“Don’t mess with Texas” has long been the motto of the state’s considerable population of insecure men, desperate to proclaim their toughness to anyone who will listen. But right now, it’s Texas that’s messing with America. In fact, the nation is under attack from our second-largest state, in ways that have deep and troubling implications.
Texas is the locus of some of the most repugnant culture war extremism anywhere in the country, driven from below by right-wing activists and above by the state government. For instance, earlier this year the state began subjecting families of trans kids to invasive investigations, and a new PEN America report shows that Texas is the site of more schoolbook bans than any other state.
But what happens inside Texas is one thing. Even more disturbing is the way Texas Republicans are so eager to reach beyond their state’s borders to bring their reactionary conservatism to the whole country.
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Here are some recent developments:
- Texas passed a law that would bar big social media companies from “censoring” or banning users based on their “viewpoint.” That obvious First Amendment violation would effectively make it impossible for platforms to exclude, say, Nazis or those engaged in hate speech and harassment campaigns. The law was just upheld by a three-judge panel, all Republican appointees, of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision was written by Judge Andrew Stephen Oldham, previously general counsel to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
- A judge in Texas just declared that a federal law forbidding those under felony indictment from purchasing guns before their cases are resolved is unconstitutional. This follows a case last month in which another Texas judge ruled that the Constitution requires allowing 18-year-olds to purchase guns.
- Yet another Texas federal judge ruled that requiring insurance plans to cover medication to prevent HIV infections violates the “religious freedom” of employers. This same Texas judge tried to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act in 2018 (that was overruled by the Supreme Court).
- Ken Paxton, an extravagantly odious figure whose career as a right-wing troll is only occasionally interrupted by his duties as Texas’s attorney general, led a group of Republican AGs in filing an amicus brief in the case involving Donald Trump’s hoarding of government documents. What interest do Texas and the other states have in the outcome of this case? None. Their absurd brief mostly asserts that Trump should prevail because President Biden is a jerk, citing Biden’s policies on immigration and covid as proof.
- Abbott continues to bus immigrants to blue states and cities, including dropping them off at the official residence of the vice president, because take that, Kamala!
That’s just from the last week or so. Going back a little further, it was Texas that filed a deranged lawsuit trying to overturn the 2020 election. The Supreme Court’s decision to allow Texas’s abortion vigilante law to stand was a clear sign it would soon overturn Roe v. Wade. The state is also in the vanguard of voter suppression and gerrymandering.
Follow this authorPaul Waldman's opinionsIn fact, Texas Republicans are such committed opponents of popular rule that their party’s platform advocates for an in-state electoral college for statewide elections. That would leverage their gerrymandering of legislative districts into a system enabling them to win and hold executive power even when most voters choose their opponents.
That’s more about the future than the present, since no Democrat has won a statewide election there in years. But as every Texas Republican knows and fears, it will happen before long. The state is steadily if slowly trending toward blue due to a number of factors — including its growing Latino population. To illustrate, Mitt Romney won there in 2012 by 16 points. Four years later, Trump won by nine points. And in 2020, Trump prevailed by just 5 ½ points.
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All this shows how Texas is in some ways a political microcosm of the United States. It features Republicans whose ability to attract majority support keeps diminishing — and in response, rather than trying to attract moderates, they run further to the right, seeking out the most divisive culture war fights they can create.
As part of that effort, the state’s Republicans have made it their project not only to change the way life is lived in their own state, but to do everything in their power — with the assistance of some well-placed judges — to make the rest of the country’s laws follow suit. And they’re making a whole lot of progress, whether the rest of us like it or not.
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