The weird grift of "sovereign citizens": where UFOlogy meets antisemitism by way of Cliven Bundy and cat-breeding

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the "sovereign citizen" movement/conspiracy theory (previously) has grown by leaps and bounds, thanks to a combination of the rise of antisemitism (long a dogwhistle in the movement, now out in the open), an increase in financial desperation and a sense of betrayal, and the movement's ability to realize real cash for its members, who have systematically defrauded the underfunded and resource-strapped IRS of move than $1B.

Ashley Powers' long New York Times profile of movement leader Sean David Morton and his wife, Melissa Thomson, is a fascinating and chilling tour through the rise of a weaponized conspiracy movement with a business-model, a grift that sucks in people from the UFO believer circuit and other fringe nodes with promises of "debt relief" that turn out to be advice on how to defraud the government and a secret history of a cabal of Jewish bankers who are responsible for all of America's woes.

This secret history is like a prototype for Qanon and other far-right conspiracy movements, alleging that a bankrupt business somehow mortgaged every US citizen for $630,000 to the US government, and that this led to the establishment of the Social Security Administration (this is the most coherent part of the theory -- it only gets stupider from here on out). "Sovereign Citizens" believe that they can speak certain words or phrases, or point out certain alleged defects in the formalities of their courtrooms (for example, whether or not a flag has gold fringe) and that these act as incantations that neutralize the power of the state. Read the rest