Lo these many blogyears, UD has covered immense tons of political hoaxes – hoaxes that involve sociopathic ideologues creating/impersonating political victims. If you scan her HOAX category, you’ll discover many varieties of political victim hoax, dating way back, and you’ll probably ask yourself why they happen… i.e., what could possibly be the motive behind such bizarre, incredibly destructive, and self-defeating schemes (as with the latest such hoax, the hoaxers attempt, when the shit hits the fan, to “kill” their creation, but it rarely works).
Long ago, UD wrote an article about the Yasusada hoax, in which a white American dude created a fake atomic bomb-traumatized Japanese poet in order to … bring attention to atomic-bomb trauma? But faking it undermined our ability to trust “testimony.” Seemed an obviously contemptible thing to do, thought ol’ UD; yet she encountered plenty of people who said it doesn’t matter if there are all these liars out there making us think people like Yasusada exist and making their words (their creators’ words) move us to tears … cuz u know the end justifies the means, silly, so what if the speaker is not an actual person who suffered but a non-suffering amoral cynical manipulative POS hoaxer.
We can certainly anticipate similar defenses of the, er, troubled BethAnn McLaughlin, who created a persona packed with political victimization (recall UD‘s Rule of Hoax Revelation: Hoaxers typically cannot control themselves, and way over-endow their creations with political victim traits (or, if you’re trying to destroy someone, as in these two hoaxes (scroll down), with political victimizer traits), and nice trusting people rushed to adore her (the hoaxer’s creation, that is).
At some point, who knows why, things began to get out of hand for McLaughlin and her suffering hand puppet, so she gave her Covid, which you might say was a stroke of genius, but babe when you’re trying to prop up a vacancy the vacancy is likely to be even more troublesome ‘dead.’ Remember Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? George and Martha had a perfectly serviceable relationship with their hoax son until George tried to kill him.
But that was pathos and need, and we are – just like Nick – appalled and pitying at the thought of the emotional desperation that generated that boy. No one, OTOH, really wants to enter the vile psyche of a person capable of exploiting the kindness, trust, indignation, and idealism of large numbers of people by turning what is most serious and true and needed in them into a sick personal joke. “Ms. McLaughlin has prompted particular frustration and disgust by posing as a Hopi woman, right as the coronavirus has caused disproportionate harm to Indigenous communities in the United States.”
Bottom line, stated by a Native American journalist: “[I]t does change our ability to advocate for ourselves when we are constantly being replaced by frauds…”
Certainly your blogueuse fears to venture too far into these farts of darkness. Let us simply say that they are satisfying a profound need for attention coupled with an equally profound hatred of the world (imagine how pleasurable it has been for McLaughlin to contemplate what she’s putting over on everyone).
August 8th, 2020 at 2:34PM
All she needs to say is that the oppression of the patriarchy made her do it.
This hoax was more creative than her earlier caper of using anonymous Twitter accounts to harass her enemies at Vanderbilt.
August 8th, 2020 at 6:44PM
tp: Nah – the patriarchy thing won’t get her out of it. Though I don’t know exactly what punishment she’ll suffer…
Yes, she did an earlier hoax. I’ve been watching (very late in the day) the Jodi Arias murder trial, and it’s quite striking how a lot of dangerous loons give all kinds of indications that they’re eventually going to do something really big. Arias had quite the history of vile behavior against boyfriends – too bad no one noticed until it was too late. As for this woman, there’s nothing stopping her from launching another hoax, I guess… Arias can’t do much from jail, but this woman ain’t going anywhere.
August 9th, 2020 at 12:23PM
Our local hoaxers plead trauma (the patriarchy, systemic racism, homophobia, Christiano-theocracy), lie low for a few months, and then get back on the treadmill. The more sophisticated avoid filing with the police, since a false report could theoretically get them in trouble, and rely on the local newspaper and TV stations. If exposed, there isn’t anything that can be done to them then.
September 3rd, 2020 at 2:36PM
[…] What can UD say about yet another political identity fraudster? Didn’t she cover one of these only a few days ago? […]