The Texas Senate has apparently begun deliberations in the matter of Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is truly sleazy. That characteristic alone is not unusual among the political class, regardless of party. General Paxton is simply more reprehensible than most. I actually began this note yesterday, and the morning saw General Paxton acquitted by the Texas State Senate.
While this entire proceeding had something of the farce about it, there is a lesson to be learned here. The Republican Party is beginning to splinter in a couple of important ways. In Texas, the battle is between so-called 'Old Guard' Republicans, like former Governors George W Bush and Rick Perry, and current US Senator John Coryn. The current trend among Texas Republicans has been to replace the moderates with culture warriors and faux Christians such as Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott, and outright thieves like the recently acquitted General Paxton, and this pattern is being replicated by many other Red states. You have to remember that, on the federal level at least, the GOP is now, and will continue to be, a minority party. Only once since the turn of the century has a Republican actually won the popular vote in a presidential election, and that was in 2004 when George W Bush defeated John Kerry. And before that, George HW Bush had been the last popular vote winner, in 1988. The 2000 election doesn't count, because SCOTUS stopped the vote counting prematurely and essentially declared Mr. Bush the winner. A couple of interesting things about that decision come to mind: Losing candidate Al Gore acceded to SCOTUS's decision with grace and dignity, unlike Donald Trump's petulant refusal to accept his very clear loss in the 2020 election. But the most consequential aspect of Bush v Gore was SCOTUS's assertion that the case was not to be considered precedential. While not uncommon at the appellate level, such an assertion by SCOTUS was somewhat unusual when Bush v Gore was originally decided. More recently, the use of unsigned opinions by the nation's highest court has proliferated, which some observers believe undermines the legitimacy of the court.
The emerging split in the larger Republican party is between those Republicans who accept the will of the voters, and those who don't. The latter group tends to believe that only Republicans are fit to hold public office, and are willing to undermine established voting procedures that ensure equal access to voting opportunities for all Americans, not just those who skew right. Election officials are not supposed to be partisan, but an increasing number have made voting by such groups as students, senior citizens, racial minorities, veterans,and other 'marginal' elements of the population, increasingly problematic. These Republicans tend to view brown folks with fear and suspicion, and some exhibit worrisome signs of anti-semetism. They view women as second-class citizens not considered competent to exercise agency over their own bodies. Perhaps the poster child for partisan election officials was former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. And as I think about it, current Ohio Sec. of State Frank LaChance is no prize, either. Overly strict voter ID requirements are just one example of how certain voter groups are suppressed. The Myth of Phantom Voters has long been a GOP trope. But in any cases in which actual fraud has been proven, (e.g: Findings of guilt in a court of law, or a guilty plea in open court), Republicans are often at the bottom of it. Sometimes the results are part of a collective effort to cast illegitimate votes or prevent legitimate votes from being cast, (mathematically, it's a distinction without a difference).
One such instance occurred in 2002, when the NH GOP hired a Republican firm, GOP Marketplace, a Virginia based firm, to work in the US Senate race to replace Sen. Bob Smith, (Best known as an activist for the reasonable treatment of circus elephants. You can't make this stuff up). The contest was between John Sunnunu and current US Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. GOP Marketplace was charged with, and found guilty of, diverting calls to a Democratic Get Out The Vote call center thay voters could use to get rides to the polls, presumably to vote for the Democrat, and redirected those calls to a Republican boiler room where the calls were intercepted, rides were promised, but never showed up. 4 GOP operatives were convicted in federal court, and sentenced to prison terms. The conviction]n of one of them was overturned on appeal. Mr. Sununnu eked out a narrow victory over Ms Shaheen.
And in North Carolina, a GOP operative was charged with a laundry list of electoral fraud violations so serious that the North Carolina Board of Elections vacated the victory of the winner of the race in the 9th Congressional District, which was narrowly won by the Republican candidate. This happened in 2018. The particular fraud alleged was an abuse of the absentee ballot process.
There have also been limited violations committed on a retail basis. A couple of voters who lived in the elderly ghetto, 'The Villages' voted in both New York and Florida in the 2020 election. In another case out of New York, a man cast his recently deceased mother's absentee ballot, as well as his own. But my favorite was the Colorado man who murdered his wife and then cast his late wife' s mail in a ballot for Donald Trump, reasoning that: "She would have voted for him anyway":). All of the folks referenced herein voted Red.
Politics has always been a tribal business, and something of a contact sport. But the fact is, that someone who was a member of one party or another was not always seen as having a profound moral failing, as has been the case in recent years. Politics is the method(s) that we use to organize society. It's not a Calvinist judgement on a person's suitability for salvation, nor should it be a commentary on the choices that people make in their own lives. Politics should be just one of the many factors that we use to define ourselves, and that others use to define us. It's a crude technique to be sure, but man has an innate need to categorize, for categorizing helps us to understand ourselves in relation to the world that we live in. I saw someone on a talk show earlier who asserted that the current poisonous level of political rancor would be with us until the last boomer died.
To be clear, my issue is not with Republicans generally. Rather it's with The Taliban wing of the party, who reject reason and science for the fevered musings of cranks and conspiracy theorists. It's the troublesome tendencies of some among this group who style themselves as "America Firsters". These folks would happily deliver the Ukranians to the tender mercies of Vladimir Putin
I'm tired of this note. I'm even tired of politics, which is something that I never thought that I'd ever say. Ken Paxton's free to run roughshod over the taxpayers of Texas while taking bribes from developers. "Nothing to see here, folks...". If Diogenes thought that he had a hard time finding an honest man in 4th century BCE Athens, he should spend a few days wandering the halls of the Capital.
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