Caught in a Loop
It’s almost as if I predicted it. I wish I I could say I was clairvoyant. I wish I could say I have massive powers of deduction. I suppose I could say that, but no one would take me seriously. It would be like predicting the Texans finish in last place in the division next year. It’s hardly a brilliant prediction and this situation could be seen coming a mile away.
Greg Abbott has suggested building a wall on the southern border. I wonder where he got that idea from. Moreover, one of his would be opponents Allen West suggested it as well. Furthermore, Abbott wants to round up migrants and send them back where they came from. He is even planning a joint task force with Arizona to do the trick across state lines.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why he is doing this. It’s a combination of things. First, when someone has done something wrong the best thing to do is make sure no one pays attention. Magicians do it all the time. They focus your attention at one spot so you’re not paying attention to the other hand. Look at the shiny object in this hand and ignore what the other hand is doing.
The second point is that someone still casts a long shadow over the party and those that remain have to make a choice. Either they stand their ground and become a part of the opposition or they keep diving to the right in hopes that he gives them his approval. The more who enter the fray the worse it’s going to get.
Like I said, I predicted this along with thousands of others. Abbott has a long history of doing this. He isn’t a bad guy necessarily. He’s certainly not a crazy one. He’s just a weak one. Every time he has had to make a choice between the base and reality he chooses the base. Of course, whether that makes him bad is in the eye of the beholder.
First there was Jade Helm. If you don’t remember you can be forgiven. The military were doing training exercises in the hill country and suddenly kooks and jackasses came out in force saying that it was going to be a federal takeover. He could have ignored it. He could have made a statement that there was no reason for alarm because they do this stuff all the time. He could have called them out as idiots and kooks. He did none of those things. Instead he said he was sending a letter to make sure they didn’t do anything untoward.
It was classic Abbott. He didn’t really do anything but it was a gentle nod in their direction. It was a gentle nod to the conservative crazies that he was one of them. Those same folks that could have predicted this latest capitulation also predict not a single brick will be added to a wall. That was never the point of the wall anyway. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. You make a lot more by saying you will build it then by actually doing it.
So, no pats on the back here. We all know the score and we all know what’s going on. The next year will be a fun year for those of us that aren’t crazy. We have multiple crazies competing for the chance to be governor and the guy sitting in the chair that must act like he is in order to get their support. Buckle up. It’s going to be a lovely ride.
I couldn’t agree more with the idea that the gov seems to invoke misdirection at any point where it looks like anyone is looking at his antics. That being said, we might should take comfort in the fact that he NEVER comes thru. I worry, though, that while we’re looking for the latest “Squirrel”, there are others from Abbott’s home planet…Dan Patrick, the Attorney General, Sid Miller,….even maybe “the little Bush who could (Georgie P) who seem to be willing to take advantage of the Gov’s misdirection and are more prone to start something REALLY STOOPID while we’re all looking the other way. I appreciate the work done on this site in pointing such CRAP out but WE ALL to be equally vigilant in calling out their “wanton acts of ludicrousity. Maybe a new slogan “IF YOU SEE SOMETHING STOOPID, SAY SOMETHING LOUDLY”.
1Nick – either you have a serious predilection for sarcasm or a very odd definition of “lovely”. I’m betting on the former.
2‘The federal government has gone to court to fight the order, but if Abbott succeeds, that will throw into limbo living spaces for hundreds of unaccompanied minors, potentially forcing them to remain for longer periods of time in border detention facilities not suitable for the task.’
Texans will simply relish another Flustercluck idea like deregulating the grid (cause it worked so well. For instance: fresh frozen cowboys and kiddies, gone to Covid purgatory Y’all bettor hope Goobenor retread loses to the courts.
Or his attention span wanes.
3I lost track of Jade Helm, but I imagine he took credit for foiling that dastardly plot.
4Somewhere in the middle of this long read, I think you said abutt head is not a bad guy (necessarily). I disagree, without any qualification, he is flat out a bad guy. There’s a long list but let’s just start with his handling of the Texas power grid catastrophe. It’s similar to trumpf’s handing of covid. And what has he done to improve the situation since? I call that a bad guy.
5I vote for Bad Guy as well. Before the February Ice Follies, which killed a bunch of Texans, I might have just voted for Spineless, All Talk and No Cattle Wimp. But he has done NOTHING to actually address the issues with the power grid, so we can count on more future deaths. When you can control life/death decisions, yet you weasel out, you are officially a Bad Guy.
6One more Bad Guy vote. He’s had my undying contempt ever since he was a young insurance defense lawyer. He got a very large settlement for being crushed by a large tree limb because it was in River Oaks and not Riverside or Garden Oaks, and then promptly began spending every nanosecond of his career pulling that ladder up behind him. Like the Bushes, he’s just more polite with his perfidy.
7I definitely see a connection between Jade Helm & The Wall, and can’t understand how Greg Abbott is missing this opportunity to tie the room together.
During Jade Helm, wasn’t it suggested that all the Wal-Marts were connected by a system of underground tunnels throughout Texas? Well if that’s possible, or I should say believable to conspiracy aficionados, why doesn’t Abbott propose an above ground, 1000 mile long (very narrow) Wall-Mart along the border?
Who’s gonna pay for it? Private enterprise! How will it benefit Americans? With low, low prices!
8My favorite YouTuber, Beau of the Fifth Column, has a terrific, thoughtful short post on Abbott’s proposed wall. Check it out:
9https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C57ci3F0l8s
Abbott doesn’t care, he’s got 38,000,000+ little friends at the bank – depending on whether he would rather just have the $38M or spend it on reelection, we’ll see.
10And then we will have TWO walls!
And Mexico will pay for BOTH of them!
11Abbott’s ‘Wall’ is batshit crazy, sure, but it’s raking in the cash; which is the main goal for Greggy. And it’s a winning idea, even with the 90% Hispanic border dwellers.
However, as I keep advising y’all, paradoxically the Rethugs are gaining serious political ground and influence in the Texas border areas [I lived much of my life within a few miles of the Rio Grande].
The Thugs have been doing extremely well running under the radar, now they’re coming boldly out, with most of them jumping all over the border region now.
Here’s some more proof, beyond recent election results which saw a number of heavily Hispanic border counties go red [85-98% Hispanic], and actually had tRump majorities:
Republicans think they can take South Texas — especially after a win in McAllen
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/11/texas-republicans-mcallen-south-texas/
Mind you, the Texas Tribune carefully worded this “Republican elected mayor of the city this century” because McAllen had been strictly ruled by a super-rich Republican caudillo, Othal Brand [a major cross-border ag grower], for two decades in the 20th century.
The Democrats need to get really serious about counteracting this Rethug effort ASAP!
Or in 2022, 2024 there could be some major surprises.
I’ll remind you that the Democratic voter’s election clout from the Valley and border area is a main factor in the Dems having –any– influence in Texas at all.
“It was part of a flurry of GOP activity in the predominantly Hispanic region this month. Nearly a year ago, Republicans’ relative success in the areas along the Texas-Mexico border helped them fend off the strongest challenge to their political dominance by Texas Democrats in decades. Now the GOP wants to take the fight to the Democrats in next year’s midterm elections and attack one of the state’s most reliably blue regions.”
12I think Greg Abbott is a bad man and have ever since his encounter with a falling limb. Only a bad man would, after benefiting from a law that let him get a huge settlement, do everythihng he could to shut that door for anyone else in a similar situation. That’s plain out dishonest (if you think big settlements are bad, *don’t sue for one*!!) and downright mean (if you think it’s OK for YOU to get one, then don’t work to block them for others.) I think he’s dishonest, selfish, mean, and cannot be trusted any more than a 5 foot western diamondback in your living room.
13It could be argued that abbott is simply firm in his conservative, “strict father” (in Lakoff’s words), small government, pro business, secure border convictions.
Teaching folks to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps just improves their lives by making them self reliant.
Tough love and all that.
Even those poor Latino folks will ultimately benefit by solving their own problems at home.
It’s horseshit. Everything he does benefits the powerful at the expense of the rest of us.
14Everything else he does is the kind of crap that makes the base FEEL empowered. Guns. Abortion. State sanctioned religion (Christian of course), etc etc. so they keep voting against their own self-interest.
But I’m fully aware that that’s my opinion, and admit that I ferdamnsure don’t know everything.
So it could be argued.
It could also be argued that he hasn’t disavowed trump for all the division he’s stoked, the massive amounts of corruption, abuses of power and IMHO the most damaging thing to our democracy, the massive undermining of the fourth estate. Simply because it allows him to accomplish what he feels like are his noble goals.
Same caveat as before.
But here’s the thing, and there’s really no getting around it.
trump has tried his best to make America an autocracy with him at the top.
But the kicker is that he came as close as he did to making it happen because our system of checks and balances has been eroded for decades by …
people like abbot.
Who’ve gerrymandered, voter suppressed, stacked courts with zealots who only acknowledge precedents when they support their ideology.
All to get a permanent majority.
Personally, I call that authoritarianism.
Suuure, we’d still have elections.
Like they do in Russia.
“See? We won fair and square! The people have spoken once again!”
There were times when people like abbot acted like they benefitted from from trump, but found it distasteful.
Not anymore.
Now they eat it up and lick the plate.
They don’t want a dictatorship.
They want the American version of a Politburo.