Perhaps you heard about the recent surge of invasive foreigners into Eagle Pass, Texas – the Rio Grande border town that finds itself at the hot center of the US-Mexico immigration crisis.
Only, this “invasion” (as Donald Trump’s MAGA crowd likes to call it) was not by Latin Americans, but by Anglos descending on Eagle Pass from the North! Indeed, it was an invasion by Trumpista partisans claiming to be “God’s Army.” Organized as a Christian Nationalist crusade, they boasted that a mighty convoy of 700,000 trucks from all across the US would be streaming toward Eagle Pass to “Take Our Border Back.”
What a show of strength! But just when you think the whole country has gone full-tilt bonkers, reality shows up. “God’s Army” actually consisted of about 20 trucks, a babbling rant by Sarah Palin, and a forlorn crowd of… maybe 200 people. Seriously. That was it. The greased pig contest for children at a small county fair in Texas draws more than that.
And, very significantly, many of the Trump “patriots” who came from afar were stunned to find that his frantic claims of hordes of rampaging criminals flooding into the US didn’t exist. “That’s kind of eye-opening,” said one who’d made the long trek to repel the “invaders.” And a 29-year-old local resident expressed the rude truth about the loudly ballyhooed caravan: “What is all of this for? For show,” he exclaimed!
Adding to the sleazy spectacle, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had convened a dozen other immigrant-bashing GOP governors in Eagle Pass to take advantage of the caravan’s political glow. Imagine their chagrin that their number of high-powered governors, political staffers, and media entourages outnumbered the crowd.
For an honest depiction of God’s Army, go to Vote Common Good: votecommongood.com.
Photo: Truthout
The Debacle of “God’s Army” at Eagle Pass