While many Republican Governors run as far away as possible from whom the New York Times editorial writer Charles Blow penned “The Grand Wizard of Birtherism” Texas Republican leaders blindly proceed straight into Trump’s arms.
Mr. Blow, who normally submits his articles on Monday, posted today for fear his piece “won’t hold.” I am not sure what this means other than Mr. Blow’s editor at the New York Times may decide to delete the post, or will forbid its publication in the newspaper’s print edition on Monday.
Whatever. Bloggers like me have already shared, tweeted, posted and provided excerpts of the article.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Texas Republican leadership will blindly follow Trump, an openly outspoken bigot, racist, misogynist, xenophobic hate master and falsifier.
For the methodology of hatred works all too well in the former slave states.
Trump doesn’t waste his time with dog whistles, coded language or whisper campaigns in order to trash groups on his smear lists. He simply screams out loud what the GOP has muttered for decades.
The malice flows fluently from his mouth.
Sadly, the former Texas Governor Rick Perry and current Governor Greg Abbott have no problem with Trump’s rancor.
None whatsoever. Because both former and current Texas Governors are masters of malevolence.
A few days ago Governor Abbott said he is fully behind Trump. The Governor’s biggest hope is that the Republican Presidential bigoted nominee will win Texas by double digits.
On Thursday, however, Abbott was a bit more laudatory than usual, saying he trusts Trump to appoint conservative judges, secure the border and cut government regulations.
"Trump is stepping up and doing what Texans are asking for, and that is securing the border," Abbott said, later adding, "I think Trump understands the necessity and the ways that we can reduce regulations."
Abbott's appearance at the luncheon came hours after the release of another poll showing an unusually close race for the White House in Texas, a solidly red state. The Texas Lyceum survey found Trump leading Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by only 7 percentage points among likely voters.
Actually, Governor, most of don’t want to ban brown immigrants from Texas. Nor do we want to burn $1 billion of our states’ dollars into border security when there are far greater needs, such as education and health care.
Rick Perry, who once called Trump a cancer on conservatism, changed his tune when the Republican Presidential nominee searched around for a running mate.
Rick Perry rationalizes his support for Trump by insisting that the Republican nominee doesn’t really mean what he says. Right. Trump doesn’t mean what he says though he repeats the same kinds of antipathy over and over and over.
Everyday.
So, let’s take close look at the Grand Wizard of Birtherism, as examined by Mr. Blow. The man is never wrong. He never apologizes. He never takes responsibility for his recklessness.
First of all, Trump attempted to blame his vicious birther campaign on Hillary Clinton and her 2008 campaign staff.
So, on Friday the Grand Wizard of Birtherism against President Obama admitted that birtherism was bunk, not by apologizing for his prominent role in the racist campaign — no, that would have been too right — but by suggesting that he deserved credit for dousing the flames he’d fanned.
This man is so low that he’s subterranean.
Donald Trump said Friday: “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy.”
Trump said he finished the birther effort that Clinton had started. Of course this is ridiculous and most of us know it but the Grand Wizard is a master at working the media, as we well know by now.
That was also a lie. Well after it had been established that the president was born in this country, Trump continued to traffic in speculation to the contrary, all the way up to and including this year.
Nor is Trump a stranger to advancing conspiracy theories, false narratives, the downright batsh*t nuts and blatant lies.
Trump has a long history of elevating the idiocy of conspiracy theories and normalizing the nonsensical.
Trump has claimed that Bill Ayers wrote the President’s acclaimed, best-selling memoir because surely this black man couldn’t have the talent to write the book. As Trump put it:
“I think somebody else had a lot to do with that book. I think he wrote the second book, which was certainly not a masterpiece. I’m very good at books, and it certainly wasn’t a masterpiece.”
Trump’s animosity toward our President is sick and twisted. Mr. Obama is a Muslim (as if anything is wrong with that). He didn’t go to college. Someone else wrote his books.
Trump claimed in a 2011 interview with Sean Hannity that President Obama was “born Barry Soetoro, somewhere along the line, he changed his name.” Soetoro is the surname of Obama’s mother’s second husband, who she married when Obama was a young boy. But Trump didn’t stop there. He strung together more conspiracy theories, including coming back to his obvious envy of the success and quality of Obama’s first book:
“I heard he had terrible marks and he ends up in Harvard. He wrote a book that was better than Ernest Hemingway, but his second book was written by an average person. He shouldn’t have written the second book.”
Well, there we have it. Now we know why Rick Perry and Greg Abbott endorsed the Grand Wizard of Birtherism. These boys have been doing the Wizard’s work for decades, by employing different and more subtle methods, of course. The Texas Governor doesn’t care that Trump’s supporters include white supremacists, neo-Nazis and anti-Semitic organizations. For, after all, these are the same people that will vote for Greg Abbott and Rick Perry, too.
The conservative editorial board of the Dallas Morning News recently denounced Donald Trump’s candidacy. It endorsed Hillary Clinton. The Houston Chronicle, a center-right newspaper in the state’s most diverse city, supports Hillary Clinton. Surely the Governor reads the state’s biggest newspapers. But it seems that right wing radio hosts like Alex Jones have more influence on Greg Abbott.
Since the 2008 Inauguration, while the President danced with the First Lady, leading Republicans have been on a mission to block, humiliate and essentially de-ball the first African American President of the United State.
The GOP deserves its nominee. Live by hatred, die by hatred.
Let’s work together to bring down the party of malice, divisiveness and fear. For we are far better than this evil cancer that has been spreading across our country.
Texas. We are not necessarily a red state. We are a low voting state in which the GOP has done its best to gerrymander Democrats out of relevance.
Let’s turn this around. For the time is long overdue in which to blast apart Tom Delay and Karl Rove’s cynical plan for a permanent Republican majority into oblivion. As we are learning, one Party rule is nothing more than crony capitalism, corruption, partisan bribery and pay to play politics.
Voting matters. Big time. For, if all of us were to vote in Texas, Democrats could indeed win.
I’ll be registering voters in Houston, precinct 350 on Saturday, September 24 from 10:00 a.m. to noon. If you live in the area and need to register please PM me. The precinct chair for this area will join me.
To check one’s voter registration status, please call your local county Democratic Party headquarters. If there is not one in your district/city, contact the Texas Democratic Party or your county clerk’s office. Battleground Texas is another crucially important resource.
We can do this. If we try.
