Rudy Giuliani just got eaten by his own Kraken
The “Kraken” is a gigantic mythical sea monster from Scandinavian folklore that rises up from the bottom of the Norwegian Sea to devour its victims. It inspires terror because of its enormous size, its eight huge legs, its power and its sudden ship-devouring appearance from calm oceans. It is the very personification of shock and awe. The image of the Kraken is the ultimate refutation of the illusion of safety for the suckers who dared to disbelieve in it.
When used as a metaphor by a serious foe it ought to worry anyone it is used against. It is redolent of the suggestion of horror, the hint that the enemy has a weapon too terrible to contemplate.
There’s just one thing about using the Kraken as a metaphor: you’d better have an actual kraken lurking in your arsenal. That was a lesson bitterly learned by Sidney Powell, the lawyer who stupidly invoked the Kraken as a metaphor for the “proof” that she had that the 2020 election was rigged. Everybody laughed when the time came for her to deliver the proof, and all she had was a sock puppet.
And they’re still laughing. Only this time they have someone other than Sidney Powell to laugh at: Rudy Giuliani. After his first day in a Washington DC courtroom, where a jury will determine how much he owes two former Georgia election workers for defamation, Rudy Giuliani still insists every slanderous, ugly lie he told about the two innocent women was true after all. We’ll all see when he finally releases — you guessed it — the Kraken.
When a reporter responded to Giuliani’s claim that the 2020 election was rigged by the two women, that there was no proof of such an allegation, Giuliani replied, “Oh you’re damn right there is. Stay tuned.” In other words, Rudy just played Sidney Powell’s Kraken card. And here we go again.
This all might be funny we’re it not for two big problems with Rudy’s statement. First, the judge overseeing Rudy’s case, District Judge Beryl Howell, has already ruled that Rudy’s victims, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, are innocent victims of Rudy’s lies, as indeed they are.
Second, there is no shortage of MAGA morons out there who believe Rudy’s lies, Kraken or no Kraken. These glassy-eyed idiots are the conspiracy theorists, the ones who don’t need evidence to believe what they have already made up their minds to believe. And their ignorance is deadly dangerous to the two suffering women.
Giuliani’s lies have led to a deluge of threats and harassment, on social media, in emails and even in person, against Moss and Freeman. Von DuBose, an attorney for Freeman and Moss, also played dozens of haunting voicemails the plaintiffs received in which they were called racial slurs and other insults. Some of the messages contained death threats. One example was, “Have a nice life. What’s left of it.”
Rudy Giuliani claims that he’s out of money and unable to pay his lawyers, let alone any final financial judgement the current court case will bring against him. This case could destroy him financially, and it may be necessary to liquidate all of his remaining property to satisfy the judgement and pay his lawyers.
To that I say, these are tough economic times. Good people are suffering for that reason. Perhaps those suffering good people can take a certain amount of solace from the fact that evil people like Rudy Giuliani are also going to suffer. And in his case, Rudy and his sock puppet “Kraken” have no one to blame but himself. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.