I don’t know what’s worse. Is it the fact that I have to stay shut up at home or the fact that I continue to read stories about all the gun-nuts in America galvanizing around the anti-lockdown demonstrations, thus giving El Schmuck-o Trump another opportunity to attack the fake news? The latest such missive comes from, of all sources, none other than The Washington Post, whose online caption, ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness,’ may be referring to the possibility that Jeff Bezos hasn’t paid the paper’s current electric bill.

              Here’s the WaPo headline: “Pro-gun activists using Facebook groups to push anti-quarantine protests.” This is then followed by a picture of the two schmucks standing in front of the State Capitol in Lansing, MI with their assault rifles guarding the other 15 schmucks who were standing on the steps of the building – of course one of the patriots can’t wear a mask because then he wouldn’t be able to take a drag on his cigarette.

              The WaPo reporter tells us about a father, Ben Dorr, and his two sons, who own a bunch of Facebook pages devoted to gun groups which have become “digital hubs for the same sort of misinformation spouted in recent days at state capitol buildings — from comparing the virus to the flu to questioning the intentions of scientists working on a vaccine.”  The story then goes on to detail how the various Facebook gun groups have aligned themselves with the rest of the alt-right internet cabal to promote anti-lockdown rallies in various Democratic states.

              What a journalistic coup! Is WaPo actually saying that gun-nut activists tend to be right wing? Is it possible that the AR-15 putzes who show up at these rallies to protect their Constitutional ‘rights’ are the same AR-15 putzes who show up every time a state legislature controlled by Democrats tries to pass a gun bill? Say it ain’t so, Joe, say it ain’t so.

              Incidentally, it should be noted that the size of these ‘massive’ demonstrations to keep us from descending into a Socialist state (it should only happen, God forbid) are also being hyped not only by the alt-right media but by the mainstream media as well. A website called the 2^nd Amendment Daily News claimed that last week’s protest attracted “tens of thousands of protestors.”  Meanwhile, the State Police estimated that maybe 1,000 cars rolled through Lansing, which means that each car held 10 occupants, kind of like the clown car at the Barnum and Bailey Circus, right?

              But the real crowd crush occurred in Austin, TX where a crowd of 200 helped “fuel” what none other than The New York Times says are conservative protests against the lock-down here, there and all over the place.  Two hundred people in a state of 29 million, that was some rally in Austin.  But let’s get back to all those gun groups on Facebook that have become the front line for the pro-Trump, anti-lockdown surge.

              I happen to belong to a bunch of those Facebook groups. One group talks about Remington rifles, another group loves Glocks, a third group is all about the Colt 1911 pistol. These groups have thousands of members and thousands of ‘likes.’ But I notice that the people who put up posts and make comments tend to be the same handful every day.

              The problem with Facebook groups is that if you don’t post fresh content all the time, the page very quickly becomes stale. And then group members stop going to the page and then they don’t click on the ads. Which is what Facebook (and the rest of the internet) is really all about. The ads.

              I really wish my friends in the ‘fake news’ media would stop trying to manufacture stories that are just attempts to get people upset about nothing at all. Two dopes walking around with their assault rifles at the ready represent nothing more than two dopes. I’m much more interested in the yard signs sprouting up that as us to vote for ‘any functioning adult.’

              Thanks to Paula Schaap for suggesting this column.