There’s a U.S. military training exercise coming up in several southern states, including Texas. There were also some Wal-Marts in Texas that were recently closed for a few months for renovations. But would Wal-Mart really close down several stores for renovations, and would the U.S. military really just be having a training exercise in Texas? Or is it really all a plot to bring Texas under federal martial law and use the Wal-Marts as processing centers for all the political prisoners they’re planning to take?
What we’re seeing, of course, is a vintage case of what we discussed earlier in the semester, conspiricism, or “the paranoid style in American politics.” We have those among us, and certainly well represented in the Lone Star State, who are determined to believe that their nation is under siege by the most sinister of enemies, and that they are engaged in a struggle to defend themselves and their country from tyranny. For these people, gun control is all about disarming the people so they can’t resist enslavement, and Obamacare is part of the master plot to enslave them. And, fin these people’s imagination, President Obama is just waiting for the right moment to get all of his critics locked up so he can be the uncontested dictator of their country.
You’ll notice I say “their country,” even though what’s going on in Texas looks like a states’ rights revolt at first glance. That includes the Texans, because from these people’s point of view, it’s not the country or the nation that wants to impose martial law over them, but rather, this illegitimate force embodied by the Obama presidency that has usurped power thanks to the mainstream media and is contriving to destroy the nation. And for them, “states’ rights” fits in, because “states’ rights” is part of their vision of the true American nation.
I haven’t bothered searching, but I’m positive that there are videos floating around YouTube telling all about the impending plot to bring Texas under martial law. I’m sure they have convincing-sounding people saying that they’ve seen the train cars filled with shackles for the political prisoners, and I’m sure they have eerie music playing while this is being said. There’s a whole industry behind it.
Worst of all, there are politicians who play to the crowd that believes this nonsense. You should click here and read the quotations in the Los Angeles Daily News piece from Senator Ted Cruz (one of the current crop of presidential aspirants) as well as Representative Louie Gohmert and Senator John Cornyn.
The good news is, the main thing the paranoids are going to do about it is post their paranoia on Facebook for other paranoids to agree with, along with links to the aforementioned YouTube videos. We’re not in a pre-revolutionary era; we’re in the age of Facebook and YouTube. We’re in the age of the Facebook Revolution.
