87 Comments
User's avatar
Pbr's avatar

I am watching the decline of the USA in real time. I always thought it would happen after I died.

Art's avatar

Yeah, it would be a nice change to read a reassuring article. The everyone’s gone crazy theme is a self fulfilling prophesy.

Pbr's avatar

Absolutely.

CTE's avatar

What's not declining? At least in the west?

Pbr's avatar

Grocery bills, insurance and my keyboard is giving up.

DaveL's avatar

The decline and fall of media, social and traditional. The rest of us are doing just fine.

Pacificus's avatar

Yeah, me too, I thought the same. I think the term is "acceleration."

DaveL's avatar

Depends which decline. If the overall direction is declining, that’s one thing. Its derivative is velocity, and its derivative is acceleration.

Ellen Evans's avatar

I'm ambivalent about living many years longer, myself. Since I am 68 and so far a cancer survivor, I may not need to worry . . .

Pbr's avatar

I find myself disengaging from news, and some acquaintances. My community has been having political and social issues that are dark in nature. An underlying sense of not good or healthy. It reminds me of the beginning of a Stephen King book. Our library is a shell, and has a very bad vibe, lawsuits and ideological differences.

Brigattista's avatar

In the pareidolia image I see Joe Biden faking his own dementia at the Trump debate as part of his elaborate plan to make Kamala the nominee knowing she could not win and therefore consoling the ghost of the late Ku Klux Klan Wizard and U.S. Senator Robert Byrd (and Biden mentor) in his after-life efforts to bring the Klan back into the mainstream of American life, in which Byrd was able to also infiltrate the Southern Poverty Law Center and direct funds to Klan leaders who then planned the Charlottesville race riot, giving Joe Biden the platform on which to run for President. That's what I see. It's pretty clear.

IRIS Alicia BROSSARD's avatar

Ok, but where does Elvis fit in?

Brigattista's avatar

He's not dead. He's a lobbyist for SPLC.

DaveL's avatar

He was just here yesterday, with his buddies Hitler and Jimmie Hoffa.

Skenny's avatar

My thoughts exactly.

Brian Bentley's avatar

Brigattista, your pattern recognition skills are clearly next level but you missed a few of the more esoteric 'tells' in the Biden messaging. ("Hell, Son, even Jenn Psaki was 100% pure Psy Op...all day, every day.") I'm sure you merely omitted it for brevity sake, but the real key was the well-hung Easter Bunny whispering to "Joey Pajamas" on the South lawn. He then turned on his lucky-rainbow rabbit's foot and went back down into a rabbit-hole portal underneath the site of the new ballroom. The air was redolent of sulfur --like rotten eggs.

But Ol' Joe was 100% non compos mentis and failed to allow George Soros' fat Jobba-the-Hutt ass to build his nest down there. Epic fail! That's why Alex Soros had to marry Whore of Babylon proxy, Huma Abedin. It's an attempt to end-run the coming Trump Singularity.

The Solomon's-Temple design foretells a future attempt to focus the Shekinah-glory energy of YHWH into the Bunny bunker ---which I believe will trigger the End of Days. Kinda like in Ghostbusters but ---instead of hot marshmallow cream--- the whole swamp will be covered in rabbit fur. NOT a good look.

Now you got yourself both correlation and causation, but this ain't my first rodeo. Carry on!

Pacificus's avatar

Makes sense to me!

michael888's avatar

Biden was not a racist, those were just gaffes/ faux pas as State Media assured us.

Ellen Evans's avatar

It's no farther fetched than most such notions, and less than many.

Science Does Not Care's avatar

Or, as always, people will think whatever fits their emotions and biases and say anything that supports their tribe and agenda.

Ellen Evans's avatar

Even if they have to make it up essentially out of whole cloth.

DaveL's avatar

…a minor detail.

Pat Robinson's avatar

I see below several people unsubscribing, i guess because they think Matt is peddling conspiracy theories?

I see this article as journalism, collating the crazy so we don't need to go look for it? A service?

I really don't understand many people.

I have no wish to wade through all this crap myself but i do want to know what is being said.

DaveL's avatar

Good point, but why do we need to know what’s being said?

Pat Robinson's avatar

Its something that is happening.

How do you understand the world without understanding how subsets of people see things?

Its like "Israel Genocide".

Ive tried hard to see it but i guess i'm just stupid. Last week a business acquaintance sent me a picture of a bombed out Gaza neighborhood as proof of genocide. I replied that is proof of war, war fought in an urban area. But a destroyed area of city is not genocide.

And now that i dared question that narrative i'm sure i'll get some pile on.

Chilblain Edward Olmos's avatar

Ah, attacking their feelings with facts.

Dick Minnis's avatar

Racket is devolving from serious journalism into a online version of TMZ giving credence to bs conspiracy junk. Humans love to connect dots even when there is no connection. I'm rapidly approaching the unsubscribe point. There is enough garbage already out there, I expected better from racket.

A better topic would have been connecting the tolerance for political violence to age and libetalism or conservatism, but then that would have been serious journalism.

Dick Minnis removingthecataract.substack.com

Deb Barnhart's avatar

Hmmm. I thought the article was showing us how sick people have become delusional. Don't think these BS "conspiracies" (more like hallucinations)were being advocated?

Dick Minnis's avatar

Maybe but it came accross to me as giving credence to superfluous junk, taking words out of context and inferring complicity. Perhaps I'm just frustrated because I see a rising tolerance of political violence and think the issue needs serious consideration. Spanish King Alfonso XIII abdicated in 1931, the multifaceted Republican government went from talking at each other, to talking past each other, to assassinating each other, to full blown civil war by 1936. Allan doesn't present as a deranged psychotic lone wolf, but just a regular liberal with a bit of TDS who just wants to fix things and apologizes in advance. He's being celebrated on social media. I think Racket as a well read substack should take the journalistic high road.

BookWench's avatar

Don't take it so seriously.

It is an article with the words "Conspiracy Roundup" in its title.

Just enjoy the humor and move on.

SE Lawson's avatar

I see a Sasquatch...but what do I know.

Pat Robinson's avatar

I saw trump as jesus healing the world.

Maybe

John Kirsch's avatar

Who is more credulous? The person who makes up his own mind about what he sees on TV or online?

Or the person who accepts what he's told by a news media that is, for all practical purposes, an arm of the state?

"Conspiracy theory" is a pejorative phrase that defenders of the state use to silence dissent.

michael888's avatar

I believe "conspiracy theory" was institutionalized by the CIA, hardly "defenders of the state" (or of the Kennedys).

John Kirsch's avatar

Seriously? Last time I checked, the CIA was part of the government.

BookWench's avatar

Hilarious!

Thanks for covering these stories.

Drippy G's avatar

Man I wish I could one click everyone who believes this nonsense out of my digital life forever.

DaveL's avatar

It’s easy, don’t use social media.

Chilblain Edward Olmos's avatar

TBF this is literally social media we’re on here.

Ronny F's avatar

Trust me, nut jobs like these people have always been with us. Conspiracy theories are as American as apple pie starting with fears of hidden Masonic influences and symbolism surrounding our Founding Fathers and running through Lincoln’s assassination, Pearl Harbor, and JFK’s death. Not to mention “fake” moon landings, Elvis-is-still-alive, and 9-11 truthers. What’s different today? A gleeful return to that disgusting centuries-old tradition of scapegoating Jews disguised as principled opposition to Israeli policies combined with that little black box/megaphone everyone now carries everywhere. It’s democratized the lowest common denominators among us. That’s the price of free speech, and I certainly don’t want to change that. But, boy oh boy, is the price steep…

Pacificus's avatar

Problem is, some "conspiracy theories" turn out to be conspiracy facts.. some of them...

DaveL's avatar

Sort of what President Trump said in that 60 Minutes interview: assassinations and violence have always happened.

BookWench's avatar

It is also interesting that the Martinez X post with the name Cole Allen in it was posted on December 21st, which is the winter solstice.

DaveL's avatar

Exactly, and December spelled backwards in French spells…

Madjack's avatar

Racket needs more solid investigative journalism. I have canceled my subscription. Best wishes.

steven t koenig's avatar

Me too. Michael Tracy is impossible to listen to

DaveL's avatar

Not sure how long I’ll hang in here. Certainly did enjoy its previous incarnation!

Pacificus's avatar

Au revoir, MJ... See you on another site...

kevin trudell's avatar

The notion that Donald Trump would deliberately forgo an opportunity to slam the the press at their own party is too much to believe.

Lia's avatar

Perhaps people were always this idiotic, but we were less aware of it until the rise of social media. In the past, they just read the National Inquirer and ruminated quietly about Elvis being alive.

CTE's avatar

I haven't followed any of this so it's all new to me. This is what happens when we have weak institutions, including journalistic institutions. It's sad to watch but I get it.

Pat Robinson's avatar

For example, the supposed Fox news thing.

If it was a false flag and Fox knew about it, why would the journalist be trying to warn someone?

"“You need to be very safe … there are some…”

If its a false flag then there is no danger?

Marty Pomeroy's avatar

Pat, you're right but it's a total waste of time trying to talk people out of their conspiracy theories. Just sayin'.

Pat Robinson's avatar

i,m not trying to talk anyone out of it, just pointing out the obvious.