Gary Abbott isn’t the only one.

But as the supposed governor of Texas he makes a fine example of everything rotten in Republican politics at this juncture in history.

Like many Republican governors, he’s running his state into the ground. It’s not so much a dysfunctional government and as an unfunctional government.

What links the mass school shootings and murdered children to those who froze to death when millions lost power after a storm? What links the tens of thousands who died of Covid to tax breaks for union-busting corporations?

Bad government. Elected officials were once charged with protecting all of us. Those days are long gone.

Republicans in power are now incapable of governing. They’re only interested in holding onto power at all costs while allocating state funds to Republican allies and stooges. Essentially looting public coffers and debt bonds to private interests.

This is not governing. This is stealing. Governing - in the conventional sense - means assenting to the will of the majority while looking out for the most vulnerable citizens. Like schoolchildren.

In Texas, that should mean governing for the millions in the state who aren’t hard-right Republicans or supporters of the performative governor. Not just a handful of hard-right corporations and hard-right culture warriors.

A big reason for this abhorrent hard-right shift is the base of Republican primary voters. In a state of almost 30 million, roughly 17 million are registered to vote, but only about two million voted in the past two Republican primaries — and those who do vote are old, white and far to the right.

In this year’s primary, a Republican candidate could have won the nomination with less than four percent of voters. How is this democracy?

Too many of our leaders no longer accept the responsibility of protecting the young and the vulnerable, protecting everyone. No longer accept the responsibility of good government.

Even worse, elected Republicans are bitterly fighting all sensible gun laws while also fighting access to affordable health care, including treatment for mental illness.

They’re not governing. They’re starting fires and pouring on the gasoline. Then fanning the flames.

Claiming they’re the solution when they’re the problem all along. Claiming that school shootings are the cost of doing business.

The time has come to remove them from office.

Once and for all.

References

“How Greg Abbott and under 4 percent of Texans are ruining the state for the rest of us” The New York Times (2022)