Let’s say that you, a normal and sane user of the internet, are browsing through popular social media platform Twitter.com—a vast cocktail party on the web, where influencers rub elbows with everyday folks just like yourself. There, in the great marketplace of ideas, where a simple 280-character idea can light the world afire, you may come across the following missive from country icon Charlie Daniels:
Upon seeing this you may wonder to yourself, “Why is country singer Charlie Daniels tweeting at Taco Bell about the Illuminati?”
Friend, we’re glad you asked. See, “Devil Went Down To Georgia” singer Daniels is what we might call an Old White Guy Online, meaning that he both doesn’t quite know how to use the internet but still does so prolifically, tweeting such things as “Benghazi ain’t going away!” on an almost daily basis alongside musings about the weather, the Bible, U.S. foreign policy, and college football. To wit:
You get the picture.
This is not, in and of itself, a particularly remarkable Twitter presence. But recently, Taco Bell unleashed a new marketing campaign which cheekily attributes their 20 new $1 items to an ancient conspiracy based on the Illuminati. Here, enjoy an advertisement:
Daniels presumably happened upon this campaign in the wild, and it activated his latent concerns about a global Illuminati-style conspiracy. (He’s full of good takes: He has also defended Trump, compared the removal of Confederate statues to Isis, and declared that he isn’t watching Thursday Night Football on a Wednesday.) In a massive anti-Obama screed published on Facebook in late 2014, Daniels connected the president to the Illuminati, writing, in part:
These stories have been around since the days of the Knights Templar and the Illuminati and are theorized in some quarters to be behind the push for one world government.
I don’t know how much, if any, of the theory is true, an international mafia-like organization meeting in secret to decide the direction of world governments, the dispersal of wealth, the introduction of laws that benefit their causes, electing presidents, prime ministers, senators, congressmen and staffing state houses with those favorable to their cause.
In fact, the whole enchilada is a little too much for me to swallow, but having said that, I do have some very deep suspicions about people who operate behind the scenes and have undue and unmerited influence in the halls of power of the international political scene.
It appears, however, that when that enchilada is sprinkled with Cool Ranch Dorito seasoning, he is slightly more willing to swallow the notion of an ancient, pagan globalist conspiracy.
Look, the point is, Charlie Daniels is not saying the Illuminati is real. But he is saying it might be real, and that at the very least this is far too grave an issue for Taco Bell to be making light of.
And that is why he is tweeting at Taco Bell about the Illuminati. The fast food chain has yet to respond.