Have Republicans simply gone completely bananas?

The evidence points to – yes.

Not from The Onion:

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday asked the State Guard to monitor a U.S. military training exercise dubbed “Jade Helm 15″ amid suspicions that the war simulation is really a hostile military takeover.

My sense is that as the Democratic Party has become ever more conservative and indistinguishable from moderate Republicans over the years, there is a desperation among Republican partisans to distinguish themselves as LEGIT conservatives in ways that would have been viewed as coo-coo a mere 5 years ago.