Some stereotypes are true.
The one about Texas Republicans struggling with the state’s changing demographics is one of them. In the free-wheeling and indecent Trump era, the old guard just lets it all hang out. And lash out. Here are examples from the last four months.
[Editor’s note: We’ve had to add an example since the original publication of this article several days ago.]
- White supremacy. A member of the Texas Republican Party’s platform committee, 74-year old Ray Myers, wrote on Facebook late last year, “Damn right, I’m a white nationalist and very Proud [sic] of it.” He only made the hole bigger when he tried to explain his statement.
- Religious test. In a well-publicized incident, the Tarrant County Republican Party held a vote in February on whether to demote one of its own members because he’s Muslim. Precinct chairwoman Dorrie O’Brien led the effort – very publicly – to oust him. Her side failed. That there was a vote in the first place is telling in 2019.
- Making voting harder. This month the Texas Secretary of State flagged 98,000 voters as being ineligible to vote. Problem was most of these folks were legally able to vote. A lawsuit charges this was an effort to purge Latinos from the voter rolls.
- Anti-LGBT legislation. A bill passed out of a Texas Senate committee on March 25 that would allow those working in licensed professions who have “sincerely held religious beliefs” to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
- English only! “She is a joke. English [-] this is not Mexico,” Chambers county commissioner and Republican Mark Tice said of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo who spoke English and Spanish at a news conference earlier this week. “It’s real simple. This is the United States. Speak English.”
And then file this under just weird. U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.) tweeted a quote by the 1920s Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. The Senator was attempting to undercut socialism, but instead effectively endorsed an atheist and fascist.
