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If you think Marjorie Taylor Greene is an unprecedentedly conspiratorial, bigoted nut job, well, then let me introduce you to Republican Congressman James B. Utt, who represented Southern California back when the state was a reliably Republican state in the 50s & 60s.
Utt was a John Birch Society ally. The JBS was somewhat analogous to QAnon, heightening every political disagreement into a sinister conspiracy.
He was also a Republican racist at a time when that was still somewhat novel, blending racism & conspiracism in a now familiar combo.
He was also a Republican racist at a time when that was still somewhat novel, blending racism & conspiracism in a now familiar combo.
Take how Utt responded to civil rights protests in Savannah, Georgia in the summer of '63. Civil rights activists were winning concessions in the city that year, w/ MLK even calling it "the most desegregated city south of the Mason-Dixon line."
https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963savannah
https://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963savannah
Conservative segregationists started spreading rumors that a US Army training exercise in the swamps near Savannah that summer was really an operation to prepare the way for a "Negro Communist State to be Carved Out of the South."
Unless conservatives acted right away, then “10 Million White People [would] be Driven From Their Homes to Make Room for Black Communist Soviet”!
The goal was to make white southerners terrified that the civil rights movement wouldn't stop with demands for equal treatment.
The goal was to make white southerners terrified that the civil rights movement wouldn't stop with demands for equal treatment.
These rumors from the 60s served a very similar function to the rumors today about the post-George Floyd protests of 2020. This is the same function of all those right-wing rumors blaming antifa and BLM for all the violence last summer and on Jan. 6th. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/Capitol-conspiracy-theories-blm-antifa.html
GOP conspiracy mongers like Margorie Taylor Greene are trying to prevent reform by scaring white supporters into thinking that civil rights activists won't stop once they gain equal footing; they want to take everything from you, your police, your suburbs, your elections!!
But what does opposition to desegregation in Georgia have to do with Utt, who represented California?
He took notice because he was ideologically committed to segregation, voting against the Civil Rights Acts of '60 and '64.
He took notice because he was ideologically committed to segregation, voting against the Civil Rights Acts of '60 and '64.
So Utt pulled out the key weapon of Congresspeople at the time, the mailing list. He sent a breathless letter--"NOW HEAR THIS AND LISTEN WELL!"--to all of his constituents and allies promoting this conspiracy theory.
He believed that the training exercise, fittingly titled "Operation Water Moccasin" might be the cover for a Cuban-sponsored invasion of Georgia, with Castro shipping over "bare-footed Africans" brought from Angola and trained in guerrilla warfare.
Now, his only ostensible evidence of this was an allegation from a 13yo Cuban refugee who had said that they'd seen "savages" with "big rings in their ears and noses," wearing "short skirts that come just above their knees," and had "heard one of them beat a woman." Okay, so...
This, of course, pulled from various racist tropes of the time. Accusing black men of violence against white women was a staple justification of lynchings, often on equally thin a pretext as the hearsay of a teenager who is in over their head.
But it wasn't just blatant racists who said stuff like this. A few years later, Reagan would joke w/ Nixon about barefoot Africans as a way of asserting America's imperial right to dominate the continent and undermine black members of the United Nations. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/
Now, Utt hadn't technically said that the exercise *was* a Cuban/UN/JFK plot to invade Georgia. He was just asking questions! Surely there's nothing wrong with asking questions??
Sound familiar? I didn't *say* it was a Jewish space laser; I was just asking questions.
Sound familiar? I didn't *say* it was a Jewish space laser; I was just asking questions.
There is one final comparison I'd like to draw. Utt might have been more unhinged with his racist conspiracism, but as the example of fellow Californian Ronald Reagan reminds us, Utt wasn't a complete outlier within his party. He was just more open about it.
And so too with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is far from the only GOP congressperson willing to play footsies with bigoted conspiracy theorists. Take Ted Cruz, who though now the 2nd most hated man in DC (after Josh Hawley), once had pole position in the '16 GOP primaries.
In 2015, a nearly identical conspiracy theory about a 5th column of communist-backed foot soldiers from a developing country spread among conservatives. The rumors revolved around a US army training exercise called Operation Jade Helm. https://www.vox.com/2015/5/6/8559577/jade-helm-conspiracy
But instead of Angolans from Cuba, Jade Helm conspiracists worried about Mexicans armed by China.
This was just as bizarre and paranoid a conspiracy theory as Operation Water Moccasin had been some fifty years prior. But did GOP leaders push back on the nuts?
This was just as bizarre and paranoid a conspiracy theory as Operation Water Moccasin had been some fifty years prior. But did GOP leaders push back on the nuts?
Of course not! Ted Cruz has shown that he will play along w/ any conspiracy theory--from Jade Helm to Trump saying his dad assassinated JFK--as long as it has political utility. And signaling to nativist nut jobs that he's at least sympathetic was a cheap way to build support.
And so Ted Cruz's office formally asked the Pentagon for answers about Jade Helm. "We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty."
Hey, look man. I'm just asking questions.
Hey, look man. I'm just asking questions.
In sum, the Republican Party has a cyclical crank problem, when at least a handful of conspiracists are tolerated by even larger quantity of GOP members willing to play along for the sake of political advantage. It's got the likes of both Utt and Reagan, MTG and Ted Cruz.
If you're interested in reading more about Operation Water Moccasin, here's my original post:
https://paulmatzko.com/jade-helm-operation-water-moccasin-and-conservative-conspiracy-theories/
https://paulmatzko.com/jade-helm-operation-water-moccasin-and-conservative-conspiracy-theories/
And just a few hours later, guess who decided to illustrate my point: https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/1359131466991611905?s=20
