GOP Congress Reality TV Show Is Poor Comedy
Brandon Fellows, Jan. 6’er Who Made Faces at Fauci, Is Not Sorry About It.
As Dr. Anthony Fauci told a congressional subcommittee about death threats that he and his family received, a young man sitting in the first row of spectators made sneering, mocking faces that raised a question: Who the hell behaves like that?
The answer is Brandon Fellows, a 30-year-old chimney repairman from New York State who just completed a three-year sentence for his part in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol.
To watch this Trump minion disrespect Fauci was to be reminded that the former president’s felony conviction in his hush money trial is a relatively minor criminal matter compared to his continuing efforts to destabilize democracy with the power of his deluded base.
“Everything from harassments from emails, texts, letters of myself, my wife, my three daughters,” Fauci said. “There have been credible death threats leading to the arrest of two individuals–and credible death threats means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me. And it’s required my having protective services essentially all the time.”
Thirty-year-old Fellows responded at the hearing as a child bereft of empathy might, extending his lower lip in a mocking “oh poor baby” expression. He appeared to have returned to the Capitol with the same attitude expressed by a Jan. 6 posting that was used as evidence against him in his trial for obstructing an official proceeding, entering a restricted building, and disorderly conduct.
“Brought my heart joy to see these members terrified for their lives,” he had posted. “For what they have done and are doing to this country I hope they live in constant fear.”
In an interview with The Daily Beast on Tuesday, Fellows defended his facial mocking behind Fauci’s back while the physician spoke of the death threats to him and his family.
“He’s not the victim, he’s the perpetrator,” Fellows said.
Fellows was last in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as one of the thousands roused by Trump to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s legitimate victory. Fellows had sported a fake red beard and waved a Trump 2020 flag as he stood atop broken furniture in the Senate Wing.
“A cheerleader,” a prosecutor later called him. “Glorifying the violence of his fellow rioters.”
He at one point sat at the desk of Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), put up his feet, and smoked pot. He later described Jan. 6 as the best day of his life.
“That was 100 per cent my best day,” he told The Daily Beast.
After his Jan. 16, 2021, arrest, Fellows was initially granted pretrial release, but he was remanded after repeatedly violating its conditions. He was held along with three dozen other Jan. 6 prisoners in a wing of the D.C. Jail dubbed “the Patriot Pod.” He was nicknamed Elon because of his fondness for Elon Musk.
“Also because I talk fast like him,” he said.
Musk has been emulating Trump for years. Musk has also been copying Trump’s bombastic ridicule of anyone who gets in his way. Musk has copied Trump’s disregard for the law.
Musk has been just as shameless as Trump when it comes to padding his pockets. In 2018, Musk got the richest pay package in U.S. corporate history, then worth around $56 billion.
Musk and Trump are different generations, of course. They possess different skills and occupy different roles in the bizarre firmament of America’s billionaire class. But both represent the emergence of a particularly ruthless and dangerous American power monger: the wildly disruptive narcissist.
They disdain democracy. Their politics might be called, instead, thugocracy.
They demean America with their brazen assertions of untrammeled power to dominate and force others to submit.
But shamelessness has gained a certain elan. Audacity, insolence, and impudence are welcomed. Irreverence is celebrated. Many Americans love Musk’s and Trump’s loutishness.
A large portion of the American public projects its needs and fantasies on these billionaire thugs. People who have been bullied their whole lives want super bullies capable of bullying everyone who’s been bullying them.
So fellows regularly sang the National Anthem with other inmates—17 of them convicted of assaulting police officers—who later made the recording that was played at a March 16 Trump rally while the former president saluted.
Fellows counted Nov. 4, 2021, as another great day, when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) visited the jail along with several other members of Congress. She described Fellows and the other inmates as”political prisoners.”
Fellows went on trial in 2023 and behaved as a mini-Trump, firing a series of lawyers and accusing U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden of being a “modern-day Nazi” in a “kangaroo court.” The jury found Fellows guilty.
“In all my years as a judge, and before that as a litigator, I have never seen such contemptuous conduct,” McFadden told him at the sentencing. “You have repeatedly made a mockery of these proceedings.”
What McFadden then said could have just as easily applied to Trump in is his own legal troubles.
“There is no grand conspiracy. It is rather your defiance of any and every attempt to try to get your actions to conform to what the law requires that has gotten you to this point.”
In contrast, the judge’s next words could have applied to all the MAGA minions who allow themselves to be manipulated by their leader who beguiles them an illusion born of a reality show.
“It’s time for you to grow up!”
The judge added five months for contempt to a 37-month sentence set by the guidelines, followed by five years probation. With time served prior to trial, Fellows was released on May 20. He returned to the Capitol on Monday to attend the Fauci hearing by a subcommittee whose members included the congresswoman who made his day by visiting him and the other Jan. 6 prisoners in jail.
Fellows provided the facial expressions as Greene and other Republican members engaged in a free for all against Fauci. Greene insisted on addressing him as “Mr. Fauci” because ”you’re not a doctor.” She accused him of needlessly “muzzling” children with masks and at one point waved a photo of beagles she said he used as experiments in “repulsive, evil science.”
“You belong in prison!” she declared.
The Greene fan who had just gotten out of prison told The Daily Beast that he had already risen to leave when he also called out that Fauci should be behind bars. Fellows denied reports that he was ejected by a Capitol police officer.
“He just kind of like made sure that I was still going towards the door, which I was,” Fellows said.
Later on Monday, he posted on Facebook about his return to the Capitol.
“Things are going well for me here in DC. More than a total of 1 million views on Twitter in less than a few hours of my coming back into the Capitol,” he wrote. “Maybe it will hit 2 million?”
He reported on Tuesday that he had met with a new probation officer, who he described as “the coolest and most chill.”
“Though he probably wouldn’t admit it, I caught him smiling at the Fauci video,” Fellows posted.
Make America sane again
