I covered my first Texas Republican Party Convention in 2010, during the Tea Party movement’s ascendance at the state and the national levels. My editors warned me ahead of time that I would see and hear some wild stuff, but cautioned me against taking any of it too seriously in my reporting. This was “red meat” for the base, not serious policy. I got the memo: my coverage, for the Dallas Observer alt-weekly, was full of snark and derision.
But 14 years later, many of the priorities for which I mocked the Texas GOP’s faithfulest-of-the-faithful have indeed been realized, both here in Texas and nationally. Now, their latest platform, which delegates voted on last weekend, endorses the conspiracist “great reset” theory, declares that “abortion is not health care, it is homicide,” and calls for a new election law requiring candidates running for statewide offices to win a majority of Texas’ 254 counties, effectively barring any Democrat from the position. And that’s just the start. . . .
I would hope that, by now, we political writers have realized that the “fringes” of the Republican Party — in Texas or anywhere else — are the primary drivers of politics, policy and personnel. I would hope that we finally take seriously the idea that the Texas GOP platform is a statement of intent.
As the Dallas Morning News’s Gromer Jeffers wrote after the party’s 2022 convention, “many proposals once thought too extreme are becoming public policy.” Of course they are; between the Tea Party and Trump, the farthest-right factions of the Texas GOP have amassed a tremendous amount of power and influence. From Gov. Abbott to Lt. Gov Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton on down, Texas Republicans now take their orders from the blathering, criminal bigot from New York City.
American conservatism, bent as it always has been toward authoritarian rule, white supremacy and xenophobia, has long been ripe for this kind of takeover. For decades, even supposedly more moderate and mainstream Republican politics have been dominated by public pledges to do, well, exactly what Republicans are now doing: outlawing abortion, censoring free speech and terrorizing immigrants, queer people and religious believers (even Christians!) who fail to comply with the GOP’s vision for America as an evangelical Christian theocracy.
There are many, many horrors to behold in the latest platform, and they must be taken seriously not in spite of how terrifying the document is, but because of how terrifying the document is. It is because the latest Texas GOP platform endorses “prohibiting the teaching of sex education, sexual health, or sexual choice or identity” that we should take it seriously. It is because the platform equates abortion and murder that we should take it seriously. It is because the platform aims to ban any Democrat — and indeed, any noncompliant Republican — from ever holding statewide office, that we should take it seriously.
This stuff cannot and should not be written off as outsider, fringe crankery. Because it isn’t. And the rightward, increasingly fascist swing in the GOP in Texas and nationally is far from complete. We have seen it amplified year over year in Texas, and with Trump’s takeover of the RNC, we are going to see much more of this across the country. We dismiss that fundamental truth at our peril.