Both Sides Now

Back in 2018 I actually got this flyer (both sides pictured here) in the mail.  The issue was drag queens running story time in Houston public libraries.  This was also, at the time, when the whole "transgenders in our bathrooms want to rape our young white daughters" was all the rage.  Stephen Hotze, a Houston GOP lawyer and "activist," as the press calls him, was behind the group that published this garbage.  The Democratic ballot at the time included black women for all the district court seats in Travis County.

Those women swept every District Court judge in Travis County out of office.  It was the unofficial declaration that Harris County is now blue.  I don't think the rest of the world has caught on to that yet.

Anyway, I mention Stephen Hotze because he was behind the Texas GOP lawsuit in federal court to get the Texas GOP convention in Houston put back in the Convention Center.  That lasted, by the way, from late Friday afternoon until early Saturday morning, when the 5th Circuit suspended the TRO the trial judge issued (which in itself is extraordinary, and tells you how far out of bounds the trial court was. I mean, the 5th Circuit is a court populated with the kinds of Judges McConnell dreams of for every federal judgeship in the nation.).  The Texas GOP had to hold their convention "virtually," and the upshot of some of that was speeches by Dan Patrick and John Cornyn were cut off as the feed ping-ponged between speeches and the meeting of the Rules Committee (as any fule kno, the Rules Committee actions are far more important).  Then late Sunday night the Texas GOP dumped their Chairman in favor of Allen West.

Allen West is a cracked pot of long standing, a man so extreme he lost his House seat in Florida, if memory serves.  Anyway, he moved to Texas some time back, where Republicans like his kind of crazy, and now have put him in charge of their state party.  It's a representative system, after all.   And his first act is going to be:  taking on Republican office holders in the name of the Republican Party.

I shit you not.

"It's time that our Republican Party once again steps up and leads the way, not just in Texas, but all across the United States of America," West said. "It's time to make sure that the Republican Party of Texas is relevant again, that our message is out, that our message is being heard."

West also appealed to some in the party who have grown frustrated with their own leaders — namely Gov. Greg Abbott — for how they have responded to the coronavirus pandemic. West rallied delegates against what he said was the "tyranny that we see in the great state of Texas, where we have executive orders and mandates, people telling us what we can and cannot do, who is essential, who is not essential."

If you don't remember him, West is a really charming guy:

Responding to West's win Monday morning, the Texas Democratic Party pointed to his long trail of incendiary rhetoric. Among the comments: He has argued Islam is not a religion but a "totalitarian, theocratic political ideology." West, who is Black, has also suggested Black communities were "stronger" during segregation.

“We’re disgusted but not surprised that Texas Republicans chose a certified racist conservative hardliner like Allen West as their new chairman," state Democratic Party spokesman Abhi Rahman said in a statement. "West is everything that is wrong with the Republican Party and brings to light their failures on building an inclusive, welcoming party that is deliberate and thoughtful in handling crisis situations."

I'm disgusted with Greg Abbott, too; and the enemy of my enemy is my friend, except in this case I don't want to interrupt my enemy when he is beating himself in the face.  If I was concerned about a resurgence of the GOP in Texas, I'm not concerned anymore.  The GOP answer to the coronavirus is to let it in as if it were a migrant worker come to harvest our crops.  Which is doubly bizarre because the majority of people I see in all the photos of GOP conventions past are old white people; not unlike me, actually.  But I'm staying home as much as possible and wearing a mask when I do go out, because I'm neither crazy nor stupid nor ready to die (or infect the Lovely Wife).

As I say, Democrats saw 1 million voters turnout statewide for primary runoffs, in July.  There's a reason we have primaries in Texas in March:  by July nobody goes outside except to go to work, or to find a large body of water on the weekends.  That kind of turnout, for a primary runoff in which most of the candidates were unknowns (and none were Beto O'Rourke who, say what you want, has star power and charisma to spare), is a harbinger of things to come.

And the GOP is still trying to scare us about drag queens and commies under the bed and losing our right to go maskless in public and infect people because "FREEDUMB!"