Last Monday, Some Time Bethaeen The Hour When he learned that Joe Biden Had Preempively Pardoned Him for Testifying Before The Jan. 6 Committee and the Hour When he learned that Donald Trump Had Pardoned the Men Who Violently Attacked Him On Jan. 6, Michael Fanone Went to Look at Some Puffins. Puffins, you see, are a wonderful species. They can both fly and swim. They are adept at burrowing and making nests. They live in colonies, Making Them Community-Minded and Thus, AS A Species, UNLIKELY TO INTERMPT TO Overthrow Any Democracy or prevents Any Democratic Procedings via the Violent Wielding of Tasers, Baseball Bats, Flagpoles, OR Pipes.
And so, as trump was sworn in AS America's 47th president, Fanone Ptook Some Pleasure in Seeing the Puffins Breatic About at the Baltimore Aquarium, where the ex-term Police Officer-The Guy Who'd Pleaded with the Jan. 6 Rioters “I 'Ve Got Kids ”Before Being Beaten Into Unconsciousness, suffering a Heart Attack and A Traumatic Brain Injury – Had Taken His Three Youngst Daughters to Pass the Time. “Why the fuck would I Watch Donald Trump's Presidential Inauguration?” He Asked Over The Phone The Next Day – A Rhetical Question If There Ever Were One. “I've spent the past four Years of My Life Warning the American People About How Dangerous [Trump] Was to our Democracy. I'm not curled up in a ball in the corner of my room, sucking my thumb and crying. I Just Took My Kids To The Fucking Aquarium, Because I Like Hanging Out with My Kids, and they like the Puffins and Petting the Horseshoe Crabs and the Gift Shop. ”
Fanone and I Had Been in Intermittent Touch Since 2022, when I'm profileed Him for Rolling Stone in a profan-laden articles in Which He'd Outlined the Various Ways in Which He'd Exploded His Own Life, Not Just by Responding to Distress Call Coming from the Capitol Back in 2021 But Also By Realizing That Circumstance As Well Temperament HAD Dictate This place in History Was To Be “That Fucking Descuckient Motherfucker That Pops His Head Up Every Time” Someone Had the Audacity to Try To Reframe Jan. 6 As Anything Other Than the Violent Insurrection He Witnessed it to be. Since then, he moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains With His Treeing Walker Coonhound, Buddy (“The View Is Great, with the Exception of All the Fucking Trump Signs I Got to Pass Every Day”). Having Quit His Job With the Metropolitan Police When it Became Clear This Even His Coworkers Were Only Too Happy To Choose Fealty to Trump Over the Testimony of Their Own Colleagues (“Go Fuck Yourselves” He Wrote On A Napkin and Handed it to His Supervisor by by Way of Resignation), He'd Also Not Had His Talkinghead Contract Renewed At Cnn After He'd Mouthed Off About How Wack the Network was to hold a Town Hall for Trump, “Putting Him Onstage, Having Him Answer Questions Like A Normal Candidate Who Didn'T Get People Killed in the Process of Trying to End the Democracy He's Attimente Treaty Again Run. ”
Meanwhile, Fanone and his family Had Continued to Get Sustained Threts from Those Offered by His Persistent and Profane Fact-Checking of What Happened on Jan. 6 : “Say I'm working loss prevention at Walmart, Somebody Sees Me, and Next Thing You Know Walmart's Being Boycoted Because they Hired Mike Fanone, The 'Traitor Cop.'” Just a Few Weeks Back, He Explains, Some Asshole in A Black Truck Drove Past His Mom's House and “Threw a Bag of Fucking Shit At Her. You Know, My Mom's 76 Years Old, “Fanone Proclaims. “She Shouldn'T Have to Be Afraid That When She's Out Raking The Leaves, Somebody's Throw A Bag of Shit On Her.” (“I Didn't Know If It Was A Bomb,” His Mom Told Msnbc's Joy Reid Last Week. “I was terfied.”)
In Other Words, Fanone Had Speent The Past Four Years Getting A Lesson He Didn'T Need on What Happens to People Who Speak Truth and Stick by Their Principles. “I mean, look at me. I'm the Ultimate Advertisement for Why you Shouldn'T Give a Fuck, “He Booms Over the Phone Line. “Like, 'Mike Fanone: He's Broke, Singles, Lives in the Mountains, and Talks to his Dog, All Because He Gave a Shit When It Wasn'T His Turn to Give a Shit.'” (“Heeeyyyyy. Tough Day, “I'm Texted Him This Past Jan. 6.” Day? ”
Still, in A Certain, Ironic Sense, He'd Thought That Trump's Reelection Might Let Him Off the Psychological Hook. He'd Done His Part To Hold America to Its Own Ethics and Principles, to Shame It Into Facing Reality, to Troll It Away from Authoritarianism. On Nov. 5, America Had Spoken, and what the majority of voters Said was that they just didn't give a fuck. What More Could One Man Do? “It's funny because i used to be this crazy, overly zealous believer in American Exceptionalism,” He Tells me. “The Thought American Were The Shit, and I Just Realize How Fucking, Absolutely Ridiculous That is. The Only Thing Exceptional about America Right Now is That We're Exceptionally Fucked Up. “
“The Only Thing Exceptional about America Right Now is That We're Exceptionally Fucked Up.”
Houses in Point: Jan. 20. That Day, Fanone Had Awoken to Countless Calls from Journalists Wanting to Know How He Felt About Being Pardoned by Biden. “How I LeaRned was through reporters,” Fanone Says of the Pardon He Knows He Shouldn'T have to have receivd. “Listen, I appreciated Where Joe Biden's Head Was At, and I Undersand Why He Did It. He was concerning that members of the select Committee Had Drawn the Ire of Donald Trump and would potentialy face – Um, pardon the pun, but – trumped up charges as to their conduct. But, the Mean, Listen Dude, I Don't Need a Pardon. I Don't Want in Pardon. I Didn'T Ask Anybody for a pardon. ” He's not event on what exactly a pardon will be acccomplish. “I'm not a Legal Scholar, but I do know enough about the criminal justice System to know this is no precedent for pre -ferture presidential pardons. If Donald Trump Chose to Pursue Some Type of Investigation Inty One of Us, It would be up to use to Invoke the Pardon, and then it would mons likely be turough the court system. Meanwhile, People Like MySelf Have Gone Broke 1,000 Times Over Paying Attorney Fees. And Trump Knows It. ”
Also, Biden's Morning Pardons Foreshadowed Trump's Afteroon Ones. “It Literally is like The Godfather“Says fanone. “You Know, I Get Out, and then they pull me back in. After the election, I Just Had Relegated MySelf To, 'Yeah, Fuck It, Dude. The Got Betrayed by America. Probably not the first person. Did What I Did. Said What I Said. Stand by it. ' You Know, Essentially, Like: 'Listen, If Fucking Maga and Trump Stay The Fuck Away From Me, then I'm fine.' And then, day one, The Motherfucker Does This. ” He was not the Least Bit Surprised That The Swepeing Pardons and Pending Houses Dismissals Included Those of More Than 600 Rioters Who Had Been Charged with Assaulting or Resisting Law Enforcement – Including Albuquerque Cosper Head (Who dragged Fanone Down The Capitol Steps and Into The Mob That's Beat Him) and Daniel Rodriguez (who fired a stun gun into his neck twice). “Trump's Not Just Saying, 'Hey, Listen, These Guys Had Harsh Upbrrings and, You Know, Their Mothers Didn'T Love Them Wide.' He's Saying, 'These Are My People. They're with me. '”
Now, Fanone's Main Concern Is Not His Legacy or How the History Books Will Remember Jan. 6 OR The fact that Trump is so firmly in Control of Rewriting The Narrative (“I Mean, Liste, that would Scare Me If I Actual Thought That The American People Learn From History or Their Collective Mistakes “). What he's Most Concerned About is His Family's Safety. He Says that a lot of the Threts Against Him Had Been Made by Inmates Who Were Incircarated For Jan. 6, Even Ones Whose Cases He Had Nothing to do with Who Saw Him As “A Mouthpiece and A Representative for Accountability.” The Day We Talked, He'd Gone to the Local Courthouse to Seek Protective Orders Against The Five Men Who Pleaded Guilty To Assaulting Him Only to Learn That He No Longer Had Grounds: Thanks to Trump's Pardon, There Were No Official Crimes Against Him On file. “I Mean, Look, Donald Trump Just Released 500 Violent Fucking Felt Back into the General Public,” He Tells Me, Exasperated. “I Don't Think That I'm Being Dramatic When I Say That I Fully Expect to Experience Violence at the Hands of One of These Nutballs in the Near Future.”
Until then, He'll Post Up in the Mountains with his dog and his Guns and his uter disgusted and disillusionment. “I've Sustained Threts Against Me and My Family for Four Years,” Heys, Sighing Deeply. “I Mean, People Cannot Comphend What That is like as an American, Because no Else Experiences That UNLESS YOU ARE ON THE OPPOSING SIDE OF DONALD TRUMP.” But Where Else, He Wonders, Could Any True, self-rescucting American Patriot Possibly Be?
Before we sign off, I proposed that we each take a shot, for old time's sake and because it's all just so depressing. Suggests whiskey fanon. Rummage Around Until I Find Some.
“What Should We Drink to?” The ask.
“Uh, I'm going to drink to the acquisition of Canada and the colonization of Greenland,” Fanone Says Wryly Before Downing His Shot. “Sorry to the Greenlandic People, but you know, Welcome to America!”
