The last 10 days of May were tumultuous; those days included the conclusion of one of four Trump criminal trials, runoff elections for state legislature and congress, as well as the Republican Party of Texas convention, held in San Antonio.
The party that claims to be all about law and order is now the party whose likely nominee is the first convicted felon to run for president. That’s right the man leading the party since 2016 has been convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Falsifying those business records would have been a misdemeanor if the reason hadn’t been to cover-up another crime like violating campaign finance laws or tax evasion. He committed the crime in an effort to cover up hush money payments made to avoid scandal while running for president in 2016. Let’s not forget he’s previously been found at fault for falsifying documents related to bank loans and property taxes with a penalty of $450 million and that’s in addition to being penalized $83 million for defaming E. Jean Carroll whom he sexually assaulted. At least when Richard Nixon ran for president Republicans didn’t know he was a crook, unlike Donald J. Trump.
While I was never a fan of our state representative John Kuempel, he at least he repeatedly voted against defunding public education unlike so many of his Republican colleagues. Kuempel’s defense of public education ultimately caused his downfall as Gov. Abbott targeted him for replacement with Donald Trump bootlicker, Alan Schoolcraft. Abbott funneled millions in out of state money from school voucher supporters to his preferred primary challengers in several races including Schoolcraft. I laughed so hard watching the commercials calling Kuempel a California style liberal. If you’ve ever looked at Kuempel’s voting record you’d know that’s bald faced lie. The only silver lining I see is that perhaps having a supporter of defunding public education running for state legislature will cause Republicans and conservative independents who believe in the mission of public education to vote for Eric Norman, the Democrat running in HD-44.
The Republican Party of Texas lurched further to the right as a result of votes taken at their latest state convention. Lower than normal turnout may have contributed to the ease with which Christian Nationalist billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks used their influence to get their handpicked candidate, Abraham George, elected as party chair. The influence of Dunn and Wilks can also be seen in the ever deepening Christian Nationalist ideology appearing in the party platform.
In an interview with the Texas Tribune, Zach Maxwell, who previously served as chief of staff for former Rep. Mike Lang, and later worked for Empower Texans, a political action committee that was funded primarily by Dunn and Wilks, said the Texas Republican party has increasingly been driven by purity tests and opposition to religious or political diversity. In his opinion this year’s convention was the culmination of those trends. Maxwell told the Tribune “God was not only used as a tool at this convention, but if you didn’t mention God in some way, fake or genuine, I did feel it was seen as distasteful. There is a growing group of people who want to turn this nation into a straight-up theocracy. I believe they are doing it on the backs of people who are easily manipulated.”
To sum up, the Republican party is led by a convicted felon and Nazi sympathizer, the Texas party works to defund public education, contrary to the requirements of the state constitution, and make this country into a Christian version of Iran.
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