Making sense of wingnut paranoia

This Jade Helm 15 military exercise thing that has all the wingnuts freaked out has been good fun for the rest of us in the reality based community.

Ed Kilgore has a post today that attempts to make sense of this wingnut paranoia. Export the Military:

So Rasmussen tells us the fear of the United States military conducting exercises in their state is not just something a handful of Texas wingnuts express. According to a new poll, 45% of Americans are “concerned that the government will use U.S. military training operations to impose greater control over some states.” That number rises to 56% among conservative voters, we are told.

Screenshot from 2015-05-09 18:04:15

Hmmm. This conservative majority presumably overlaps with the conservative majority that wants to deploy the U.S. military more aggressively in the Middle East to smite IS and perhaps Iran. Ah! I’ve got it! The idea is to export military units to the distant corners of the world so they won’t be around over here to take away people’s guns and force them to buy health insurance!

It took me a while, but I figured it out.

It’s as good as any explanation that I’ve heard.