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The Texas GOP’s Nazi problem [1]

['Dallas Morning News Editorial', 'Editorialboard Dallasnews.Com']

Date: 2023-12-05

It’s time for all Texans to wake up to what the Texas Republican Party has become.

We don’t mean Texas Republicans in general. We mean the party’s official fundraising and messaging organization led by ousted state representative Matt Rinaldi.

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Rinaldi picked up where his predecessor Allen West left off in leading with nastiness, conspiracy dabbling and an eagerness to impose far-right litmus tests on all Republicans. It’s common, in fact, for Texas GOP mailings to focus more on political attacks on fellow Republicans than on policy differences with Democrats.

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But if you want to know just how bad things have gotten, you have to look beyond the daily email stream to the recent vote of the state GOP’s executive committee.

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The Texas Tribune reported Saturday that the committee voted 32-29 to strip a pro-Israel resolution of a clause that would have barred “the party from associating with known Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers.”

Think about that for a minute. The state Republican Party refused to officially prohibit associating with Nazis or neo-Nazis or whatever stripe of antisemitic and racist hatemongers who have gone from trolling the internet’s underbelly to meeting with state party leaders.

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We are talking about Nick Fuentes, who in October visited the offices of Republican strategist Jonathan Stickland’s firm Pale Horse Strategies, which describes itself as “the engine that drives the conservative movement.”

Rinaldi was at Pale Horse’s office for seven hours according to the Tribune’s reporting but denies meeting with Fuentes or even knowing Fuentes was in the building. That isn’t credible, but such is the state of the party that these sorts of misdirections are stock in trade now.

All of this is wrapped up in the money that supports leading Texas officials, in particular Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Too many voters have either lost interest or willingness to follow the money and its consequences. We are paying for that now.

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It is incredibly important for the Texas GOP to officially distance itself from the poisonous hatred that Fuentes and all white supremacists and antisemites represent.

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All Texas Republicans need to think about whether this group is really representing them. Have we gone this far that we can’t support the sort of common sense and decency this resolution was intended to bolster?

If you are a Republican and this disturbs you as much as it did us, answer the call to hold the party accountable.

Party leaders and voters who reject division and hatred have to speak up, with their bully pulpits and at the polls.

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[1] Url: https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editorials/2023/12/05/the-texas-gops-nazi-problem/

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