GOP’s bad ideas overshadow the smart ones
The Republican Party of Texas wants us to vote on secession next year, which in addition to being illegal, would destroy the state’s economy.
If Texas decides to remain part of the Union, the GOP believes the United States should withdraw from the United Nations. No matter that almost all international trade agreements rely on U.N. membership and that exiting the U.N. would abdicate our global leadership role.
The Republican platform has many good ideas, but the bad ones cast an unflattering light on the party.
When I was a political reporter at the Associated Press, I would ignore party platforms because they were always filled with nutty ideas pushed forward by the nuttiest activists. But then the party declared that any Republican official who did not support every plank could be excommunicated.
Thus, the deafening silence from U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and the state’s Big Three, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan. But if they think ignoring extremism will make it go away, they should think again.
Once upon a time, Abbott scoffed at the idea that adult Texans had a constitutional right to openly carry handguns in public without a permit. Three election cycles later, he rescinded all prerequisites.
In implementing this year’s platform, will the Texas Legislature’s Republican majorities eliminate educational requirements for someone to take the state bar exam and become a lawyer? Will they eliminate business and professional licensing for folks like plumbers and general contractors?
Are these the goals that wealthy businesspeople and political action committees had in mind when they wrote checks to the GOP? I understand low taxes and light regulation, but holier-than-thous at the GOP convention outdid themselves last week.
Will Texas attract more corporate relocations by requiring students to declare that life begins at fertilization before
they can graduate high school? Will denying Texans the right to define their gender identity increase commerce?
The GOP high priests did try to appease Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO. The platform calls for allowing Tesla and other automakers to sell directly to consumers without going through a dealership. I guess the party doesn’t need auto magnate Red McCombs’ megadonations anymore.
For the world’s wealthiest man, Musk has been miserly in his political giving, according to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan group that collates campaign finance reports. He’s given a little over $1 million since 2002, divided equally between conservatives and liberals.
When Musk was trying to get the dealership law repealed, he gave $10,000 each to Abbott, Patrick and former House Speaker Joe Strauss. He gave smaller amounts to a plethora of Texas lawmakers, Republican and Democrat.
Will Musk give more now that he has declared himself a Republican? As a resident of South Texas, will he give money to the party’s increasingly extreme candidates? He says he voted for Republican Mayra Flores to fill an empty congressional seat, even after she promoted QAnon conspiracies on Twitter.
I agree with Musk and the GOP that consumers should be able to buy cars directly from manufacturers. But that’s not all the Republican platform gets right.
Let’s get rid of blue laws that limit when we can buy alcohol, and while we’re at it, let’s get rid of the three-tier sales system that requires beer, wine and liquor producers to sell only to distributors, adding unnecessary costs to consumers.
The GOP also has the right idea about the internet and privacy.
“We call upon Texas to prohibit vendors of the state of Texas and its subdivisions from selling or sharing data captured in providing services to Texans,” the platform declares. “We support laws limiting the ways in which internet providers, electronic applications, websites, schools, government entities, and others may access the electronic communications or documents of all Texans.”
Republicans have promised those things for years but have never delivered.
Instead, we get garbage like “prohibiting the teaching of sex education, sexual health, or sexual choice or identity in any public school in any grade whatsoever, or disseminating or permitting the dissemination by any party of any material regarding the same.”
And: “We support passage of a law more comprehensive than the Florida law that prohibits instruction in sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools,” the platform says. “We advocate for those who violate any of the above to have their educator’s certification revoked and be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Anyone who gives money to a Republican candidate should understand this is the agenda they are financing. The party has stated its intentions. What I’d give to have the old chamber-of-commerce GOP back again.