Governor Greg Abbott of Texas drew online ridicule after sharing a fake article about country singer Garth Brooks being booed off the stage in a purported display of patriotism.
On Sunday, the Republican politico responded to an article about Brooks being driven off the stage by booing “patriots” condemning his prior messages of tolerance and inclusiveness at the 123rd annual Texas Country Jamboree in the city of Hambriston.
But Hambriston is not a real city. The jamboree is also not a real event. In fact, the entire article was fake, written by the Dunning-Kruger Times satirical website.
Abbott nonetheless responded to the article in earnest from his personal Twitter account.
“Go Woke. Go Broke,” Abbott wrote about the false story.
“Garth called his conservative fans assholes. Good job, Texas,” Abbott added, referring to the booing.
Abbott deleted the tweet shortly after posting. But several Twitter users took screenshots of Abbott’s comments, mocking him.
“The event and the town mentioned don’t even exist! Does he even know his own state?” wrote one Twitter user.
Another user encouraged Abbott to hold a rally in Hambriston “if he can find it on a map”.
A representative for Abbott was not immediately available for comment.
Conservatives have raged against Brooks after he announced that his Nashville bar would serve Bud Light beer and for encouraging his customers to show tolerance.
Far-right and anti-trans figures have criticized the beer brand for partnering with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a promotion aimed at the March Madness national college basketball tournament held annually.
“We’re going to serve every brand of beer. We are. We just are. It’s not our decision to make,” Brooks said during a question-and-answer session with Billboard Country Live.
“Our thing is this: if you come into this house, love one another. If you’re an asshole, there are plenty of other places … to go,” Brooks said.
Christopher Blair, whose America’s Last Line of Defense network operates the Dunning-Kruger Times, told the Guardian that the purpose of the network “has been exposing the gullibility of rightwing extremists since 2016”, which was the year Donald Trump won the presidency.
“Watching one of the most powerful men in his party not just fall for a headline, but one with a fictional festival in his own state, was nothing short of glorious,” Blair said in an email to the Guardian.
Blair added that the network’s popularity on Twitter would not be possible without new rules implemented after Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform last year.
“I used to get next to no traffic from Twitter. Now I have [rightwing political commentator] Larry Elder and [conservative psychologist] Jordan Peterson tweeting stories about Budweiser being disinvited to Oktoberfest, as if a Bavarian would ever drink that swill, and now a sitting US governor punishing a country star for not hating gay people,” Blair said to the Guardian.
“It’s a liberal troll’s dream.”
The Dunning-Kruger Times site openly advertises itself as a satirical one.
“Dunning-Kruger-Times.com is a subsidiary of the ‘America’s Last Line of Defense’ network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News,” the Dunning-Kruger Times’ website reads.
“Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined.”
