Ten years ago, the Texas Republican Party used its platform to oppose the teaching of critical thinking in schools. In 2014, he declared homosexuality a chosen behavior contrary to God and approved “reparative therapy” to reverse it. By 2020, the party was ready to remind the world that “Texas reserves the right to secede from the United States.”
But now the Republican Party’s platform in the country’s largest red state – a long ideological wish list that even the most conservative Texans knew was full of incredible dreams that will never turn into politics – broke new ground in his push to the far right.
Approved by more than 5,000 party delegates last weekend in Houston during the party’s biennial congress, the new platform branded President Joe Biden as an “acting” commander-in-chief who was never “legitimately elected.”
However, it may not matter who the president is, as the platform takes the previous language of secession much further – by urging a Republican-controlled lawmaker to raise the issue of leaving the United States for voters next year.
The platform also says homosexuality is an “abnormal lifestyle choice” and rejects two-party legislation in Congress that seeks to raise the minimum age for buying weapons of attack from 18 to 21, saying Texas is under 21 are “most likely to be victims of violent crime and thus most will probably have to defend themselves.”
Although non-binding, the platform illustrates how far Republicans in Texas have moved to the right over the past decade, from defending tea party ideals in 2012 to endorsing former President Donald Trump’s continuing lies about a non-existent widespread fraud costing him who actually lost. with more than 7 million votes.
“The platform reflects the direction party activists believe the party should take,” said Matt Makovyak, a Republican strategist based in the Texas capital, Austin.
He said that instead of deciding elections or dictating legislative action, the platform was more appropriate as a signal of “where the main voters are and what interests them”.
Mackowiak said points such as considering continuity would not be taken seriously, but “Trump’s political agenda is here to stay.” He said that as the former president continues to question the results of the 2020 election, he will continue to find a receptive audience in the Texas Republican Party.
“Do people really doubt that Republicans are worried about how the election went?” Makovyak asked.
Matt Rinaldi, a former U.S. lawmaker who now chairs the Texas Republican Party, said Republican Republicans “rightly have no faith in the results of the 2020 election and don’t care how many times the elites tell us we should.”
“We refuse to allow the Democrats to falsify the elections in 2022 or 2024,” Rinaldi said in a statement.
The Democrats have not falsified anything. A review by the Associated Press of any potential voter fraud in the six states contested by Trump found less than 475 – a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election.
Meanwhile, the Texas election in 2020 was a scandal even by the standards of Republicans, who have dominated the state for decades. The party’s candidates led Democrats in key contests for Congress and the United States, as Trump easily carried his electoral votes.
But that hasn’t stopped the former president from praising the party’s 2022 platform, saying Tuesday: “Look at the Greater Texas State and their powerful Republican party platform for fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”
“Such courage,” he writes, “but that’s why Texas is Texas.”
Trump welcomed his remarks, saying: “We reject the certified results of the 2020 presidential election and believe that acting President Joseph Robinet Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected.” It was a departure from recent 2014, when the Texas GOP platform questioned “Barack Obama’s commitment to citizens’ constitutional rights,” but at least recognized him as president.
This year’s platform also said that “Texas reserves the right to secede from the United States and the Texas legislature should be called upon to hold a referendum accordingly.”
Ed Espinoza, executive director of the Progress Texas Advocacy Organization, said part of adherence to openly discriminatory language could have been withdrawn had it not been for Trump’s rise – which demonstrates that “it can double the madness and still have no consequences.”
“Usually what happens is that when there is madness in a party, people try to soften it,” said Espinoza, a former director of the National Committee of the Democratic Party. “In this case, they saw that he was working for Trump, so they think he will work for them.
Texas was an independent republic for nearly a decade until 1845. With the raging coronavirus pandemic, the Republican Party Congress in Texas in 2020 was held practically and degenerated into a struggle for leadership. But it also included the language of the platform, which states: “Texas reserves the right to secede from the United States if a future president and Congress changes our political system from a constitutional republic to another.”
This warning about the government system had been dropped in the 2022 issue, which called for a referendum on voters “to determine whether” their country “should reaffirm its status as an independent nation or not.”
The push of Texas on the right was clear in ways off the party platform. Delegates booed Republican Sen. John Cornin – who has been in office for 20 years and received more votes in 2020 across the state from Trump – for working on bipartisan legislation that seeks to impose modest arms restrictions. The effort began after last month’s mass shooting in the Texas city of Uwalde, which killed 19 elementary students and two teachers.
However, such outbursts of state conventions are not new either. Republican Gov. Rick Perry was booed in 2012 for praising his GOPer colleague and Lt. Gov. David Duhurst, who was then locked in a primary Senate open battle with Ted Cruz. Some delegates also in the past left a speech to then-Texas Speaker of the Republican House Joe Strauss.
“This shows you how much QAnon may not be extraordinary in the Republican Party,” Espinoza said. “Some people are very susceptible to conspiracy theory, and that seems to be a higher percentage the deeper you go into the Republican Party of Texas.”
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