Epistemica

In the summer of 2015, Governor Greg Abbott ordered the monitoring of a routine U.S. military training exercise named Jade Helm 15, leading directly to wild conspiracy theories on the far right with rumors that President Obama’s administration planned to use the drills to “force its will, strip citizens of their arms and impose federal control over states.”  Jade Helm was a multi-state exercise by Army Special Operations Command, but a map labeling Texas as “hostile” territory in the simulation sent online alarmists into a frenzy. Fears of martial law, gun confiscation, and even secret tunnels under Walmart stores flourished on fringe websites.

Abbott ordered the Texas State Guard to monitor the U.S. Special Forces maneuvers saying, “During the training operation, it is important that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.” He went on, “We are playing a pivotal role of government and that is to provide information to people who have questions”. But by lending an official credence to Internet-fueled delusions, Abbott stoked the panic. A former Republican lawmaker in Texas blasted Abbott’s letter as “pandering to idiots” for implying Navy SEALs might be a threat to citizens.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said, “I understand the reason for concern… when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration”, it’s only natural that “many citizens don’t trust what it is saying”. In 2015, this was the Republican posture: Washington under Obama was not to be trusted, and even a domestic military exercise might be a Trojan horse for tyranny.

That was over a decade ago now, and Abbott has since been alarmist over similarly benign actions, but capitulant to Trump’s authoritarianism. Trump authorized the surge of federal agents and the military into cities he deemed “out of control,” to ostensibly fight crime or immigration violations, but the effect was a para-militarized presence in communities far from any border.

In Minneapolis, what DHS officials touted as the “largest DHS operation ever”, the Trump administration sent 2,000 federal agents into the Twin Cities area as part of a crackdown. A 37-year-old mother of three and U.S. citizen, Renee Nicole Good, was shot to death by an ICE officer. Trump and his cronies have asked us to suspend our perception when watching the video of the execution as Renee Good was simply trying to leave in her vehicle as instructed.

Republic leaders including Abbott and Cruz are siding with the tyrant here, despite responding as alarmists to the imagined tyranny of Jade Helm. To quote Abbott, “the safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.” That clearly depends on who is doing the infringing, real or imagined.