Hell is watching Rudy Giuliani as Abe Lincoln complaining about Terry McAuliffe

I’ve seen a lot of scary things in my many, many years online. But never in my wildest nightmares could I have conjured up something as horrifying, as unsettling, as utterly depraved as what I’m about to show you. If you have a heart condition, or if there are impressionable children in the room with you now, please feel free to take any precautions you deem necessary.

Are you ready? No, of course not. Because no one could be ready for the eldritch terrors to follow. Still, if your loins are sufficiently girded to protect against the psychic barrage that awaits you, here you go:

I’m so, so sorry you had to see that. But since you’re here, you’re obviously a glutton for punishment, so let’s really dig in and rehash what we’ve just watched. You know, for fun!

Here we have Rudy Giuliani, one-time federal prosecutor, former mayor of New York City, erstwhile presidential attorney, and accomplished fartist, starring in a bizarre, seemingly unprompted attack ad against Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, from behind the digital deathmask of Abraham Lincoln.

Please feel free to scream now.

Giuliani is no stranger to voluntarily humiliating himself for the ‘gram, but even by his admittedly subterranean standards this feels like a new low. Is Republican and unabashed Trumpian sycophant Glenn Youngkin in such dire political straits ahead of Virginia’s upcoming race that he needed to call in Rudyham Lincoln for the assist? Not really. Does the average Virginia voter care about — much less even know about — a nearly quarter-century-old piece of largely meaningless political ephemera? I can’t imagine they do. Does this whole thing feel like Rudy just stumbled onto a random Instagram filter, and decided to fuck around to distract himself from the baying abyss that calls his name from beyond the veil of human experience? Boy does it ever!

And, look, it’d be one thing if Rudy — aided by this uncanny valley bit of technological necromancy — actually pulled off a decent Lincoln impression. But ... what the hell is he even doing here? Why is he giving the iconically high-pitched former president a sort of gravely, faux British accent? He does know that Lincoln literally went to war against Virginia, right? This is less like a Lincoln impression and more like a terrible audition video for a community theater production of A Christmas Carol, where instead of wheezing “once! and! for! all!” it seems like Giuliani would be more comfortable yelling about a goose.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, look at this screenshot and tell me that those words aren’t just “please, god, no!” over and over again.

There was a time when Rudy Giuliani was a legitimately plausible candidate to become the next president of the United States of America. Now, he can’t even fake it online.