#1410: Greg Brannon

Gregory J. “Greg” Brannon is, in fact, an MD, but being an MD does not mean that you have been given training in reasoning or in assessing evidence, and Brannon is a striking illustration of that. He is unfortunately also a political activist, and ran (as a Republican) in the 2014 United States Senate election in North Carolina against Kay Hagan, though he lost the primary.

As a political activist Brannon is notably the former leader of Founder’s Truth, a hysterically lunatic gathering of nuts promoting a variety of conspiracy theories revolving around various sorts of technology leading to government control. Blog posts on the group’s site also claim that:

-       The Aurora movie theater massacre was an inside job orchestrated by “psyop pros” in order to tighten the government’s grasp on the population.

-       That the TSA might force people to wear bracelets that would “deliver an electric shock if they got out of line”.

-       That corporations are scheming to plant microchips in our brains.

-       That light rail systems in American cities are part of a nefarious UN plot.

-       That the fluoridation of water is “unethical and criminal” and claims about some “secret police murder and cover-up.”

And just to emphasize: These appear to be Brannon’s own views – not only those of his associates. Brannon himself has for instance appeared on Alex Jones’s show railing against Agenda 21 (“this scam of Agenda 21, this scam of humans are poisoning the earth, is a scam […] They are using that to control you, to control me, to control life”), Obamacare (part of a global conspiracy), the National Defense Authorization Act, and the global conspiracy to make him sick through vaccinations. Oh, yes – he is anti-vaccine; and he has evidence: “I remember vividly,” says Brannon, “I was a resident-in-training and I got my flu vaccine like I always did … three weeks later, I had a high fever … bottom-line, I was bleeding blood, and I got a kidney disease I still have today.” Do you need any more? Yes, he admitted that “I can’t say what I have came from that,” but “there’s a lot of correlation that does in a lot of the literature I’ve done.” Precisely. As for the UN itself, it is apparently a scam to control life, and democratic debate over issues is a form of socialism.

In the Senate primary run Brannon was endorsed by e.g. Mike Lee and Rand Paul. During the campaign Brannon also claimed that food stamps are a form of slavery, a claim that could, I suppose, be defended, but not in the sense that Brannon intended it. As for U.S. property taxes, Brannon called them “American central planning” and cited the Holocaust and Soviet Union as other examples of central planning – you do the math. Nor does he believe in public schools, but he does believe that “democracy means minorities get crushed” and that the U.S. is a Marxist country (no, distinctions are not his strong suit) – property taxes, for instance, make us “indentured servants” to the government and are comparable to the Communist Manifesto (yes, those pesky distinctions again). He has accordingly been somewhat critical of Obama, claiming that Obama wants a socialist dictatorship police state (though Obama is a fascist, looking to China as an example – Obama wants “us to be a merger of government and big business … it’s called fascism … President Obama is not a socialist,” and coherence is apparently a liberal conspiracy) – evidence? Brannon disagrees on policy issues; therefore Obama is evil. His claim that it “would be much better” if we had state militias instead of a U.S. Army may have made even some of his political allies concerned.

Though he doesn’t care for democracy – or the Supreme Court (which he thinks “has zero power of enforcement” and is only good for making opinions “and that’s all it’s for”) – he does care for the Second Amendment, which he thinks extends to owning a nuclear weapon (think about the poor local militias).

Diagnosis: Yes, people like this actually get votes in elections, and yes, it should render you speechless. Perhaps it’s time for these groups to just cut to the chase and run the real Alex Jones as their candidate?