'Gondor has no king': pro-Trump lawsuit cites Lord of the Rings

[brooklynite]

The Guardian

Donald Trump’s diehard supporters are often accused of living in fantasyland, but one court case recently launched to try to reinstall him as president has surprised even the most hardened observers of Trumpian strangeness by citing as evidence a mythological realm from The Lord of the Rings.

The case was launched in Texas, in the name of small conservative groups including Latinos for Trump and Blacks for Trump, and was filed by Paul Davis, an attorney who lost his job after posting Instagram videos of himself at the attack on the Capitol.

The case offers a baseless mix of allegations of electoral fraud common among the Trump base and calls for the voiding of every vote cast in the election – which was won handily by now-President Joe Biden, who was sworn in this week.

But – unusually for a legal strategy – the case cites as evidence to back up its pro-Trump claims the tragic fate of the kingdom of Gondor, one of the central realms of JRR Tolkien’s fantasy classic, whose exiled ruler, Aragorn, was played onscreen by Viggo Mortensen.

“Gondor has no king,” the lawsuit states, a footnote providing an explanation of the woeful fate of Tolkien’s entirely imaginary land populated by dragons, wizards, hobbits and elves, all threatened by a baleful Dark Lord backed up by an army of orcs and with famously little time for due democratic process.

The suit explains how Gondor’s throne was empty and its rightful kings in exile, presumably positing the idea that Trump is the true king of America – a land happily monarch-free since 1776.

Sounds like an open and shut case to me...

[Harker]

1. Bringing stupid cases to court seems to be Hobbit forming. n/t

[berni_mccoy]

2. Trump is nothing more than Wormtongue and more like Gollum

The GOP is as corrupt as the steward of Gondor was.

[kirkuchiyo]

12. I would liken Denethor more akin to FOX viewers

In that he saw everything through the limited view of the Palantir that had been corrupted by Sauron.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. I've long believed Twice-Impeached Impotentrump is an orc. Humans don't smell like that.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

4. "You bow to no one "

What Aragorn said to the Hobbits at his Coronation who, in their way, saved Middle Earth for the Dominion of men.

Trump saved NOTHING. He, like, Sauron, only wanted to destroy and spread darkness across the land.

[Aristus]

10. Aragorn was recognizing the fact that the Hobbits were the only people in Middle Earth

who were self-governing.

[Mc Mike]

5. Guess old Paul never read even the title of the third book of the trilogy.

Repug nazi moron.

[tanyev]

6. Oh, and all their proof of a stolen election is in the Hogwarts Room of Requirement.

It all makes sense now.

[niyad]

8. Which, sadly, burned when fiendfire was conjured.

[niyad]

7. Is this guy in the nut house yet??

[BGBD]

9. Pretty fitting

Since most Republicans have turned themselves into gollum just to hold power.

[Aristus]

11. Right-wingers have, in the past, and nowadays too, evidently,

claimed that LOTR supports white supremacy, since most of its major figures are described as conforming to white European features, while the antagonists are largely dark-skinned or are described as being dark, either literally or figuratively.

The suspicious, distrustful, greedy dwarves are often likened to gross stereotypes of Jewish people.

Tolkien himself refuted a lot of this, especially from anti-Semitic German fans who thought Tolkien may have been a fellow-traveler.

[Gothmog]

13. Judge has issued an order to show cause asking why he shouldn't summarily discuss the case.

The court issues this order on its own motion

Link to tweet