As a Republican and a conservative, I watched the riots and the storming of the Capitol with horror and, perhaps like some readers, sunk into a funk.
In the weeks since, I’ve watched events unfold closer to home, as the Republican Party of Texas, and its newly-elected chairman Allen West, have been hijacked and yoked in an unholy alliance with a political omnivore that destroys everything it encounters.
Empower Texas is the short-seller in state conservative politics; i.e., it is heavily invested in a down market.
The party is now joined with Empower Texas, the feral hog of Texas politics, whose real mission is to agitate discontent among conservatives and foster the impression that no conservative gain is enough. It is a bureaucracy that, like every other bureaucracy, exists first to propagate and multiply, not to work itself out of existence. It does that by constantly moving the goal line. When the Legislature accomplishes what conservatives want, as it did last session, Empower Texas merely moves the goals, sometimes mid-session, in order to spin the results as a loss.
Another way of looking at it is to understand Empower Texas as the short-seller in state conservative politics; i.e., it is heavily invested in a down market. It is betting against you. That’s right, Empower Texas wins when you lose because its only strategy is to spin the loss. Empower loses influence when conservatives win.
Last week the Republican Party of Texas website “State Directory” listing actually redirected to the Empower Texas Scorecard site, an ignominious change of address signaling the secret elopement of the two organizations. It was later removed without explanation or apology.
So, what does the rioting and destruction at the Capitol have to do with Allen West’s partnering with Empower Texas? Allen West is encouraging Texans to consider a TEXIT vote. TEXIT is the Texas nationalist movement. Secession. Parties we’ve always suspected to be backroom coordinated because of their common funding are beginning to publicly coalesce around the theme of Texas independence.
… behind the tent, West appears to be grooming Texas Republicans to accept TEXIT.
That’s correct. on a Fort Worth radio talk show last week Texas GOP Chairman Allen West, Florida carpetbagger extraordinaire, encourages a TEXIT vote.
West is a retired Army colonel from Florida who seems to fancy himself a 21st century William Barrett Travis, when in reality he’s acting the part of Don Quixote. Instead of seditiously tilting at windmills, Colonel/Chairman West ought to work on the chaos that is Texas GOP Headquarters. Or return his phone calls.
If you are naive to the inner workings of Republican politics, it is enough to say West was elected last July for the virtually the same reason every other chair of the party has been elected: he wasn’t the incumbent. Not surprisingly, incumbents aren’t favored in the sharp-edged world of intra-party politics.
Those who speculate West was recruited to move to Texas by Empower Texas’s Michael Quinn Sullivan in order to run for state chairman and eventually Governor of Texas may only be half right, but it’s hard to know which half would be more frightening. With his advocacy of TEXIT, we may safely assume West aspires to eventually be Emperor of Texas. We’ve not had one of those since Santa Anna invaded.
Now these two, Empower and West, are sending their medicine show to Lubbock in the form of the True Texas Project, born from the Fred McCarty’s NE Tarrant County Tea Party PAC. McCarty is best-known for his ungodly race-based rationalization of the 2019 mass shooting at an El Paso WalMart. They share the same funding sources and they march in lockstep with one goal: to accomplish nothing so they may complain about everything. The True Texas Project appears to be little more than a front for the Texas nationalist movement.
The snake oil West is selling is the seeds of sedition. He passively promotes secession under the guise of giving the people a “voice” with regards to the Texas nationalist movement. But behind the tent, West appears to be grooming Texas Republicans to accept TEXIT.
When did we become so weak we feel the need to bring our rifles to a protest?
And what might Colonel/Chairman/Emperor West do if a TEXIT plebiscite passes, when Harris and Dallas counties turn around and vote to rejoin the union just like West Virginia in 1863? Where does the madness stop?
I’m tired of this stupidity and I’m ready for a revolution – a revolution of our thinking.
Where did we get the idea that we fight this war with guns and by storming the Capitol? Those weren’t patriots; they were just sore losers. Fools, manipulated by parties who benefit from the chaos.
When did we abandon the exchange of ideas? When did we surrender argument as an art form? Where did reason and persuasion go?
And does anyone listen anymore?
When did we become so weak we feel the need to bring our rifles to a protest? What statement are you trying to make? That you intend to prevail by force? Is your cause that desperate? Are your protests, like your literature, intended to subtly communicate your intention to overthrow if you cannot overcome?
That’s how I read you, Colonel/Chairman West, and I’m not on board.
Put the guns up; get the pens out.
Let’s stipulate for a moment that the election was stolen, a proposition absent substantial and overwhelming evidence, but let’s just say it was.
It’s not the first time (again, speaking hypothetically), nor will it likely be the last time an election was stolen and the course of history shifted. Many people believe the 1960 presidential election was stolen in Chicago. The republic survived. The 1948 Texas Democratic Primary for U.S. Senator was undoubtedly fraudulently won by Lyndon Johnson, and I know many Democrats who believe the presidential election of 2000 was also “stolen.”
Our system will not break unless we break faith with the Constitution … breaking faith is what West is doing with TEXIT.
But we don’t take to the streets in violent protests. We don’t storm the Capitol. We don’t place the lives of innocent people at risk. We don’t brandish weapons at peaceful protests.We don’t pout and advocate secession, the political equivalent of giving up and taking your toys home with you. When did threatening civil war become a negotiation tactic? To listen to some of these fools is to be transplanted to the South in 1860. It is seditious and it is wrong.
Our system of government will not break, even under the occasional fraud, until and unless the people break faith with the Constitution. I believe what West is doing with TEXIT is precisely that: breaking faith with the Constitution.
Put the guns up; get the pens out. We’re not surrendering the battlefield to the mob. Yes, I’m ready for a revolution, but one in which we overcome with superior reason and ideals that capture citizens’ hearts. Winning minds with the power of our principles. The spiritual battle is not lost and we have not given up the fight.
And for you, Colonel/Chairman West, fall back to Florida. We’ll call if we need your help.