What’s the matter with Texas? Congressman Joe Barton’s bizarre apology to BP last week is only the beginning. Ditto the newly released Republican Texas State Party Platform ably solidifying its worst stereotypes—calling for the re-criminalization of sodomy and making gay marriage a felony. Since the election of President Obama, the GOP’s Lone Star State delegation has developed a singular record of wingnuttery…. It was [Molly] Ivins who described Texas politics as “the finest form of free entertainment ever invented” and “better than the circus,” but this year the fun under that particular big top is looking more and more like a freakshow, and the clowns are starting to scare the kids.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. I don’t miss Texas…but damn, do I miss Texas politics. Watching and listening to Texas Republicans is a comic gold-mine, as brain-dead ideologues strive to “out-Jesus” and “out-Conservative” one another. When you consider that the Texas GOP is ruled by a cabal of uber-Jesus-y Conservative American Taliban wingnuts eager to drag the Lone Star State back to the Stone Age, how could you not enjoy the spectacle? Well, it would be enjoyable…if the zealots weren’t so deadly serious.
One Texas Republican tells college students that the greatest threat to America isn’t terrorism, but a “Liberal media bias”. Another seriously floats the idea of Texas seceding from the Union. My former Congressional district (CD-22) is home to perhaps the dumbest Congressman in the long, august history of the institution.There’s even a plank in the Texas GOP’s platform calling for a ban on divorce. Hell, Texas Republicans can’t even be consistent when they’re insulting Hispanic voters.
And don’t even me started on the Texas State Board of Edumication, who collectively believe that Joseph McCarthy and Phyllis Schlafly are the apotheosis of American Patriots and that slavery wasn’t such a bad thing. One member of SBOE began a meeting with a prayer for “a Christian land governed by Christian principles.” Because REAL Americans goose-step to Onward, Christian Soldiers.
How bad are things in the Lone Star State. So bad that the craziness can no longer be contained and controlled by the Texas GOP:
To be fair, it’s not just the Republicans who are getting a bit loopy from the Texas summer heat. The Democrats have a full-fledged Lyndon LaRouche-ite named Kesha Rogers nominated for Congress in Tom DeLay’s old district, running on a platform summed up by the sign she holds up at a busy inter-section: “Save NASA. Impeach Obama.”
If you think about it for any length of time, you’d have to wonder why late-night comedians don’t set up satellites offices in Dallas or Houston. They’d never run out of material. It’s as if the entire state has become the set for Idiocracy Part Deux: It’s Tea Time!!
As much as I love living in Oregon, politics here is about as exciting as watching someone fill the cigarette machine at the convenience store down the block. Then again, if Texas is the alternative, I’ll stick with Oregon, thank you very much. I can (and will) continue to kibbitz from 2500 miles away. It’s safer that way.
