Jim Hightower is an old-fashioned Texas liberal. He tries to understand what’s happened to his state in his blog. The GOP is just plain mean and crazy.
He writes:
If you think the GOP’s Congress of Clowns represents the fringiest, freakiest, pack of politicos that MAGA-world can hurl at us – you haven’t been to Texas.
It’s widely known, of course, that Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, and most other top Republican officials here are obsequious Trump acolytes. Thus, Texas is infamously racing against Florida to be declared the stupidest, meanest, most-repressive state government in America, constantly making demonic attacks on women’s freedom, immigrants, voting rights, public schools, poor people, and so on. But I’m confident Texas will win this race to the bottom for one big reason: GOP crazy runs extraordinarily deep here.
We have a county-level layer of ultra-MAGA cultists constantly pressing the state’s far-right officials to march all the way to the farthest edge of extremism – then leap into absurdity. Therefore, the party officially supports abolishment of labor unions, elimination of the minimum wage, privatization of social security, legalization of machine guns, and… well, you get the drift. Now, though, local mad-dog Trumpistas are pushing their party straight into the abyss of autocracy by declaring war on H-E-B.
What’s that? H-E-B is a Texas chain of supermarkets beloved in communities throughout the state. “Beloved,” because the stores fully embrace the rich diversity of all people in our state, has affordable prices, values employees, and supports community needs.
Nonetheless, county Republican zealots screech that H-E-B violates their party ideology by accepting food stamps, opposing privatization of schools, and (horrors!) sponsoring some LBGTQ pride events. So, they’re demanding official condemnation of the grocery chain for – GET THIS – “advocating for policies contrary to the Republican Party of Texas platform.”
Yes, violating the party platform is to be criminalized. It’s the reincarnation of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: Be MAGA… or else.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My friend Tom grew up Southern Baptist back in the 1960s. His father worked collecting music and punishing hymnals. Other Protestant denominations had intellectual ties to Tom’s father; the musical people for Methodist and Presbyterian hymnals fed off him and he took from their research as well. Tom went to a traditional Baptist college, but years after he was there the Falwell acolytes took it over. My way or the highway logic supplanted the open arms approach Tom grew up with. He shared all this with me as we watched George Bush II structure the Republicans in the Falwell image. My way or the highway. His judges were extreme, his cabinet extreme.
Ever since then, each successive Republican moves the highway farther to the political right. Until now we have Trump’s way or the highway in a new Republican Party that even worries Bush himself. It should. The thing is, I could see it coming then. I could see the Abbot and the Cruz, the DeSantis and the Greene. I had seen it in the political fascism that infected my friend Tom’s Southern Baptists.
All the old line Republicans should have seen it too. I could.
LikeLike
Take that, hymnal!
LikeLike
While Florida and Texas may compete for the “crazy” title in the US, it is important to note there are lovely, kind people in both states. Unfortunately, these decent folks are in the minority. The politics of both states suffer because not enough Democrats and independents show up to consistently vote in elections. The right wing extremists show up to vote even if they arrive in a wheelchairs or on crutches. Those that believe in justice and democracy need to be just as determined to vote as the extremists, if we want to change the mean, wacko politics in both states. BTW, H-E-B is a great store, and the management is enlightened. That’s why like Taylor Swift it is a target of the hateful right. H-E-B is alsays where I shop when I visit Texas.
LikeLike
The grocery chain HEB (Charles Butt) supports public schools in Texas. Mr. Butt is very generous and civic-minded. When Houston had a devastating flood, HEB sent a fleet of huge trucks and gave away essentials.
LikeLike
”…it is important to note there are lovely, kind people in both states. “
it is true. In our polarized society, we are kept from admitting that there are deserving citizens who disagree with us. We look at Florida and see the people in s majority who voted for DeSantis. But there is also Bob Sheperd down there, and my cousins, who grew up there and remember when things were sane.
It is difficult to imagine, but possibly half the people in red states support public schools, reasonable health care reform, and moderation in foreign policy. Their votes are diluted, thrown out in voter roll purges, or gained with misinformation. So we get extremists.
LikeLike
It looked there for a while that we might go blue again, but after the Hunger Games of 2022, that’s not gonna happen now. Here, in consolation:
(3) Facebook
LikeLike