Mike Lindell: Carnival Barker, Or Barking Mad?

Get some rest, Pillow Man.

Mike Lindell has hit bottom. (We think.) Which is no mean feat for a guy who just last week claimed to have "been in Mexico where they were cutting my head off," an apparent reference to his days as a cocaine addict. (Days that are LONG in the past, in case you were wondering.)

After his cyberpallooza crashed and burned , with his own experts tapping out and admitting he didn't have any evidence the election was rigged, Lindell has been in a tailspin, peering into the bushes for ever-present saboteurs and muttering ever-loonier conspiracy theories. We'd almost feel sorry for him if he and his money hadn't done so much damage to democracy.

The so-called cyber symposium was plagued with technical difficulties, which Lindell attributed to Antifa, of course. (Click there for TONS of batshit videos.)

LINDELL: They stick what's called some poison pill in so that everybody's stuff would have been ruined, so they take your computers and whatever it is — I didn't even understand it. I go, "What?" We got antifa things, or people that have infiltrated, they're telling me this morning. And you know what? I would have said, "No, the show must go on. We're going to keep going at what we're doing." But after what happened to me last night, I'm going, "I don't want that," you know? We want to be safe here.

WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT, MIKE?

Well, depending on who you ask, Mike Lindell was either violently assaulted by an antifa saboteur holding a suspected incendiary device, or he got hugged too hard during a photo op by a fan holding a tangerine.

Mike Lindell on his stream zooms in on something "yellow" -- what Lindell was claims was used to attack him. Others… https: //t.co/AunUwF4Ikx

— John Whitehouse+ (@John Whitehouse+) 1629243800.0 

Never trust a man carrying produce! And never trust the media! Particularly reporters like Lindell's archnemesis, Zachary Petrizzo from Salon, or The Dispatch's Khaya Himmelman. The pillow pumper a ccuses the pair of allowing Antifa to infiltrate the event in some as-yet unexplained fashion, perhaps by giving their press credentials to Antifa agents who then masked up and posed as the reporters.

Does not bode well for “the woman wearing two masks” https: //t.co/ylXS6fwgW3

— Khaya Himmelman (@Khaya Himmelman) 1629128694.0 

Okay, Poppy.

On Monday, Lindell checked in for his regular therapy session with Steve Bannon, telling the podcaster his "investigators" would be releasing a report later that day on the reporters' perfidy.

"They were letting Antifa in, they were giving them badges, and they were using masks to get in the building, saying they had to wear masks," he told the decrepit podcaster. "We've got Zachary Petrizzo, we're viewing all the footage from the venue."

No report was forthcoming. Perhaps Lindell was too busy listing all his erstwhile allies who were in cahoots with — you guessed it! — Antifa, to turn in his homework.

"This Josh Merritt got involved," he shouted, referring to the supposed cyber expert who was running the Pillow Show in South Dakota. "We've got recordings. He set up to sabotage this. This Red Team was brought in. Now, remember, I hired the Red Team, but I had never met them before."

"This guy's trying to discredit evidence that my team is putting down there," Lindell complained, seemingly oblivious that the entire purpose of hiring outside experts to vet shit you got from a known conman is to see if it can be discredited.

"We have an hour recording of [Merritt] where he tried to basically sabotage America."

What a face turn for Sidney Powell's star witness SPIDER, the cyber expert who wasn't !

And guess who else was in on it ? JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF!

Okay, well, not in person, but through His holy representatives at rightwing "news" site TruNews , whom Lindell named as part of the Antifa badge conspiracy along with Salon and Media Matters. Yes, that's right, TruNews where Pastor Rick Wiles works.

Well, Pastor Wiles was not taking that one lying down, no sir!

TRUNEWS is demanding that Mike Lindell apologize and pay them $1 million for defamatory accusations saying they wor… https: //t.co/MooNSJrFS7

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@PatriotTakes 🇺🇸) 1629246174.0 

"We are demanding that Mr. Lindell immediately retract his accusations and apologize to TruNews," Wiles intoned somberly, before adding a demand for $1 million, as "a donation to TruNews to compensate for the damage you have done to us with your wild, reckless accusations."

Trouble in paradise!

But don't worry, guys, they managed to hug it out, bitch. But, you know not aggressively, and not with citrus.

Mike Lindell, after accusing the far-right website TruNews of aiding antifa and tripling down on the claim, now say… https: //t.co/ipxhotmcEO

— Zachary Petrizzo (@Zachary Petrizzo) 1629300712.0 

In summary and in conclusion, Mike Lindell is your crazy uncle with PTSD who looked for Japanese and/or Vietnamese soldiers lurking in the shrubbery when you took him out to lunch in the 1990s. Allegedly. Only this guy has $300 million and a social media platform. Not allegedly.

God bless America.

OPEN THREAD.

[ Salon / The Dispatch ]

Follow Liz Dye on Twitter!

Smash that donate button to keep your Wonkette ad-free and feisty. And if you're ordering from Amazon, use this link, because reasons .