There’s a major assault going on in Texas, among other states, against the values of integrity and honor that you and I hold dear.
Back in the day, folks who wanted to scam you and rob you used to try to hide what they were doing, since that kind of behavior was frowned upon, not to mention illegal. But nowadays, it’s become not only acceptable but downright fashionable to blatantly buy politicians and tell people it’s the smart way to do business.
I’ve told you before about the West Texas oil/gas/evangelical billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who have decided it would be nice to push Texas farther to the right, into their own personal christian-nationalist playground (small-c christian because Jesus would not approve). They use their billions to control the outcome of elections and important state issues like the impeachment of our multiply indicted Attorney General (hey, guys, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick says thanks for the $3 million donation after delivering an acquittal).
You might wonder how we are still a democracy if wealthy oligarchs run the show. Well, who says we want a democracy? Not Governor Abbott, who recently picked up a $6 million contribution, the largest in Texas history, from billionaire gambler Jeff Yass. He’s not even from Texas, but he did so well buying lots of votes in Pennsylvania that he thought he should place some bets in Texas. (Yass is another right-wing Rich Guy, but for the record, I don’t support left-wing billionaires calling the shots either).
Once again, Texas is so special! All but eight of the other forty-nine states have chosen to put a limit, sometimes a fairly strict one, on the amount an individual can donate to a political campaign. Not Texas. We let anybody give as much as they want, to support politicians who will gladly scratch their donors’ backs. By the way, favoring a wealthy donor was what led to Paxton’s impeachment.
Our Governor has proudly announced that Yass’ $6 million now puts him at a whopping $38 million in his campaign fund, and he isn’t even running this year. He’s very openly saying that the money will be used to fund primary challenges against all the reasonable, mostly rural, Republicans who did not agree that private and religious school vouchers were something their constituents needed. Many of those targeted have supported Abbott’s pet projects very consistently in the past, but that’s no longer enough to pass the loyalty test.
In an ironic twist that would be funny if it weren’t so disturbing, part of our Governor’s enemies list will clash with the hit list created by Paxton, who’s targeting every Republican who voted to impeach him. So, unless you were loyal to both, you’re going to be “primaried”, which is a euphemism for “screwed.” Thanks to the dysfunctional role model at the head of the national Republican party, members will be shooting at each other for failing whichever loyalty test is applied. It doesn’t matter what the issue is about, or even how your constituents want you to vote, it only matters how the guys at the top of the political food chain want you to vote.
Politics doesn’t have to be this way. Money doesn’t have to have so much power, at the expense of what’s best for us little guys down here at the bottom.
We in Bandera will face a slightly different version of this sad but true story. Our representative, rancher Andrew Murr from Junction, has already announced that he will not seek reelection at the end of his term next year. This is very unfortunate but not surprising, in that he is loathed by Paxton for leading the impeachment proceedings against him, and also by Abbott for rallying rural Republicans against private school vouchers that would have further harmed public school funding. A moderate Republican with a strong backbone and the interests of ordinary Texans at heart, Murr would have had to run in a primary against a hand-picked candidate with a big budget chosen solely on the basis of promising to deliver our votes to the Governor. Do you see how vile and authoritarian this is? It should make you mad!
It’s one thing to want to “Keep Texas Red,” but it’s another thing entirely if that red is the color of our democracy’s blood, being spilled so that rich and powerful men can get richer and more powerful by owning us. Are you for sale?
Susan Hull is a retired clinical psychologist, a stubbornly Independent voter, and a Bandera resident who has only recently learned how many different shades of red there can be.
