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HUSTON – The Republican Party of Texas has controlled every lever of government since 2003 and won major victories last year in terms of voting, relocation, abortion, school programs and other long-standing priorities. Delegates to the party’s congress this week expressed confidence that their party would at least regain the US House of Representatives this November and said the end of abortions in Texas was almost decided.
But the mood was not festive. The Texas Tribune spoke to more than 25 participants who described feeling besieged by a culture that is increasingly anti-family and anti-Christian.
First of all, those present said they were fed up. They are tired of elections that they think are fraudulent. They are fed up with their own politicians – including US Senator John Cornin, who has been accused of engaging in bipartisan arms law talks – for being open to compromise with Democrats. Tired of persecuting Christians with traditional values. We are fed up with gullible mainstream media that speak liberal speeches and despise anyone who disagrees as racists or fanatics. It is tired of undocumented immigrants, even those fleeing war and poverty to reap public benefits. They are fed up with their children’s education, especially on history and race. Experts are fed up with Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who they say “sexualizes” students before they reach puberty.
“The enemy is coming and trying to change our society, to change the very structure of what made America great, and they do it by going to the children,” said Connie Moore, a 75-year-old retired pharmacist and pastor.
Among the elected officials speaking at the congress, US Senator Ted Cruz stole the show, receiving a standing ovation on Friday as he thundered against the “radical left” driving a cultural attack.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz spoke at the Republican Congress in Texas, Houston, on Friday. Credit: Justin Rex for The Texas Tribune
“They want to demolish the church,” he said. “They want to demolish our schools. They want to destroy our families. They want to destroy our faith. They want to destroy our values. “
Sid Miller, the state commissioner for agriculture, said the struggle for America was no longer even partisan.
“The battlefield was between Republicans and Democrats,” he told Congress on Saturday. “It was between conservatives and liberals then. Now the battlefield has changed again. We have to improvise, adapt and overcome in order to defeat our enemy. This new battlefield, this new battlefield is between patriots and traitors. “
It was a crowd familiar with The Great Replacement, the theory that immigrants are being used to replace white, Native Americans, and The Great Reset, supposedly a plan by global capitalists meeting in Davos, Switzerland, to impose their environmental and social goals on the world economy and limiting what people can eat and possess. Fox News didn’t show up much; One America Network and NewsMax seemed much more influential.
Conspiracy theories abounded. Ann Meng, a middle-aged nurse at The Woodlands, said she believed the May 24 massacre at Rob Elementary School in Uwalde was a “government ploy” and that “cops have been told to retire.” (The delay in police confronting the shooter who killed 21 people has been widely criticized.)
Tammy Lake, 52, who lives in another Houston suburb of Magnolia and is a senior sales engineer at a software company, said she believes Donald Trump will rightly be reinstated as president “by the end of the year.” She did not specify how.
The resolution declaring Biden “not legitimately elected” as a result of “significant electoral fraud in key urban areas” in five states – probably Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – was passed without any real debate. a sign of how Trump’s powerful baseless allegation of stolen elections continues to resonate with the party’s loyalists.
Chris Corbett, 66, a member of the party’s committee on legislative priorities, attended his sixth party congress. He said the state party once revolved around limited government and free markets, but has become more culturally oriented, he said, as voters wake up to threats to their values.
“We see a lot more cultural conservatism going on, it’s a little more populist,” said Corbett, who lives in Flower Mound and is a writer and researcher on public policies and nonprofits.
Many of the cultural issues that were criticized by those present and speakers concerned the LGBTQ community, in particular transgender people.
Governor Greg Abbott, who is seeking re-election in November, called on child protection investigators to investigate families who have allowed their children to seek gender care, including the use of puberty blockers, against the consensus of major medical associations.
But this was not a convention enthusiastic about established knowledge. The crowd applauded Robin Armstrong, a Texas City doctor who gave patients unapproved treatments for COVID-19, including hydroxychloroquine. His platform describes homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle choice,” a view that has faded in much of America. The platform describes sexual dysphoria as a rare mental illness, a position that is not supported by major psychiatrists or pediatricians.
Goods for sale at the Texas Republican Convention in Houston on Friday. Credit: Justin Rex for The Texas Tribune
Vincent Gallo, 60, owner of a small construction company in Denton, said Democrats and some Republicans are committed to “redefining reality” by accepting transgender people and calling on others to do the same.
“This is being passed on to other people under the guise of diversity and inclusion,” Gallo said.
Teaching critical racial theory, an academic approach to the study of racial inequality, was also a major concern among those present.
“The whole principle of what you teach is a conspiracy to pit our people against each other and focus on the wrong things,” said Moore, a retiree from Borger.
Throughout the week, attendees gathered for sessions focused on these cultural issues. One was entitled “Threats to Families – Institutional Policies That Adversely Affect Children and Families – What’s Next”. Another was called “Defeat Critical Theory, Marxism, and the Sexualization of Our Children.”
Those present were also in step with their views on the integrity of the election. Several said that personal watermarked ballots, manually counted, sequentially numbered paper ballots were the only reliable way to hold elections (although delegates themselves used Scantron ballots to vote on the platform’s boards, and the results will not be known for days until the Austin ballot count).
The convention included three screenings of 2,000 Mules, a film that relies on discredited evidence to allege widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Several attendees told conspiracies to collect ballots, polling machines and postal ballots. On Friday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said his priority when the legislature returns next year is to “restore illegal voting from a Class A crime to a crime.”
Attorney General Ken Paxton also defended his case, challenging the election results in four states that voted for Biden. The US Supreme Court has rejected the lawsuit due to lack of legitimacy.
“We didn’t win,” Paxton admitted on Friday. “To this day, people hate us for what we did. But I can tell you what. If I had to do it again, I would do it exactly as we did. “
Paxton’s comments drew applause from the crowd, reflecting how much the party’s loyalists value their leaders who are fighting for them, even if the results are not their way.
“Candidates, you have to do your job, and your promise is to serve the people, not your own program,” said Gary Hulsey, 68, a Haslet engineer.
Not everyone supported the demonstrated extreme partisanship.
“Trying to find a bipartisan community within the party is his right,” Patricia Almond, 57, a Porter retiree, told Cornin. “As Republican voters, we also have freedom of speech, but that does nothing to unite the party.
One delegate, David Gebhart, called against the board, calling homosexuality a deviant lifestyle choice. “We are the Republican Party of Texas, not the Westborough Baptist Church,” he said. His proposal was rejected.
Another delegate, Robert Bartlemy, objected to a resolution declaring Biden’s victory illegitimate, saying the Republican Party should look ahead and focus on electing a Republican president in 2024. People around him were whistling and hissing.
There was a stir of disagreement over the decision to again exclude Republicans from wooden houses, LGBT …
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