Biden-themed tweets. Here's what I found.

From @NYCAntifa:

it would be interesting to see a venn diagram of biden supporters and those crying about tucker getting yelled at in a restaurant

— New York City Antifa (@NYCAntifa) March 5, 2020

"anarchists should be prosecuted" --joe bidenhttps://t.co/FATotic0pw

— New York City Antifa (@NYCAntifa) August 20, 2020

maybe the biden campaign should stop talking about "charlottesville" like it gives a fuck about what happened there on august 11th and 12th, 2017.https://t.co/2niTBs92fi

— New York City Antifa (@NYCAntifa) August 20, 2020

From @SocialistRA, the Twitter account of the Socialist Rifle Association:

Survivor @ReadeAlexandra accuses @JoeBiden of sexual assault. https://t.co/YndSM4RRGd

— Socialist Rifle Association (@SocialistRA) March 25, 2020

And from @antifa_ne, the Twitter account of the Nebraska Antifascists:

You need to disown the repeatedly accused rapist Joe Biden to reclaim your futile attempt at democracy.

— nebraska antifascists (@antifa_ne) June 1, 2020

Do you really think these people are going to be upset if Joe Biden loses? They loathe Joe Biden. Joe Biden, for many of them, is no better than Donald Trump.

Obviously, Michael Caputo is crazy.

He said his physical health was in question, and his “mental health has definitely failed.”

“I don’t like being alone in Washington,” Mr. Caputo said, describing “shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.”

But nearly everyone on the right believes that antifa and the Democratic Party are part of one big evil, murderous octopus. It's a ridiculous notion believed even by right-wingers who aren't afraid of shadows.