Texas: GOP Rejects Democracy, Embraces Theocracy

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Dean Obeidallah, a common contributor to CNN, describes the Texas GOP’s defiant rejection of democracy. In an before article, I pointed out that the condition conference booed Senator Jon Cornyn for daring to negotiate a bipartisan gun management offer (which did not include things like any of President Biden’s demands). That was the mildest of their actions.

He writes:

CNN) &#8211 Disturbing video clip from the Texas Republican Convention this weekend displays conference-goers mocking GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw &#8212 a Navy SEAL veteran who missing his correct eye to a bomb in Afghanistan &#8212 with the expression &#8220eye patch McCain.&#8221

Fox Information&#8217 Tucker Carlson coined the derisive nickname right after the Texas lawmaker dared to convey help for beleaguered Ukraine pursuing Russia&#8217s barbaric assault on it.

But seemingly even more heinous in the eyes of some attendees is that Crenshaw rejected previous President Donald Trump&#8217s promises that the 2020 election was stolen. One particular guy wearing a crimson &#8220Make America Excellent Once more&#8221 hat can be observed yelling in an online movie, &#8220Dan Crenshaw is a traitor!&#8221 and &#8220He wants to be hung for treason!&#8221

As despicable as the behavior towards Crenshaw was, even additional alarming had been the steps taken by the Texas GOP and the conference&#8217s 5,000-additionally delegates.

The accumulating rejected the outcome of a democratic election, supported bigotry towards the LGBTQ neighborhood and imposed far-correct spiritual beliefs on many others by searching for to have them enshrined into legislation. And that wasn&#8217t half of it.

In fact, the conference confirmed us a single point: Texas Republicans are no longer hiding their extremism. As a substitute, they are brazenly embracing it.

Even ahead of the opening gavel, they gave us a glimpse of the celebration&#8217s extremism in the Lone Star Point out by banning the Log Cabin Republicans from placing up a booth at the convention.

Texas Republican Bash Chairman Matt Rinaldi solid the deciding vote on the shift to bar the team that has advocated for LGBTQ Republicans for a long time. &#8220I consider it&#8217s inappropriate given the point out of our nation suitable now for us to enjoy sexual id politics,&#8221 Rinaldi advised the Fort Really worth Star-Telegram.

After it formally got underway, the conference took a range of appalling and un-American steps. Initially, delegates authorized a evaluate declaring that President Joe Biden &#8220was not legitimately elected.&#8221 In quick, the Texas GOP &#8212 like Trump himself &#8212 is embracing a lie mainly because it&#8217s sad with the election results. Set extra bluntly, the Texas GOP voted to reject American democracy.

Republican delegates also booed John Cornyn, the senior US senator from Texas, at the convention Friday due to the fact of the Republican lawmaker&#8217s function foremost negotiations to achieve a Senate offer on a bill to stem gun violence. These legislative attempts follow past month&#8217s horrific taking pictures that claimed the life of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.

The platform approved at the convention referred to as for repealing or nullifying gun legal guidelines by now in location, these types of as the Gun Regulate Act of 1968, which helps prevent felons and other harmful people today from currently being able to acquire a gun legally. Evidently, the Texas GOP thinks that even harmful folks ought to have a constitutionally protected ideal to purchase a gun.

The Texas GOP platform also embraced ramping up anti-abortion rhetoric in community schools. For case in point, the platform states that &#8220Texas pupils must learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Boy or girl, which includes … that life begins at fertilization.&#8221 It even seeks to pressure students to check out &#8220a reside ultrasound&#8221 and for high-schoolers to read through an anti-abortion booklet that critics say &#8220incorporates scientifically unsupported claims and shames females in search of abortion care,&#8221 according to The Texas Tribune.

It sounds like the curriculum that you could discover in a theocratic federal government such as the Taliban &#8212 not one in the United States funded by taxpayer bucks. But the GOP in substantial swaths of this nation is no for a longer time hesitant to aid legal guidelines to impose its spiritual beliefs &#8212 as we see with measures some Republicans winner that would thoroughly ban abortion. The GOP convention&#8217s doc furthermore urges officers &#8220not to infringe on Texas university college students&#8217 and staffs&#8217 rights to pray and interact in religious speech.&#8221

The Texas GOP system also does its most effective to demonize those people in the transgender community. It describes transgender individuals as suffering from &#8220a legitimate and exceptionally rare mental wellness issue.&#8221 And it sees sexual reassignment medical procedures as a kind of medical malpractice.

The platform requires purpose at gay Individuals as nicely with the assertion that homosexuality is &#8220an abnormal way of life alternative.&#8221 Instructively, the Texas GOP platform did not include things like this kind of language in 2018 and 2020.

This system gives us a glimpse into the sights of the Republican foundation on key troubles that in switch will tension GOP elected officials in Texas &#8212 and maybe beyond the point out &#8212 to undertake likewise excessive positions or operate the possibility of a main challenge from an even more excessive Republican.

What caused this move to the considerably correct? Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, informed The Texas Tribune about the condition GOP&#8217s new intense platform, &#8220Donald Trump radicalized the get together and accelerated the calls for from the base.&#8221 He additional alarmingly, &#8220There simply just aren&#8217t boundaries now on what the foundation could possibly question for.&#8221

I concur &#8212 in component. I don&#8217t imagine Trump radicalized the foundation &#8212 somewhat he basically gave individuals permission to be who they normally wanted to be.

But I agree with Rottinghaus that there are now no restrictions for what the GOP foundation may well look for &#8212 be it rejecting election success it doesn&#8217t agree with to enacting additional regulations centered on excessive spiritual beliefs. And that need to deeply alarm each American who needs to dwell in a democratic republic.

The convention also issued a contact to repeal the 1965 Voting Legal rights Act, which confirmed the proper to vote for just about every citizen of voting age.

The only matter the Texas GOP neglected to do was move a resolution congratulating the shooter at Uvalde for exercising his “God-given right” to use his AR15 as he saw in shape.

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