People always ask how did we get here with MAGA and QANON
Want to try and discover "Q" or figure out how Trump brainwashed so many MAGA
Have to go at least back to the turn of century and Nativist political ops that took advantage of 9/11 fear
Like the Minutemen Project 
The Minutemen Project was founded by Jeff Gilchrist and Chris Simocox
Gilchrist was deeply tied into the @GOP disinfo machine and would write a book on the border problem with russian asset Jerome Corsi
@GOP Chris Simcox was way worse, he would rob everyone, filling Alan Keyes's coffers and then go to jail for 19 years because he molested a five year old
@GOP A Kindergarten teacher he was obsessed with 9/11 attacks
On Sept 30th he emailed his son
"I'm going on a great adventure," he told his teenaged son. "If I end up going to prison, you can always e-mail me."
@GOP He tried his hand at acting, failed, and then moved to Tumbleweed, AZ and got embroiled in the border fights over illegal Mecicans "streaming in the US"
In 2002, Simcox founded Civil Homeland Defense, a Tombstone-based vigilante militia
Simcox then drained his son's college fund to start newspaper in Tombstone called Tumbleweed
used paper to call folks to join "Citizens Border Patrol Militia" to "shame the government into doing its job" of controlling the United States's border with Mexico.
@GOP In January 2003, while "on patrol" Simcox was arrested by federal park rangers for illegally carrying a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun in a national park. He also had a document entitled "Mission Plan," a police scanner, and two walkie-talkies.
@GOP This caught the attention of Barbara Coe, a long time racist activist from California who ran the California Coalition for Immigration Reform since 1994
Coe said she found a secret Mexican plan called “Plan de Aztlán” to reconquer the American Southwest 
@GOP In 2004 Gilchrist and Simcox would join forces to start the Minutemen Project
They took the name from US Revolutionary soldiers and/or Jerome Corsi
which ever is older 
@GOP They held a gathering April 2005 Over 600 vigilantes showed up for the meeting at the border south of Tombstone.
This would a month long event. President Bush would deride them as vigilantes
Yet..Minutemen were weirdly tied to big donor GOP stuff
@GOP So many minutemen militias would start up:
-Britt "Kingfish" Craig would start the Campo group
-Jeff Schwilk started San Diego Minutemen
-Laine Lawless started a group called the Border Guardians
-Michael Brian Vanderboegh, would start Alabama Minutemen
Over 40 new groups
@GOP Groups attracted Vietnam and Special Forces vets that had long infected the dying militia movements of the 90s
"It should be legal to kill illegals"
Just shoot 'em on sight. That's my immigration policy recommendation. You break into my country, you die."
folks would say
@GOP The keynote for the April event was Tom Tancredo, the Republican Congressman from Colorado who chairs the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus
Wildly racist Congressman who is weirdly tied to many russian adjacent "Patriot" activities through the years
@GOP and the far-right @gop policy groups took note and made immigration a way to win elections and control re-districting
In 2005 @Heritage tried policy groups took note and made immigration a way to win elections and control re-distracting
web.archive.org/web/2006021401…
@GOP @Heritage And Lt Gen (ret) Mike Flynn's family friend and personal nanny (I think) Phyllis Schlafly hopped into the fray in 2005
: eagleforum.org/publications/c…
@GOP @Heritage And of course Larry Klayman and Tom Fitton of @JudicialWatch hopped in
Judicial Watch been at the center of disinfo since Vince Foster
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content…
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch One of Simcox's and Gilchrist first targets was to try and peel away Conservative Catholics from providing aid to Catholics
because Jesus would never help the poor and needy
would attack Cardinal Mahoney's "Unspoken Agenda on Illegal Immigration"
web.archive.org/web/2007021105…
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch And the money came pouring in..
So much so Simcox was able to hire Connie Hair as a spokesman for Minuteman Civil Defense Corps
fun fact Ginni Thomas was texting Connie Hair as they planned the 2024 coup
it's like always the same people
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch Simcox finally got to be the actor he wanted..no more two bit parts as a shooter at the OK Corral.
Simcox was featured in many movies such a:
Crossing Arizona in 2006 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch El Inmigrante in 2005 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch Walking the Line in 2005 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch and also Wetback
Hair would have Simcox doing a media blitz 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch And Simcox was mad popular with @GOP politicians.
In 2005 Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR would host "Hold Their Feet to the Fire," a week of rallies and lobbying sin DC
"For many Americans, the Minuteman Project looks more like Lexington and Concord,"
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch FAIR was founded by eugenicist John Tanton
More than 20 U.S. congressmen attended the FAIR/Minuteman rally he hosted in September in Washington
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch In 2005 Simcox ex-wife woudl start making allegations he had molested their daughter
People would start to ask questions of Gilchrist and Simcox as to where all the Minutemen money was going
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch Gilchrist would double down as the 2006 election approached and tried to use the Minutemen Project to radicalize the nativist vote through racism and fear
September 11, 2006 Jim Gilchrist announces Patrols until election day 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch A protest was scheduled for NYC ..because they have such a problem at the border...with Connecticut I guess:
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch In 2006 Bill O’Reilly defends the Minutemen Project and attacks protestors at Columbia who pushed back
and you thoguht calling for the heads of Columbia to resign over "free speech" is new
media.pfaw.org/Right/oreilly-…
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch And the radicals in Congress loved Simcox's idea of building an "Israeli-style" fence
too bad Maureen Otis and Alan Keyes were stealing all the money
Racist Rep Steve King wanted to electrify the fence 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch And the Minutemen would send out sooo many robocalls in the lead up to the 2006 mid term elections
as would Swiftboater Bob Perry and money launderer Tom Delay
It's like the MAGA liars today are the same lairs of yesterday 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch In 2007 the Minutemen Project Inc board would remove Gilchrist for Financial irregularities 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch The Splinter groups would still thrive. Especially the San Diego Minutemen
MAY 5, 2007: Diego Minuteman organization, an anti-demonstrated at a day labor site in San Diego
Others would start to gravitate to emerging "patriot" movement 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch In 2007 Jerome Corsi would lead an attack on Robert Pastor.
This attack would form the basis of Ron Paul's Campaign against the North American Union and drive Minutemen Propaganda
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch In 2007 Simcox started his "Israeli-style" fence
Turns out it was just barbwire and now people were really like "WTF" where's my money
It has many similarities to Bannon's and Gou's "WeAreTheWall"
Including Maureen Otis as treasurer 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch and Simcox's co-founder would really embrace his inner Nazi 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch These smaller groups would thrive as the 2008 election seat started to speed up 
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch Things kept getting worse for the Minutemen
Shawna Forde murdered a bunch of people
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch Everybody kept getting sued:
2009 Jeff Schwilk has been ordered to pay $135,000 for repeatedly calling an American Civil Liberties Union contractor vulgar names
cbs8.com/article/news/s…
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch Then the Birther movement led to a resurgence of border militia activity in 2009
Over 80% of those surveyed said they thought Obama was an illegal Muslim
(it might be because he was Black..also Jerome Corsi..again)
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch In 2009 they held a Minutemen muster: Hundreds of Minutemen signed the petition at the rally, in Cochise County, Ariz.
Yet this was kinda the end for the Minutemen
2009, Al Garza left,
2011 Shawna Forde sentenced to 65 years
2012 T Ready kills his family and himself
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch The "normies" would follow Gilchrist to the "Tea Party"
more militant would join new "Patriot movement"
Like Stewart Rhodes and this new "Oathkeepers" group or Michael Brian Vanderboegh and III%ers
But it's a straight line from the Minutemen to MAGA
@GOP @Heritage @JudicialWatch hey @threadreaderapp unroll