THE NEW ABNORMAL.

A little walk down memory lane:

In January [2014] Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit addressed some Obama conspiracy theories: “…that the NSA may have been relaying intelligence about the Mitt Romney campaign to Obama operatives, or that Chief Justice John Roberts' sudden about-face in the Obamacare case might have been driven by some sort of NSA-facilitated blackmail.” 

Yeah, you might shrug, there are plenty such crazy notions out there. But Reynolds went on: “A year ago, these kinds of comments would have been dismissable as paranoid conspiracy theory. But now, while I still don't think they're true, they're no longer obviously crazy. And that's Obama's legacy: a government that makes paranoid conspiracy theories seem possibly sane.” 

Reynolds’ main theme was the IRS “scandal,” one of a long series on alleged wheels-within-wheels Obamaspiracies that have not gotten the traction he and his colleagues think they deserve. But it’s his idea that crackpot theories about Obama are somehow legit because of other crackpot theories about Obama that’s really interesting...

This week you may have heard about the U.S. Army exercises in Texas and how that state's governor, apparently inspired by conspiracist wackos like Alex Jones anticipating the Day of the FEMA Camps, has instructed the commander of the Texas State Guard "to keep a watch over the exercises and help keep local law enforcement agencies and their citizens informed."

What's Reynolds' opinion? Dunno, but his hired hand at Instapundit tells the troops:

This is why I love Texans. And kudos to Abbott for doing what he thinks is right, knowing the onslaught of mainstream media criticism to come. A healthy dose of suspicion is warranted, especially with this Administration.

You can read the explanation from the Army here, but they haven't overthrown the tyrant Obama so their word is no good.

These people used to issue tinfoil dispatches like this from the darkest corners of public discourse. Now it's part of mainstream conservatism. It's as if Robert Welch had challenged Eisenhower for the 1956 Republican Presidential nomination and gone on Face the Nation to demand Ike answer charges that he was a Communist dupe. This will be a difficult period in American history to describe to our descendants, if we have any.