When the Silly Season becomes dangerous

Baby New Year isn't yet sleeping through the night, but the Silly Season is already upon us.

You don't have to be Miss Cleo to know that the saga of U.S. Rep. George Santos will get "curiouser and curiouser" as Lewis Carroll once put it, en route to becoming the top Silly Season story of 2023.

The Silly Season usually occurs in the summer when folks are antsy and act out in ways that defy good sense or logic.

Yet already, a call to arms over a report about gas-stove emissions is making the "Milk Crate Challenge" look like the good old days.

The Silly Season is always exacerbated by social media, where falsehood can be made to look like fact, and a rumor can ricochet around the world before the truth can climb out of bed.

There are media outlets whose stock-in-trade is providing constant fuel for outrage because they know we're now in a place where any story, no matter how far-fetched, is going to be embraced if it fits an agenda.

Take, for example, the Mars Co., which makes M&M's, and has been accused of "wokeness" by Fox News host Tucker Carlson because it offered a limited-edition package of female-only M&Ms, and because the shoes on the green and brown M&Ms "spokescandies" recently were changed from stilettos to flats, signifying something/something/abortion/Marxism/Kamala Harris.

Meanwhile, we're all ignoring the conditions under which chocolate is produced.

HOF honors No. 3:Canton's Pro Football Hall of Fame lights up to honor Damar Hamlin

Elvis, Tupac, and Damar

It's early in 2023, yet think of the time burned on the speculation over Buffalo Bills star Damar Hamlin.

People who don't follow NFL football, who don't know Hamlin from Hamlet, are hip-deep in a conspiracy theory that the young man who has been seen on numerous videos since his on-field cardiac arrest is really a clone.

The league can do this, but not give umpires 20/20 vision?

At the center of the silliness is the theory that the NFL is covering up Hamlin's death because he actually died on the field as a result of taking the COVID-19 vaccine. It's a conspiracy worthy of Elvis, Tupac and the Beatles' "Paul is dead" rumor which never did fully die down — no pun intended.

Hamlin's photos from his hospital bed, and his post-recovery videos have been dismissed by the conspiracists as "deep fakes."

They demand more and more proof of life, then reject it when it's furnished.

Somebody's been playing without a helmet, and it's not Damar Hamlin.

Pop goes the weasel

We must suppose we need a dose of goofy stories like whether the A&W mascot bear should be wearing pants to give us a respite from the deluge of tragedy, but it's not so funny when people fall for wild tales hook, line and sinker then show up armed at a pizza parlor or at a ballot drop box, or upend a school board meeting with accusations of grooming and litter boxes in classrooms.

Conspiracy craziness:Rabbit hole is not a political identity

Lying has become so endemic in politics, the people involved will embrace goofy stories that the National Enquirer wouldn't touch. Last year, when political strategist Roger Stone visited Canton, he told a rapt audience that a demonic portal is hovering over the White House.

Sound silly? You should have heard the gasps of belief.

The only thing carrying more hot air than the Chinese spy balloon are the armchair aeronautics and espionage savants who, just last week, were experts on Ukraine and climate change. No one's heard from U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance since he was elected, yet he popped up last weekend like Buckeye Chuck, posing in his backyard with a rifle like the roughneck he most decidedly is not.

Let's just be grateful Santos was able to take out the balloon with his "Official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time."

Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Charita Goshay: When the Silly Season becomes dangerous