Greg Abbott's "Back the Blue" Posse Can't Shoot Straight
You took a nap today, and you woke up in charge of the 2020 campaign of the Republican party of Texas. Congratulations! Here’s your badge and your gun. Also, condolences: There’s not much time left. There’s little more than a month to go before early voting starts, and the fundamentals of the thing are set. This is an election defined by a deeply unpopular incumbent president, a terrible economy, and nearly 200,000 Americans dead from a global pandemic that could have been mitigated. You gotta think carefully about how to make a dent. Donald Trump and John Cornyn are probably going to win the state, even if it’s by a disappointing margin. What you need to be most worried about is the state House.
If Democrats win control, it’ll be because the GOP firewall failed in a small number of traditionally center-right, suburban districts that have drifted left during the Trump presidency. In one such district northwest of Houston in 2018, Republican Dwayne Bohac won by just 47 votes. It and other districts are set to flip. Shifting the margin just a few tenths of a point, by reminding disgruntled Republicans about the threat liberals pose to public order, civilization, and your plumbing—and getting their minds off our beloved president—could be enough to save the day for Team Red. And—I simply can’t stress this enough—you must get their minds off our beloved president. As Republicans are happy to admit behind closed doors, he’s poison in swing districts.
That dynamic, more than any kind of practical policy consideration, is behind the rush of Republican elected officials in Texas now “backing the blue.” In a press conference Thursday, Governor Greg Abbott, joined by Attorney General Ken Paxton and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, gathered at the headquarters of the Austin Police Association to sign a “Back the Blue” pledge, an agreement from signees to “oppose any efforts to defund the police and to show my support for the brave law enforcement officers who risk their lives to protect and serve.”
Accompanying the brief pledge, which Abbott urged Democratic officials to sign—no notable ones seem to have taken the bait—are a series of policy proposals from the governor’s office intended to punish the city council of Austin for voting to decrease the city’s police department budget by $150 million last month. (The City of Austin shifted about a third of its $434 million police budget to social services, including violence prevention programs and housing.) Abbott’s pledge is clearly symbolic, but look closely at the proposals, which seem superficially extraordinary and far-reaching, and you will soon discover that there is actually nothing of substance in them either. It can only be understood as political theater. Good political theater, but political theater nonetheless.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/greg-abbott-back-the-blue-pledge/