I hired Mike to do some painting in my new Michigan condo this past early January. He and his partner would be painting at my neighbor Marge’s house and Mike could come over and paint my bedroom and do some touch ups during the same week. Yet a couple of days before he was to start Mike texted that he had an appointment and had to postpone by a couple of days.

Mike is talkative.  On day one of painting I learned that he, his wife and two sons live in a manufactured home on 20 acres of land just outside of town. On it he has built trails for a small fleet of dirt bikes and ATVs and has a pond stocked with fish ready to be caught. He has built his painting business with honesty, superior service and excellent work and that has brought him success, he said. They are busy enough that Mike has employed Marshall, another painter, for several years. Mike and his wife take care of their 94-year-old next-door neighbor who has no family. He was by all appearances a good-natured and kind person

What I learned between day one and day two of painting, however, is why Mike had to push out our agreed-upon start day. He let Marge know that some of his friends weren’t talking to him. Why? Because he went to Washington to participate in Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally.

My first thought was, oh…no…, I just spent an entire day…at times in close proximity… with a guy who was at the mother of all supers spreader events.  Did you notice how hardly anyone at that rally wore masks? I’m sure Mike was no different. (We both did wear masks at my condo, of course.)

Marge said Mike insisted he only attended the rally and did not enter the Capitol. Well that’s a relief. At least the FBI wouldn’t show up at the door.

When Mike returned for Day 2 of painting, I said, “You didn’t tell me why you really postponed our start date.”  He looked at me with sheepish eyes. “Some people might be upset,” he said. I told him I would have liked to know before he started painting. But the I then him what it was like. And, the flood gates opened. 

As Mike painted and I kept myself very socially distant he poured out his thoughts. Among what he shared:

• He drove the twenty hours round trip with three buddies.  He went to support the President and protest election fraud. How did he know?  There are 140 million registered voters and Trump got 74 million votes. So it was stolen.
• He was tired of hearing how divided the country is. Mike wanted to see for himself. He and his friends weren’t carrying because they were on federal grounds.
• Trump did not incite any violence at all. It was a peaceful rally filled with republican business owners like himself.
• Buses of antifa protesters were bussed in and mixed in with the patriots. He saw them getting off the busses.
• There were far more people at the rally than the media reported.
• Mike and his group walked to the Lincoln Memorial during Trump’s speech, saying he’d see the speech later on DVR. On the way back they went by the Capitol and could see the Capitol Guards opening up doors and letting people in. Antifa protestors were let in the back by a Senator going out.
• The break-in seem staged. The military stole the laptops. That’s why there wasn’t more security.
• The girl that was supposedly pepper sprayed had an onion in her hand. Mike saw it online. She wasn’t sprayed with mace.
• Some of the men that jumped the line were patriots that got carried away. They were angry, upset. They didn’t loot and nothing was trashed. And there wasn’t anything missing except for the laptops
• Pence received a gold coin at the Electoral College vote, a Masonic sign.
• 15-20 Chinese freighters are waiting in Canadian waters to unload cargo from the CCP once Biden becomes president,  all part of the globalist agenda conspiring to eventually rule the world.  They are secretly putting people in both sides of the aisle.
• Trump will declare Marshall Law come inauguration day and patriots will storm the capitol and take back the government. “It will be history in the making,”

I asked Mike what motivated him to become a self-described Patriot and such an avid Trump supporter.

He said he used to be a Democrat who voted for Obama. But ten years ago he moved to Michigan and became a Republican. More recently when his Trump right-leaning posts on Facebook were censored he moved to other sites that have more “free speech,” like Newsmax TV, OAN TV, MeWe, Parler and OAN News. Some of his posts on Parler garnered 7500 shares. He saw information on these sites that he wasn’t seeing elsewhere.

He became angered when Covid restrictions hit. He was forced to not work for three months while WalMart was open and filled with people because they had nowhere else to go.

Mike said that since he’s been following these web sites and become a patriot, he has never before been as passionate about anything like this, even his own company. But with passion comes fervency. “I have so much anxiety about it all that I can’t sleep at night,” he said.  He also said that his wife has suggested to him many times that perhaps he’s gone too far with his beliefs, and that his best friend, who voted for Biden, doesn’t want to hear these thoughts. I asked him how it’s going to be for him when Biden becomes president. “I guess we’ll see,” he responded.

For me, this was hugely revealing. It was the first time I’ve had a conversation with a self-described “patriot” who is so indoctrinated by Parler, News Max TV and other right wing web sites. In one sense Mike does fit some of the stereotype: he’s a middle-aged white male with a mistrust of mainstream politics and media. But on the other, it doesn’t make sense. If anything, Mike appears to live a charmed life, raising his sons on 20 acres in a Lakefront community with more “toys” they could ever want. He’s doesn’t seem at all angry, and Marge and I agreed we could never imagine Mike becoming violent at a rally. In fact, Mike said this was the first pro-Trump rally he attended.

Indeed, much of what he said to me was just repeated statements he read on the right wing websites that he takes for the truth. (The girl with the onion? Well, she was holding ice in her hand.)

The Capitol riots exposed the impact and proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories. And many commentators noted that “radicalization” is now in the mainstream of American politics. The list of those who were arrested or identified as participating in the Capitol attack include doctors, nurses, realtors even a  florist.  And it showed me that the “fringe” stereotype I’ve believed in is just not true. In fact, it’s not fringe at all, but closer to than I thought. In my case, it was the nice guy in my condo, painting my bedroom.