US Electoral System-Solutions
The Jade Helm Fiasco Says More About Texas Than it Does Russia
<embed> https://www.texasobserver.org/jade-helm-fiasco-says-more-about-texas-than-russia </embed> Texas Observer 05/2018 Christopher Hooks
"In his telling, Russians, with the help of domestic fringe media, sowed so much havoc they fooled the good-hearted governor of Texas into embracing a conspiracy theory."
"But that’s not really what happened.Some people did actually believe that Obama’s military was turning empty Walmarts into prisons, in preparation for an imminent purge. But there are always dumb and credulous people. What Jade Helm-gate signified was that the governor saw those people as his people. He was cooking red meat specifically for them. It mattered more to him what the commenters on Breitbart Texas were saying than anyone else. And the fact that Texas politics is unduly paranoid and fearful long predates 2015.
If you are reading this, Abbott is almost certainly not thinking of you as he lies awake at night. He’s thinking of the people who fear imprisonment in a FEMA concentration camp, and the people who think Barack Obama was a secret Muslim, and the people who believe George Soros is going to make gay marriage mandatory.
He’s thinking of those people because he is smart, and because they are how you win re-election in Texas. He writes fundraising appeals specifically for them. This is the natural and expected result of what happens when general elections are not competitive and the dominant party’s primary is controlled by that party’s fringe. It is a very American problem, and in a way a very mundane one.
Even if Ivan had nothing to do with Jade Helm, the episode is still evidence for the proposition that the American body politic is weak and easy to manipulate. People here will believe anything, apparently, and those in power have no qualms about using that against them. That’s been the consistent through-line of Texas politics for many years."
