On Monday morning, a caravan of National Guardsmen were transporting COVID-19 vaccines to Matador, Texas, when they were assaulted and pulled over on the road by an Arizona man, Larry Lee Harris, just outside of Idalou. According to reports, the 11 Guardsmen were unarmed in three National Guard vans when Harris “attempted multiple times to run the vans off of the roadway. He then turned his vehicle into oncoming traffic” and stopped the vans in the road. At this point he trained a gun on the Guardsmen, made them get out of their vans, and demanded to see what was inside.
The Idalou police chief told reporters that Harris “appeared to be mentally disturbed”—he believed that the vans held a kidnapped “woman and a child.” Idalou officers arriving at the scene were able to take Harris into custody peacefully. None of the Guardsmen were injured in the incident. Harris reportedly first identified himself to the uniformed Guardsmen as a “detective.”
There has been very little reported on this incident, but every detail is reminiscent of the QAnon phenomenon. Saying that Harris is “mentally disturbed” may be an honest assessment of his facilities at this time. But Harris had a drivers license, guns and ammo, and the perverse conspiracy theory that a caravan of National Guardsmen were trafficking a woman and a child. They weren’t even transporting any other human beings.
QAnon might just be Trump-adjacent cult, but it has spread like a plague. Feeding off of classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories—the world of powerful pedophiles with so much control over the world that they can do just about anything—may have caused the group to shed some believers who aren’t able to keep their senses muted to reality, but it continues to hold strong across the country. The Tea Party and then Trump’s ascension caused the group to gain acolytes like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who have real political power.
The delusion of QAnon, which is easily passed off as a disturbed mental state, is seemingly shared by millions of other people. Even as Trump and Q’s lies were exposed this past November, December, and January, QAnon believers continue to twist and wring out the most tortured logic in the hopes of proving that they weren’t simply right, but that they haven’t been tricked by the hucksters who continue to steal their money and democratic vote. Like all grand conspiracy theories, there is a touch of the eschatological to QAnon. And any theory that believes it has an end game where all perceived debts are paid and all justices meted out inevitably evolves into authoritarianism.
Harris now faces charges that include “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful carrying of a weapon, impersonating a public servant, unlawful restraint of 11 National Guard soldiers, and interference with Texas military forces.”
