The Battle for One of the Richest and Smallest Counties in Texas

The incidents made visible the growing schism between Skeet Jones and his nephew, Brandon Jones, the county constable. Skeet’s faction maintains that it has been the subject of political persecution. Brandon — who is widely believed to be the livestock investigator’s confidential informant — maintained that his uncle ran the town like he was above the law. (Brandon declined to comment on the identity of the informant.) Both sides filed a series of lawsuits and countersuits naming each other. (The filings, with their absurdly heightened rhetoric, make for strange reading. In a request for a temporary restraining order and injunction against Brandon, one of Skeet’s allies claimed, among other things, that Brandon raised his eyebrows “in an intimidating manner” during a proceeding.)

Elections have become proxy battles in the family war, with each side nominating candidates for local offices. (Loving County is, on the whole, a deeply conservative place, but a number of its elected officials — including Skeet — run as Democrats, as if the political realignments of the past seventy years have bypassed the county while its residents have become absorbed in more local concerns.) “Any voter can challenge any other voter’s registration, and in Loving County, almost every vote we’ve cast has been the subject of some sort of civil challenge,” said David Landersman, the county sheriff. He also serves as the county’s registrar of voters.

The feud in Loving County is marked by both intensity and stasis, with both sides locked in a small-town version of trench warfare. A recent election was won by a single vote; another resulted in a tie. Then, in 2024, a third element entered the system, in the unlikely form of a rough-and-tumble Indiana culture evangelist named Malcolm Tanner.

In 2023, Teresa, a woman living in South Carolina, was driving a winding road down a mountain when a word came to her mind: “Texas.” Two years later, it happened again. This time the word was “West”. Soon after, she saw a social media post from Tanner, a tall, confident self-proclaimed CEO and real estate mogul. Tanner spoke with a mix of political agitation and entrepreneurial momentum. He urged his three hundred thousand Facebook followers to head to a place Teresa was hearing about for the first time: Loving County. “See you in Texas,” he wrote in one message. “Thank you everyone for saying YES to finding a true political home with us! »

Because of its wealth, the county had attracted the attention of political interlopers in the past. In 2005, a handful of libertarians attempted, without much success, to take control of the government. The idea of ​​taking back the county occasionally circulates on X and YouTube as “the craziest deal in America.”

Tanner had presented a number of grand visions in recent years. He was going to transform a dilapidated old YMCA building in central Indiana into a hotel; he was going to organize a Million Man March, also in Indiana; he was going to run for president and institute reparations for what he called “melanated people.” None of his projects came to fruition. Then, in 2024, he turned his attention to Loving County. Tanner’s supporters could move to Texas, win elected office and receive “free political housing,” he said. (He also suggested a new name: Tanner County.) On Clubhouse, the live voice chat platform, he held loud, engaging meetings twice a day. “I retired, I was bored, and it was just something to do. I was meeting a lot of people, you know, melanated people from all over the world, good people,” Erica Marshall, a former member of Tanner’s circle who became one of his most vocal critics, told me. Tanner was “very manipulative,” she said. “He was able to convince people to quit their jobs, to leave their homes. They sold all their stuff except what they could fit in their car, and they went to Loving County, just like that.” (Marshall never made it to Texas.)

In October I went to Mentone. It was my first time in Loving County, and given everything I’d heard about the sparse population, I expected tumbleweeds and the eerie silence of the Panhandle. But the city was bustling, the roads full of pickup trucks and heavy equipment; at the gas station, I had to wait in line to get a pump, while oil workers were going to and from work.