It’s not very often that the head of a pillow company becomes the center of national drama. However, MyPillow founder and MAGA aficionado Mike Lindell has been all over the news, first in his staunch refusal to accept the 2020 election results, then in his defense of the 2021 Capitol riots. As one of the last public supporters of former President Donald Trump, Lindell has made many Americans ask, “Why”? “Why the Mypillow Guy?”

Some are of the opinion that Lindell’s media-attracting charade is one giant publicity stunt. Wharton marketing professor Americus Reed explained in a February 12th Washington Post article that, “Lindell has taken this commonplace object and imbued it with a political ideology”. Reed explains that, by his research, MyPillow has reached an audience of over 60 million people through a combination of press attention and internet notoriety. Correspondingly, Q1 MyPillow sales rose sharply. However, Lindell is quick to deny; he explained that he “truly believed in the falsity of the election”. Lindell has obviously benefited from the press attention; whether that was the goal remains to be seen.

MyPillow’s claims have seemingly infiltrated the highest levels of American government. On January 16th, Lindell was seen in a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. Strangely, leaks from within the upper echelons of the outgoing Trump administration suggest that Trump’s heart wasn’t in it; he reportedly kept Lindell waiting for over 3 hours while watching Fox News. Lindell, however, maintains that the meeting was successful; and claimed that an “unknown source” had provided deep and sincere evidence of electoral fraud, specifically committed by the voting systems company Dominion Voting.

Fortunately, it seems that Lindell’s claims are catching up with him. In the past weeks, Dominion Voting systems lawyers have been hard at work suing many media personalities who merely hinted at Dominion malfeasance. Fox News fired Lou Dobbs under threat of Dominion lawsuits; NewsMax issued sincere apologies under the same. The New York Times reported that Dominion had filed 27 separate defamation claims in the past few weeks, of which 2 targeted Lindell and MyPillow. The claims were large; Dominion is reportedly planning on suing for damages on the order of $1.3 billion. Lindell, however, is defiant; he told Fox on January 26th that Dominion could “Bring it on”. It seems that the election won’t just be argued over in public opinion and in Congress, but in libel courts as well.

The MyPillow saga has no doubt been a strange one, but it seems it may soon come to an end. The MyPillow board is in open revolt against Lindell, and are expected to vote him out of his CEO position. On Tuesday, Twitter and Facebook banned both Lindell’s personal and Mypillow’s official accounts, functionally deplatforming Lindell. Like Trump, only time will tell on the future of this outrageous situation.