Fitz's Opinion: I have a conspiracy theory about your theories

The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

In 1988 I was happily cartooning the notorious Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham. Ev was a racist extremist who believed conspiracy theories and benefited from them. I was certain we’d never see his ilk again. He was good daily copy and a joy to draw. Bats swooping in and out of his ears. Price tag dangling from his hairpiece.

Ev called Asian visitors “round eyes.” He canceled MLK Day and defended the use of the word “pickaninny.” A divinely empowered religious zealot he believed all sodomites had to get out of Dodge and he had no use for science. Ev famously answered a reporter with, “Don’t you ever ask me for a true statement again.”

What’s in our water?

Ev was Trump before Trump was Trump. Only our guy got found guilty. I remember thinking “That’s the last time Arizonans will ever elect a crazy wing nut like him to office.”

Is there something in our water?

Thirty years later, Arizona’s Grand Old Party is overrun with Evan Mechams. This old, old, old Arizonan would love to blame the voting retirees from Cantankerous, Ohio, Curmudgeon, Wisconsin, and Fox Snooze, Georgia.

But the truth it there is something in our water. And I know what it is. Conspiracy theories. We have billions of squiggling conspiracy theories in our water. Flooding our washes. Coursing in our aquifers.

Two cannibals, Nancy Pelosi and AOC told me this on George Soros yacht. We were at an antifa fish fry in Rocky Point.

Arizona has more disinformation peddlers than bin Laden had holes in his apartment. Opportunistic cynics willing to sink lower than Lake Mead feed this human thirst for simple answers to complex issues and their own personal thirst for power, graft and saps to grift.

Let’s examine some favorites.

Kelli Ward, head of Arizona’s Republican Party and farther out there than Pioneer 10, Voyager 1 and Glenn Beck, has been dissing her fellow Republican, Gov. Doug Ducey, because he’s not into recounting the 2020 ballots again.

Not after we had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir count those ballots out loud at the top of their lungs. Not after we had the hand count by Sesame Street’s “The Count” — using an abacus.

Ward’s fundraising email appeals are eye-catching.

“We’ve got to stop this from happening! Joe ‘Chain Gang’ Arpaio just tweeted that a white woman named Mamie Eisenhower was killed by a Mexican produce vendor living here illegally. With a casaba melon!”

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Mecham would’ve sent her $20.

Then there’s the titans Arizona sends to Washington, D.C.

Congressman Paul Gosar for example. Six of his brothers and sisters and three household pets have publicly condemned Paul. He’s so disliked for his white supremacist views, the pet rat’s talking.

He was pushing the idea of a white nationalist “Anglo-Saxon Caucus” in Congress. Stir in white supremacist with a hint of QAnon. The man is Anglo Sax-Anon. Like the great white warriors of the 11th century, Gosar’s unable to learn about the history of civil rights in the 20th century, talk to Ev about the word pickaninny or read a room.

Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs is a big boy. Big on voting down COVID relief, dissing masks and blowing off Dr. Anthony Fauci. I believe Andy felt invulnerable because word on the street was the pandemic only affected human beings.

Down around our neck of the dunes we have state Rep. Mark Finchem, the Forrest Gump of the insurrection. Finchem was so giddy to be there he was tweeting insurrection selfies like a 14-year old girl at a Taylor Swift concert.

The Mossad and ISIS tell me he’s being watched by the deep state out of an abandoned Radio Shack in Apache Junction.

I should ghostwrite tweets for him. I wrote this one.

“Racist Black Lives Matter behind cancellation of Dukes of Hazzard. Cancel culture! Freedom! They’ll get my pitchfork, AR-15 and tiki torch when they pry ‘em from my dead cold fingers. Liberty!”

These are the science-denying titans who hold their breath while going past Casa Grande to avoid getting the Gila Bends.

Can you imagine the private conversations at their shindigs? Mecham would be welcomed like a savant and a prophet.

“When those Mexican-speaking Spanish radicals take over and Arizona becomes ‘Aztlan,’ then Saddlebrooke will be made into an internment camp for Caucasians who prefer mild salsa. I have undeniable proof Kyrsten Sinema is an anime-like being created when a UFO flown by Jewish persons struck a Buffalo Exchange in Scottsdale.”

“Tell us more, Ev.”

“Vaccine passports are a plot to intimidate people who can’t spell ‘Pfizer.’ I saw spaceships in the night sky over Winslow. And then out of nowhere. Jewish lasers. Global warming is a hoax perpetuated by Frigidaire. The missing Trump ballots are buried under ‘A’ Mountain in that hippie town.”

Evan Mecham won. He’s everywhere. Don’t drink the water.