February 9, 2014 7:27 AM

Texas: Property of good, God-fearing, Conservative White Folks- just ask them

Precision gives the English language its power. At its best, it can convey strong ideas lyrically and lucidly. At its worst, it can inflame passions while avoiding direct responsibility for those passions. Take the case this week of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and his newly unveiled public safety plan. In a Dallas speech on Tuesday, the Republican front-runner for governor outlined his plan and rightly lamented the growing influence that Mexican drug cartels have in Texas by pointing out, among other examples, specific instances of law enforcement corruption in Starr, Hidalgo and Cameron counties…. “This creeping corruption resembles third-world country practices that erode the social fabric of our communities and destroys Texans’ trust in government,” he said in a videotaped speech.

It’s a difficult time to be a White person in Texas these days. It’s easy to feel as if the threats to your primacy are coming from all directions. The demographics of the Lone Star State are changing rapidly, and soon White will become a minority. The population of Evil Brown People is growing, and Lord knows they can’t be counted on to vote correctly (i.e.- Republican). Before long, then, Texas may well no longer be a reliably Red state. Even worse, it may not even be ruled by God’s People good, God-fearing, Conservative White folks.

So what’s the White power structure to do in order to ensure their continued hegemony? Well, when the numbers are against you, fear-mongering and race-baiting are ALWAYS good options. This past week, Greg Abbott, the Republican candidate for Governor- a thinking man’s Rick Perry- compared law enforcement corruption in the Rio Grande Valley to that in third-world countries. That the valley is heavily Hispanic (and Democratic) is not lost on Abbott, and there’s no credible way to claim that the tone and tenor of his language wasn’t fully intended as a dog whistle for his audience of good, God-fearing White Conservatives.

We should all be ashamed of the antics of corrupt law enforcement and other facets of corrupt government in our midst. But the fact that corruption happens — as it happens all over the state — should not diminish our sense of being Texans or Americans. Nor should we allow others to diminish that sense in highly nuanced speeches.

The irony of Abbott’s statement is that it would have made little difference in any of the local cases that he mentioned if the border security plan that he introduced had already been in place. That’s because the federal government prosecutes the vast majority of corruption cases in our state, including those in the Valley.

The promise of $300 million of state taxpayer money is another cynical attempt by a politician running for statewide office to leverage xenophobia into votes. To add to the xenophobia with references to third-world countries — however nuanced those references may be — should be out of bounds. We as a region should demand that.

Abbott’s a smart guy. As Texas’ current Attorney General and who previously sat on the Texas Supreme Court, Abbott is well-versed in the nuance of words and language. For him to claim that his language was imprecise and not meant to offend would defy logic. It’s far more likely that Abbott, fully aware that he’s not going to carry the border counties in the Rio Grande Valley, took the opportunity to engage some race-based fear mongering. It’s not as if he had anything to lose in dissing an area he has no hope of prevailing in under the best of circumstances. By standing up to corruption in a heavily Hispanic region of the state, he can convince good, God-fearing, Conservative White Folks that he stands for law and order.

To call Abbott out for such cheap xenophobia and race-baiting wouldn’t exactly be a stretch. The language of his speech was undoubtedly painstakingly crafted to provide the patina of plausible deniability while employing the sort of dog-whistle rhetoric so common in racial (and racist) political speech. Being the skilled, successful attorney he is, Abbott is well-versed in the art of verbal gymnastics. He knows that words, when used with alacrity, can both communicate and camouflage meaning. Racism and race-baiting don’t require the use of a verbal club; sometimes it can be even more effective when employed with subtlety and dexterity…and that appears to be the direction Abbott and his campaign are taking.

It’s only February; the election’s less than nine months away…and we’re already seeing the Texas gubernatorial campaign sinking into the mud. First there was the whisper campaign questioning Wendy Davis’s history and maternal fitness. Now the race and xenophobia cards are being pulled out of the deck, albeit so far with something resembling care and subtlety. I shudder to think what the next few months might hold for Texas. When the gloves come off, it will undoubtedly be less about issues than the politics of personal destruction. No one will win, particularly the sheeple of the Lone Star State, most of whom can’t be bothered to pay attention to statewide politics, even a governor’s race.

Gentleman, start your character assassination and whisper campaigns….

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on February 9, 2014 7:27 AM.

Evidently, compassion isn't at all what Conservative Jesus taught was the previous entry in this blog.

A caption contest looking for a place to happen is the next entry in this blog.

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