Patel's Valhalla Comment Proves Me Right: For Patel and Bongino, Their Presence Was Always About Optics
- john raymond
- Sep 12
- 2 min read
Yesterday I wrote that Kash Patel and Dan Bongino’s flight to Utah in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing was never about catching a suspect. It was about the optics of power.
Neither man has law enforcement credentials. Neither brought investigative expertise.
Their presence, I argued, was designed to show loyalty, to reassure the base that President Trump’s trusted lieutenants were “in charge,” and to cloak the manhunt in partisan imagery. In short: optics, not substance.
Today, Patel himself has vindicated that assessment. In his remarks after the suspect’s arrest, Patel said: “Rest now, brother. We have the watch, and I’ll see you in Valhalla.”
That one phrase demonstrates the entire point. Valhalla is not the language of procedure, of facts, or of justice. It is the language of myth.
Patel did not speak as a director delivering neutral condolences. He spoke as a partisan warrior, placing himself in a symbolic narrative of loyalty and sacrifice.
The truth is stark: Patel and Bongino’s proximity to the scene did nothing to materially aid the investigation or hasten the capture. The arrest was achieved through standard law enforcement techniques—tips, surveillance, and coordination by those who actually had jurisdiction.
The professionals did the work. Patel and Bongino provided the theater.
And the Valhalla comment is the capstone. It exposes that the trip was never about operational necessity. It was about staging a tableau: Kirk as martyr, Patel as guardian, Bongino as loyal lieutenant. The suspect’s capture was the backdrop. The optics were the show.
This matters because it reveals a governing style that substitutes performance for competence. It reveals how loyalty is performed theatrically to signal strength while institutions are quietly displaced.
And it reveals the danger: when myth and optics become the goal, justice and accountability are subordinated to spectacle.
Patel’s Valhalla comment proves my warning right. His presence was never about catching the killer faster. It was always about optics.
And now the mask has slipped.
With unpopular polices, unqualified stooges, cruelty as their guideline, domestic troop deployments, racist secret police profiling people of color, military parades, and purging everyone not loyal to Trump over the Constitution, it's no wonder image is more important to convey than substance.
Trump has hate radio, FOX(R) and NewsMax (white nationalism) serving as his personal Leni Riefenstahls of propaganda.
The Murdoch/Republican American Axis of Fascism has done its job. Stealing the Supreme Court and filling it with Christo-fascists was their greatest victory. The worst was to follow. Anti-Constitutional "presidential immunity" cemented the Trump Dictatorship into being.
How long will the nation endure these abuses and travesties before all is lost?