I am likely to go straight to my grave never being able to comprehend the weird dynamic playing out within the Texas Republican Party in this age of The Donald and The Big Lie.
Let’s ponder for a moment some weird happenings that occurred during this past Tuesday’s March primary election.
The contest for Tarrant County judge featured two candidates, Betsy Price and Tim O’Hare, who fought tooth-and-nail for the party nomination. Sitting on the other side of the Metroplex, Price — the well-respected former Fort Worth mayor — seemed a good bet to prevail. Oh, no!
She got thumped by O’Hare, who accused her of being a “progressive” mayor who favored rules that don’t discriminate against transgender people. O’Hare then pledged to clamp down on all those hot-button issues that raise hackles among far-right conservatives: critical race theory, immigration reform, gay rights.
Then came the race for Congress in the Third House District — where my wife and I reside. Incumbent Republican Van Taylor was targeted by the far-righties within the GOP of being a traitor to the Republican cause. Keith Self, the former Collin County judge, finished second in the primary, but Taylor was set to engage Self in a May runoff … before he ended his re-election effort admitting to an affair with a Plano woman. So now it appears that Self, who believes in The Big Lie, is going to win the election this November and take his nut-job world view to Capitol Hill, where he’ll get join the likes of QAnon queens Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
The party has become a cult following. It has devolved into a once-great political organization into a cabal of kooks who won’t accept the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election, who hold out the fantasy that The Donald will run again in 2024 and actually win back the White House.
So help me Almighty God in heaven, I cannot think of a more frightening prospect than that.
And yet, we have fully grown human beings believing the sh** that flies out of The Donald’s pie hole and promise to restore some perverted version of “patriotism” to our national government.
What perhaps is most astounding of all is that not every Republican officeholder in America believes this crap, but so damn few of them are willing to speak out, stand up for the truth and call these wackos out for who they are. Who are they? They are dangerous cretins who have no business making laws or collecting taxpayers’ money.
By cracky, they’re in office and seek to cement their vise grip on the American political system by any means necessary. Just think, my family and I have ringside seats from which we are able to watch this nonsense play out.
Good grief!