North Houston has a very bad reputation for hosting the absolute nuttiest of conservative conventions. From weird anti-communists to the latest unhinged Trump rally, you can always count on The Woodlands and surrounding areas to welcome Republicans with a tenuous grip on reality.
Enter Christian Collins, a former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz and would-be representative of Texas’ 8th Congressional District. He held a rally this week at Grace Church, and he brought the Avengers of conspiracy theories.
Speakers included:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia)
Of all the moon logicians in Republican politics, Greene is their tin-foil-hatted champion. The representative has tried somewhat unsuccessfully to distance herself from the QAnon conspiracy that launched her into the public spotlight and eventually a seat in Congress, asserting that she only believes “some” of the things about Democrats being Satanic, blood-drinking pedophiles who operate out of a D.C. pizza parlor. She also believes the California wildfires were started by Jewish space lasers, Black Lives Matter is as bad as neo-Nazis, and that there is no evidence a plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11. While she was on stage, she referred to the U.S. Capitol as the District of Communism and called for Hillary Clinton to be locked up.
Mike Lindell
The My Pillow CEO has become one of the many pilot fish hanging around former president and current Florida man under federal investigation, Donald Trump. Lindell has made headlines for several unsavory acts, including heading to the White House with a list of things Trump needed to do in order to become a totalitarian dictator. He also offered discounts on his products to QAnon supporters, tried to hawk oleander as a COVID cure, and blamed the January 6 attempted insurrection on antifa members trying to make Trump supporters look bad. At the Grace church, he went on a very long monologue claiming China hacked the 2020 presidential election.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R- North Carolina)
The only member of the confederacy that didn’t sound like a person explaining an Info Wars article was Rep. Madison Cawthorn. Rather than outlandish conspiracy theories, Cawthorn is mainly known for not getting American history right, though like Lindell he loves to blame the failed coup on leftists rather than enraged Trump supporters. Like Donald Trump, he has also been accused of numerous sexual assaults. He offered shooter Kyle Rittenhouse an internship after Rittenhouse was found not guilty. Cawthorn may be slipping a little, though. While onstage supporting Collins he vowed to launch an investigation into whether Dr. Anthony Fauci was part of a secret plan by China to release COVID.
Collins has clearly established himself as the choice for Republicans who want to dive deeper into misinformation and conspiracy theories. Even other Republicans like Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) have tried to distance themselves from Collins, calling him part of the “performance artist” wing of the party. Collins, meanwhile, has embraced most of the far-right extremist views held by top Texas Republican leadership, including trying to prove that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that students are being taught to hate America with Critical Race Theory.
