And that is how the RNC found out -- whether it liked it or not -- that Ben Carson believes Hillary Clinton is a lady who's in league with Satan. In other words, a witch.

Wikipedia
"Now that the dude with a rubber boot on his head turned out to be surprisingly sensible,
the Craziest Candidate prize is up for grabs again, right?" "

"But hey, that's Ben Carson," you justifiedly point out. "This is a man who misunderstands pyramids so hard that Egypt won't even bother to take it as an insult. Of course he'd blurt out something like that -- dude's precisely one empty coffee canister away from labeling Donald Trump as a leprechaun, and in fact has already accidentally peppered the guy with tons of accidental insults. Surely, one creepy swing in the opposing party's direction is just par for his dipshit course?"

That's what I initially thought, too. It's just that Carson is not exactly alone in his claims about Hillary's satanic activities ...

Guys, I might be crazy, but a whole lot of right-wing people seem to be actively calling Hillary Clinton a witch. That's ... oddly specific, isn't it? Using other witch-related search terms like "cackling" will get you very similar results. Hell, even fucking "broomstick" will yield a bunch of Hillary threads. Very little about gingerbread houses, though. I guess that makes sense -- why ruin something delicious by association?

For comparison, here's a collection of more openly crazy stories stating the exact same witch-thing about Ms. Clinton, in oddly similar terms:

The Vatic Project

YouTube

Media Matters

The Forbidden Knowledge

What really gets me is how both the message boards and the straight-up lunatics use the exact same language: "witch," "Illuminati," "murderous," etc. keep popping up in an almost conversational (though presumably loud and spit-speckled) tone. It seems to be infectious, too: Even the mainstream media has started to pick up the witch rhetoric. And if you really want to get confused, feel free to combine the hashtags #hillary and #witch on Twitter.

Right now, you're probably assuming that this is just an election thing. After all, The Donald's adversaries make fun of his physics-defying hair, orange hue, and general mollusk-like qualities all the time. Surely, an underlying right-wing tendency to label the Clinton as a witch who's just one election victory away from naming Black Phillip as the secretary of state is just a Republican version of that?

Nope! It's something much weirder, because ...

The allegations about Hillary Clinton's dabblings in devilry date back to her days as the First Lady. They've been around since at least 1997, and Pastor John Hagee's "Our country is led by baby-sacrificing Satanists" book Day Of Deception. Hagee claimed that Hillary is responsible for bringing witchcraft to the White House by literally bringing in a witch as part of her entourage. For the three of you who half think that this makes sense, it's worth noting that Hagee also claimed that the high-ups of the state actively practice satanic rituals where they isolate pregnant women from society and take away their newborn babies to sacrifice to their dark master. You may recognize this as the plot of Rosemary's Baby.

Wikipedia
"Compare me to all the Polanski movies you want, as long as you don't bring up the emails again."

So, this is clearly not just about the current election. The thing is, it's most definitely not just about Hillary, either.

The internet's rife with stories about right-wing bigshots dealing with witchcraft in their own, strange ways. In 2005, Sarah Palin took part in a ceremony where a Kenyan preacher prayed to protect her from witchcraft. Palin also strongly insinuated that the preacher, a "witch hunter" who turned out to be a fraud, was instrumental in her successful election as the Governor of Alaska. In 1983, Rand Paul tied and blindfolded a fellow student and forced her to worship an entity known as "Aqua Buddha" while kneeling in a stream. Former Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal once took part in an exorcism. Tea Party luminary Christine O'Donnell dabbled in witchcraft in her youth. Some see satanic symbolism in their own iconic elephant logo. And, of course, in 2016 the entire party just stopped giving a fuck and summoned a tangerine hate ifrit as their candidate.

Wikipedia
"Hey!"

So, much as they might downplay it in public, plenty of Republicans and conservatives seem to have such a serious terror-boner about witchcraft, my guess is that it has almost subconsciously entered their lexicon of insults and smear tactics. I'm not saying that this zeal almost comes across like that thing where young boys cover their burgeoning fascination towards the opposite sex by screaming that girls are icky at every opportunity. I'm definitely not pointing out the ironic similarity between the Republicans' and conservatives' tendency to treat opponents and obstacles as literal witchery and the way experts have pointed out the modern GOP operates like a witch-hunt machine that's incapable of compromise. That's not my place. What I am saying, however, is how weird it is that despite all this, tons of right-wing politicians can't help but dip a toe in the witching pool, and even when their intention is to protect themselves from witchcraft, it serves to stealthily admit that they take its existence seriously.

Pixabay/PublicDomainPictures
How protesters around GOP conventions wear anything but this, I'll never know.

Man, that got weirder than I anticipated. In just three steps, we went from a moment of offhand lunacy by a notoriously goofy former candidate to making it sound like the people who wanted to ban the Harry Potter books literally live in a world where any opponent can start hurling baby murder-fueled magic missiles at them. It usually takes more degrees to get to Kevin Bacon. I wonder if all the crazy statements politicians make during the election season open a fucking portal of goofiness like this? Now, all we have to do is track down every insane comment every candidate has ever made, and painstakingly track down their deeper meanings ...

... oh hell, no. On second thought, let's just go get mightily drunk. Probably easier on the intestines, anyway.

What's The Best Fictional School To Attend? In the muggle world, we're not given the opportunity for a magical hat to tell us which school we should go to. Usually we just have to go to the high school closest to where we live or whatever college accepts our SAT scores and personal essay. This month, our goal is to determine what would be the best fictional school to go to. Join Jack, Daniel, and the rest of the Cracked staff, along with comedians Brandie Posey and Steven Wilber, as they figure out if it's a realistic school like Degrassi or West Beverly High, or an institution from a fantasy world like Hogwarts with its ghosts and dementors, or Bayside High, haunted by a monster known only to humans as Screech. Get your tickets here!

Everyone thinks that Hillary Clinton's heartless persona will derail her. In actuality, her true flaws are her Rocky and Bulwinklesque brothers' get rich schemes as seen in 5 Rulers Whose Idiot Siblings Nearly Screwed The World. And see what would happen in a whole field of Trump-like politicians in If Every Politician Was As Honest (And Dumb) As Donald Trump. Eh, we bet the guy in the gimp suit would make a better deal with Iran.

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