Despicable

The blood of children had not yet dried at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas as Governor Greg Abbott briefed reporters “with some of the best information we have at this time.” Yet and still, anyone listening live to the proceeding could be forgiven if they felt trapped in a time warp, perhaps listening to Abbott speaking at some fundraising gala months into the future. 

The 19 precious kids and 2 teachers who perished at the barrel of an assault rifle a previously law-abiding 18-year old sociopath had purchased on the spot without delay were relegated to support roles in the governor’s narrative. “As horrible as what happened, it could have been worse,” intoned Abbott in his campaign voice. “The reason it was not worse is law enforcement officials did what they do. They showed amazing courage by running toward gunfire for the singular purpose of trying to save lives.”

It remains unclear who Abbott relied on for those “facts.” However, it is certain he ignored one group when piecing that picture together… the parents of the victims, who were already relaying an entirely different story.  With every new iteration of how things went down, a common theme was strengthened by now grieving kin, who also happened to be desperate eye witnesses to the atrocity: Uvalde police spared no effort or rationale to avoid directly confronting the shooter. The killer was allowed to take his time, control the pace and destroy children at will. Indeed, subsequent video footage confirms that the cops milling about were above nothing, including cuffing and tasing enraged relatives of the victims, to resist taking immediate action. 

Just as with countless well-documented shootings of unarmed, usually Black men nationwide, Uvalde’s finest have now circled the wagons and are stonewalling investigators, even as each new fact indicts them more. As for Abbott, he told anyone who would listen how outraged he was about being misinformed. “The information I was given turned out, in part, to be inaccurate, and I am absolutely livid about that.” To be sure, aside from constantly offering up he and his wife’s “thoughts and prayers,” the Governor’s main focus since has been separating himself from the deadly incompetence of Uvalde first responders. 

Perhaps when the history of our fall is written, chapters if not books will be devoted to Abbott as the ruinous epitome of government by Rupert Murdoch. For now it is important that all of us still invested in the notion of America as a viable democratic concern focus our gaze at post-Uvalde Texas, as well as the national GOP response to the slaughter of our most innocent, and take stock in our future if something substantial doesn’t happen soon. Make no mistake, on every front that matters, this MAGAican  GOP will only make the bad its nihilism creates just that much worse. Abbott is as good a case in point as any. 

It’s doubtful any were surprised when an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill., a well-to-do northern suburb of Chicago, went from heaven to hell in a heartbeat. Listening to yet another round of mindless Fox/AM alternatives to sensible gun control, punctuated by the continuous lie that the 2nd Amendment is in imminent peril,  it’s easier than ever to believe half of our governmental inclinations are geared solely to patronizing sick gun fetishes. Just as American women are now hostage to anti-abortion zealotry, our basic public safety, our freedom from random mass murder, is subservient to the now determinant Travis Bikel wing of the GOP. 

Not hunters, not target shooters, not even alienated flyover survivalists, but sick and obsessed gun fetishists, ticking time bombs with short fuses and overstocked arsenals of murderous hardware they conflate being able to amass at will with the most sacred tenets of basic freedom. In a word, sickos. This is who now calls the er… shots in the Republican Party. You heard that right… the GOP now spares little in service to mass murderers-in-waiting, not to mention the stochastic terrorists who set them off. 

Anyone who thinks that’s over-the-top can circle back to Texas, specifically its recent GOP convention held in Houston. Senior Sen. John Cornyn,  Mitch McConnell’s point man for negotiating whatever legislative response to the Uvalde massacre the Republicans could present the base without creating petition drives for their impeachment, was mercilessly booed off the stage by party rank and file. 

Never enthused about providing leadership, Cornyn attempted to first distract the zealots by attacking Beto O’Rourke, somebody he figured they despised more than him. O’Rourke, cackled Cornyn, as he struggled to be heard above the boos, “has been reduced to using tragedies like Uvalde to grandstand for the media and left-wing Twitter trolls.” Cornyn then played the teammate card by slavishly praising the Trumpist troika of Abbott, Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, assuring the boo birds that their sensibilities always guided his efforts. When that also failed miserably to lessen the din, Cornyn moved on to Biden. How lucky the audience was to have him drawing “my red line in the sand,” intoned Cornyn, to keep the President’s “gun-grabbing wish list off the table”. An assault rifle ban? Mandatory waiting periods? Prohibition of high-capacity magazines? Universal background checks? “I said no, no, a thousand times no,” pleaded Cornyn to the still wholly dissatisfied horde. 

Renewed focus on mental health and “enforcing existing laws” would be more than enough do the trick and stymie daily mass murder. Everything else was confiscation-hungry overreach. Cornyn closed out his remarks on his role in stemming gun violence with the understatement of the century… “Sometimes my job is just to say no.” 

Alas, it was all for naught. No matter what MAGA trope he threw out, no matter how fetid the meat – CRT, the Trans invasion, the border invasion, the green invasion, runaway inflation, energy producers under assault – Cornyn could not beguile constituents into accepting his unforgivable apostasy of even pretending to negotiate about gun control. The crowd had less use for him at the end of his speech than the beginning. As he slinked off the stage, security waiting to guide him safely out of an auditorium filled with his own party members, it’s hard to imagine Cornyn bullish on his future prospects. 

We should be cognizant by now that one of our major political parties is a failed entity, no longer capable of governing. The GOP has  devolved into nothing more than an ugly reflection of the worst inclinations our society can produce. What Republicans offer the nation has come into clear view in Texas during our summer of mayhem.  Cornyn is one side of that coin: he is a coward to be sure, but more benign than seditious jackals like Cruz, who relentlessly work Fox/AM news cycles, accusing any in the GOP even considering constructive activity of being a RINO du jour.  He’s but a hapless senior pol futilely treading water as the MAGA torrent consumes him. Abbott is the tails of the toss.  His brand of “leadership” can never be competent because it is powered by fictions at every turn. Trumpist lies are the beginning, middle and end of his agenda and, as the horror of Uvalde illustrates, the ends have nothing to do with improving past performance by learning from mistakes. Rather, over and over, Abbott only aims to create distance from his accountability, scapegoats for his failures, and the rebranding of hardships his incompetence assures will ensue. 

Texans love to distinguish themselves from the rest of the nation. Indeed the extremist drumbeat for secession within the state’s GOP is louder than ever. Sadly, when it comes to MAGA sensibilities on everything from refusing to protect the public from mass murder to embracing Trump’s sedition and attacking the lifeblood of our entire national identity – the electoral process, Texas is far from a leading outlier of MAGA’s nihilist extremism. What’s happening in Texas is occurring wherever Republicans are dominant because there is no longer any heterogeneity left in the party. It’s equally impossible to agree enough with a Georgia Republican as an Arizona Republican. Fanatics on the march… our children are imperiled.  BC