Chris Tomlinson is an award-winning columnist for the Houston Chronicle. He uses his space to combat bigotry, stupidity, and lies. He is not a “both sides” kind of journalist.

He writes here about the infamous oil billionaires who use their money to spread their religious views, attack public schools, and encourage indoctrination.

He writes:

Texas oilman H.L. Hunt may have been the first to spend millions to promote right-wing media and extremist ideas, but he was far from the last.

Most Texans, let alone Americans, had never heard of Farris and Dan Wilks or Tim Dunn before this year. But journalists have revealed them as key supporters of some of the most controversial figures in Texas politics and bankrollers of political action committees staffed by Christian nationalists and antisemites.

The reclusive billionaires and their allies rarely respond to requests for comment from mainstream media and did not respond to my messages.

Farris Wilks, fracking billionaire and pastor of the Assembly of Yahweh (7th Day) Church, preaches that the Bible is “true and correct in every scientific and historical detail” and that abortion, homosexuality and drunkenness are serious crimes, according to the church’s doctrinal statement, the Reuters news agency reported.

Dan Wilks attends church with his brother, with whom he co-founded Frac Tech, a company they sold for $3.5 billion. They have since become some of the largest donors in Texas GOP politics, giving $15 million in 2016 to a political action committee backing Sen. Ted Cruz.

Like Hunt, who broadcast his extremist commentary on radio stations nationwide, the Wilks brothers have also invested in media, supporting conservative mouthpieces like The Daily Wire and Prager University. Their PAC bought ads disguised as articles in the Metric Media news network, which includes 59 pseudo-local news sites in Texas, the Columbia Journalism Review reported.

The Wilks brothers have enjoyed their greatest success by joining Dunn to move the Republican Party of Texas as far right as possible through Empower Texans, one of the most influential dark-money political action committees.

Empower Texans shuttered in 2020 after spinning off operations into Texans for Fiscal Responsibility and Texas Scorecard, which rank politicians by their adherence to the group’s ideology. Dunn and the Wilks brothers have provided most of the financing and set the agenda for conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan, who has led all three organizations.

In 2016, the groups opposed Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, whom they considered too moderate. They also ran ultra-conservative candidates against Republicans who ranked poorly on their scorecard. When Straus, who is Jewish, invited Dunn for a breakfast meeting, he reportedly said only Christians should have leadership positions, Texas Monthly reported in 2018. This is a sentiment he’d previously expressed in a 2016 Christian radio interview.

Republicans have long struggled with antisemitism. In 2010, State Republican Executive Chairman John Cooke wrote an email proclaiming, “We elected a house with Christian, conservative values. We now want a true Christian, conservative running it,” the Texas Observer reported.

Dunn and the Wilkses also finance special interest PACs. In 2017, Empower Texans supported and advised Texans for Vaccine Choice, an early anti-vaccination movement, former state Rep. Jonathan Stickland told the Washington Post.

Stickland left elected office to start Pale Horse Strategies, a political consulting firm that ran a new Dunn and Wilks PAC, Defend Texas Liberty. The PAC defended Attorney General Ken Paxton against corruption allegations and provided $3 million to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick weeks before he presided over Paxton’s impeachment trial, where he was acquitted.

Fresh from that victory, a Texas Tribune reporter observed Stickland, Republican Party of Texas chair Matt Rinaldi, prominent white supremacist Nick Fuentes and Black Lives Matter shooter Kyle Rittenhouse enter the Pale Horse Strategies office in Fort Worth on Oct. 6.

Fuentes was driven to the meeting by Chris Russo, who used Dunn and Wilks money to found Texans For Strong Borders PAC. Russo has past ties to Fuentes, the Tribune reported.

When current GOP House Speaker Dade Phelan demanded Patrick give away the $3 million donation, Patrick said Dunn had called him to apologize.

Dunn “is certain that Mr. Stickland and all PAC personnel will not have any future contact with Mr. Fuentes,” Patrick explained.

Yet, when the Tribune’s Robert Downen kept digging, he found that Pale Horse’s social media manager, Elle Maulding, had called Fuentes the “greatest civil rights leader in history” and shared photos of them together. Shelby Griesinger, Defend Texas Liberty’s treasurer, has said Jews worship a false god and depicted them as the enemy on social media.

Dunn and the Wilks brothers have spent $100 million on ultra-conservative candidates, political action committees in Texas, and radical nonprofits. They finance a movement staffed by publicly antisemitic foot soldiers.

Conservatives considered H.L. Hunt a crackpot in his day. But this new generation has the GOP falling into a goose step.