Carpet Cleaning to CEO to Crackpot: How the "My Pillow Guy" Dove Headfirst Into American Politics

When Mike Lindell was born in June of 1961 in Mankato Minnesota, no one would have known that one day he would be banging on the door of the oval office, demanding to see President Donald Trump so he could rant about baseless, non-existent election fraud. Yet, here we are, 59, almost 60 years from that day with a man who managed to make a fortune off of pillows and republicans. I guess anything really is possible in America.

It is not hard to learn about Lindell’s road to success seeing as he has an entire section dedicated to his triumphs on his company, MyPillow’s website. He is not a very humble man, because why should he be? He’s an old, white, male CEO of a minor company with a poorly trimmed mustache. In the eyes of other Americans everywhere, he’s basically a superhero. Lindell has wanted to own a business since he was a child, so he started a carpet cleaning business in his community. He used the money that he made from that to enter the restaurant business, starting with his very own food truck, and ending up owning many establishments around his town. Although he was very successful with this career, he felt there was something bigger than food out there. Something much more necessary, something more useful, more essential. Then genius struck him. Pillows. Everyone sleeps on a pillow every night, making it an obviously better pursuit than something as futile as food. That was when he started his journey towards creating the perfect pillow.

As all good things do, his idea for this pillow came to him in a dream. Why he was dreaming about pillows, I can’t tell you, but I have a feeling it had something to do with either severe neck pain or a minor concussion. Once the idea had been formed, it took another year to create a working, usable prototype that he could pitch to stores. He presented his pillow to many corporations and businesses, and they all took one look at his product and rejected him, just like what sensible people everywhere are doing currently. Unfortunately, this rejection did not seem to slow Lindell in his mission, and he kept pitching his pillows to other companies instead of out the window like people hoped he would. He started to sell at a kiosk at the mall and then worked his way to selling to sad, middle-aged women at home and garden shows, which are events where people buying or renovating houses can go to buy supplies from vendors who sell household items. Seems like a brilliant time. 
That was when MyPillow really started to take off. They had their merchandise in at least a dozen homes, maybe even more. The products started to grow increasingly popular, and eventually, Lindell had enough customers to start selling in big chain stores. The pillows were featured in many magazines and Lindell even appeared on TV a few times to host an infomercial about his products. He plastered his face on the packaging and shipped his precious pillows all over the country. His manufacturing site went from a bus garage to a 30,000 square foot building with about 1,600 workers. This was all well and good for him, but just like with his restaurant business, he slowly started to realize that there was something even more important than pillows to get involved in. 

When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, Lindell started to gain more interest in politics. He saw that because someone as dirty and corrupt as Trump could be president, it should be easy for him to get some political street cred as well. He started to speak out on social media about his extremely far-right views and every once in a while he would even pepper in some QAnon conspiracy theories for all of his fans. He slowly began to gain a following of people who agreed with him and thought he was brilliant. On the other hand, many people began to think he was crazy and painfully ill-informed. Either way, people were noticing him and giving him quite a bit of attention because of his views, so he continued to voice his opinions and concerns.

When Trump officially lost the 2020 election, Lindell was in disbelief. He immediately stood alongside Trump, making false accusations against Dominion Voting Systems Inc., claiming that they rigged the election in favor of Joe Biden. This started a long train of harmful misinformation about how votes “got sent to China and then switched,” which is about as comprehensible as it is likely. He was also claiming that there were votes from dead people, undocumented immigrants, and minors. There has been no evidence to prove mass voter fraud in the election, so all of these accusations were deemed false. It was these claims from Trump, Lindell, and all others who participated in spreading and boosting the claims that led to the insurrection and violence at the Capitol on January 6th. It was then that a large number of republican congresspeople and supporters finally denounced Trump, claiming that they could no longer support a man who would so willingly put their lives in danger. Lindell was not one of those people, rather, he started to spread more false information, much more quickly.

Like conspiracy theorists everywhere, when people stopped paying attention to him, Lindell took to Twitter to explain all of his accusations to the world. He claimed that Trump was robbed of the election and that he had all of the proof that would incriminate Dominion, yet he showed none of it. This led to Twitter permanently banning his personal account for defying the community guidelines and spreading misinformation. But like the persistent man he is, Lindell started to personally tweet from the MyPillow corporate account that Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, should be put in prison for stopping the spread. Shockingly enough, this resulted in the corporate account being banned as well. Who would’ve thought? 

These rants became so unbearable to be around that during an interview with NewsMax, a reporter named Bob Sellers actually stormed offset because he was unable to get a single word in over Lindell shouting and demanding that he be allowed to share his “evidence” of election fraud when he was supposed to be discussing cancel culture. The female reporter who was on air with Sellers and Lindell at the time was trying her best to diffuse the situation and get both of them back on track with no success. At this point, NewsMax had already accepted the results of the election as legal and final, so not only was Lindell spreading fake news, he was doing so on a source that was openly against him. This trainwreck of an interview was precisely what I imagine it would be like to have a conversation with an angry goose trying to protect her nest. He looked unprofessional, foolish, immature, and slightly intoxicated, making this video the breaking point for many people who used to support him, causing him to lose followers and customers. 

Another consequence of his baseless rants was that Dominion began to threaten to file a lawsuit for defamation. Although Dominion has a solid case and Lindell’s life could be ruined if he loses this lawsuit, he doesn’t seem to be very concerned about it. He has publicly claimed many times that he has all of the evidence necessary to prove fraud, but not once has he shown it. In the official complaint, Dominion stated that Lindell "sells the lie to this day because the lie sells pillows." He uses politics and outlandish allegations to keep his business in the news as much as possible so that even if people hate him, they know exactly who he is. The worst part is that if the whole point of his delve into politics was a marketing strategy, it worked perfectly. The only thing that is more difficult to accept than Lindell as a human, is the fact that he may have done something smart in his life and many have fallen right into his trap. 

Now at this point, you’re probably wondering, “Why on Earth is this man significant? Why is he so important?” And the answer is, he’s not. He’s just some guy that made up crazy stories and sold pillows, who no one will care enough about to remember in 50 years. That will be the  legacy of Lindell: Gone, and blissfully forgotten.

By Liza Tewari