Snopes.com, the popular infotainment website that fact-checks Internet rumors, seemingly outlandish e-mail forwards, and other stories of questionable veracity, found that supposed 4-term Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann isn't real.
The debunked Bachmann myth, a figure known throughout American pop-culture and political discussion, has appeared across the Internet and other media since 2006 when the apparent lawyer was first said to be elected to Congress. The purported federal legislator was believed to be fervently and incoherently conservative and widely credited with founding the Tea Party Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But, according to Snopes, in fact the brunette is little more than a figment of our collective overactive imagination; the Republican voice is no more factual than any multi-millionaire "Nigerian prince" looking to share his millions with anybody willing to act in response to his generous e-mail offer.
Snopes assures us that despite anything floated in the mainstream media, there was never any real, actual person calling for a massive media investigation/witch hunt to discover which fellow elected members of the United States Congress are literally anti-American. That was an absurd rumor.
America may tilt irrational at times, but don't worry, no one in Congress dares to simply and completely deny modern medicine. One piece of evidence Snopes pointed to was the incredulity of Bachmann, an elected politician and mother, arguing that childhood vaccinations can somehow cause a person to become autistic, as this make-believe official was widely reported to suggest.
To many on the right-wing, the Congresswoman was, in fact, too good to be true. A conservative folk hero, "Michele Bachmann" appeared to be not only anti-science and anti-health care, but staunchly pro-(Christian) God and pro-gun, and of course passionately railed against abortion.
The fictional Michele Bachmann for president charade in 2012 somehow resulted in a victory in the Ames Straw Poll despite Bachmann, in reality, being a phantom. But the mere idea of her found a devoted and motivated fan base inside the tea party movement. Indeed, Bill Maher once dignified the make-believe politician with acknowledgement, identifying the caricature as the candidate for "people who find Sarah Palin too intellectual."
While many of us assumed and understood this fabricated Minnesota politician to be a joke, it seems large swathes of the population truly believed "Michele Bachmann" to be a bona fide person. Now the truth of the Republican's non-existence left "her" dismayed legions of supporters baffled.
"But, she's plastered all over the Internet," protested one Bachmann fundraiser, confirming that there will always be a certain audience that will believe anything they read online. "Then again, I guess no actual human being would argue the Founding Fathers fought slavery, or that having a minimum wage is a bad thing."
Snopes also confirmed that outspoken Sen. Marco Rubio (FL-R) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-R) "could obviously never really exist," and even though Rep. Paul Broun (GA-R) is real, he is also "being entirely sarcastic with just about every preposterous word he utters on the House floor."