Texas: It's a Whole 'Nother Country

Can Republicans see the color gray? After all, it's a secondary color, not a primary one. It's a melding of black and white, which theoretically shouldn't be visible to the Republican eye.

It must be said the ultra-binary folk on the other side of the aisle certainly like simplicity. And under normal circumstances, so do I. I mean, any idiot can devise a complicated, labyrinthine plan for something, right?

True genius lies in simplicity. The design with the fewest moving parts.

But in light of the misguided simplicity Texas Governor Greg Abbott seeks in Texas, it's not too much of a stretch to term his assault on transgendered kids genocide.

Life is messy. It rarely conforms to the yes-no, good-bad schematic we lay out for it. It goes up when we want it to go down. Left we we demand it go right. We end up with jalapeno queso when we wanted buttermilk ranch.

A favorite expressions states that life is what happens when we were planning something else.

But not to Republicans. Simple-minded creatures they are, the infusion of even in a little black in their white confuses them. Alarms them. Panics them. “That's not black!” they cry. “That's not white!”

It's pure, unmitigated terror.

And this is the challenge Abbott and his developmentally-disabled Texans face with transgendered children.

There have always been feminine men. And masculine women. And if you'll allow my libtard snowflake self to say so, there ain't nothing wrong with it. Only with the rigid gender-based expectations society imposes on them.

And depending on the degree to which each feels the tug of the other, serious mental-health issues can ensue. And if the libtard snowflake can again express an opinion, I am not a fan of mental-health issues.

I want everyone—with the possible exception of Donald Trump and his strumpets—to live their best, most-fulfilling life. If you're a boy who feels more comfortable in a dress or a girl who wants chest hair and a mustache, have at it.

As long as you only wish to get along in the world and perhaps even contribute to it now and then, what of it? If adopting the characteristics of those opposite your birth gender allows you to be your best and most authentic self, who cares?

In the early days of women's lib, the media seized on the question What do woman want? There is no single answer. Women want as many different things as men. What they really wanted (and still do) is the freedom to want them—even if they don't conform with narrow gender norms.

Yes, it's challenging. Yes, it's complicated. But so is technology. So is medicine. So is developing financial schemes that lay on the very edge of what could be termed 'legal'. But we do it. Every day. “It's complicated!” isn't good enough.

Unless you're a Republican. You have to remember, this is a group of people who were undone by having to wear a featherweight mask during a pandemic. That provoked the most vicious and destructive assault on democracy in U.S. history.

Republicans are a tremulous lot, easily agitated. In a country that is now a thoroughly non-white melting pot, they are creeped out. If you're imagining a party collectively wearing Depends underwear (extra absorbent), you're not too far off.

Where's my bowl of unmolested, homogenized tapioca? It's in 1890, bro. Good luck with that.

If you're a Republican and feel you can differentiate between Hitler's effort to cleanse post-World War One Germany and Abbott's in Texas, the comment box is open.

I dare you.

Living by the Sword

As an avowed anti-Republican, the mess in Texas puts me in a funny place. Do I snicker? Cry? What is the correct response? Before you label me a hater and paste this on your social media platform of choice, hear me out.

I feel nothing but pity for the people watching their homes freeze. And then flood. For the people getting socked with four-digit utility bills. For the people whose lives have been upended (again) by a storm stoked via climate change.

On the other hand, Texas and its citizens have long revelled in their defiance of any policy that didn't originate with a Republican. Remember how Texas was at the forefront of the masks-are-tyranny protests last summer? Texans glory in their state's self-referencing itself as a “whole 'nother country.” Is there a soul alive who hasn't been told not to mess with Texas?

I guess our ever-changing climate didn't get the memo.

For the second time in three and-a-half years, Texas' refusal to adopt federal regulations with regards to zoning and flood protocols and to ignore suggested protections directed at its energy grid have blown up in its face. Texas is the dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks teenager who believes he can ride his bike with his eyes closed.

Until he can't.

Then he runs home to mom, who despite the yelling and the finger-pointing and the repeated cries to stay out of his life opens her purse and dutifully offers a wad of fresh Kleenex—if not a ride to the hospital (where I discretely point out it is her insurance which provides for his recuperation).

Texas has poached jobs and people nationwide and bragged about it. It loudly claims to offer life without regulation, a state income tax and good old free-market, Republican-styled capitalism.

And I say "Yahoo, partner!"

But here's the thing. Its smarmy, arrogant businessticians want to avoid regulation at all costs, because no one—no one—should be able to tell a white, Texas businessman what to do. They should be free to do whatever the hell they want to do without smothering oversight from the big, bad federal government.

And that's fine. To each their own. 

But it's just a bit disingenuous and a tad hypocritical to turn around and demand aid from that same big, bad federal government before your latest broadside about the evils of overly-invasive government has even had a chance to evaporate.

Like I said, I'm a strident anti-Republican. And I am tired of watching Democrats forced once again to be the parent. Of having to play the grown-up. The reconciler. The nice guy. The one with a fully-developed sense of humanity and bigger, broader horizons in mind.

Yep. Tired. Really. Fucking. Tired.

Texas, pack your play things and go home. Show us some of that famously resilient self-sufficiency! You don't need anything or anyone! It's time to prove it. 

Like that orange-haired asshole you adore, you clearly believe you're bigger than the United States. I'm sure you'd be more comfortable without our suffocating restraints. And our aid.

Was it really that long ago that former governor Rick Perry was making noise about seceding? Hey—anything worth trying once is worth trying twice! Come on, Greg. You too, Rick. I'll even hold the door for ya.

But one thing before you go: mom is out of Kleenex.

We're in This Together?

You gotta love Texas. As their department of tourism once described it, it's a whole 'nother country. And months into the COVID pandemic, it's obvious that wasn't just a tagline.

Texas was a leader in the we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-masks movement. Texans knew intuitively that masks were a hysterical response to something that didn't really exist. Swollen with ego and defiance, any Texan within range of a television camera was only too happy to tell you how tough they were. How indomitable.

Of the joy they took in flouting liberal's timid and fearful protocols.

And however saturated the population was with its teen-aged sense of invincibility, it reached even greater extremes within the offices of the state's Republican party. They were incapable of contamination. Or infection.

Of course, this was a falsehood concocted to keep the runaway train of Texas capitalism roaring, and if you didn't like it you should just stay the hell out of the way.

Social media is stuffed with footage of their constituents thumbing their nose at the new normals of mask wearing and social distancing. They frolicked in their pools and gathered in their roadhouses and cavorted on their beaches.

Yee-hah! Gimme a T for Texas! Don't mess with Texas! And all of that.

I once asked a native of Oklahoma why it was so windy there. “Texas blows” she said. “Or sucks. Take your pick.”

All was going swimmingly until governor Greg Abbott got infected. It wasn't an especially contagious virus and is actually pretty rare in twenty-first century Republican circles. It bears the name common sense.

In its clutches, Abbott began to act strangely. First there was the involuntary attention to facts. Abbott listened to them. Considered them. And most-dangerously, acted on them.

Then he (gulp) issued a statewide mask-mandate.

Not long afterwards, the skies inside the state's GOP headquarters turned black. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. The end of days had arrived. The state's Republican leadership swung into action. If they didn't, lives would be saved. Curves flattened. Economies offered a long-term chance at restoration.

First there was a social media smear campaign. Abbott was painted as a mask-wearin' sissy. Then 130 Republican leaders vowed to censure him. Resolutions slandering the governor filled the air.

Then they looked inwards. If they had lost Abbott, someone—or something—was to blame.

The party's brain trust  (yes—that's a thing) spent days picking lint from their navels, because nothing precludes a deep dive like lint. Just ask your dryer. How many deep thoughts has it had lately?

James Dickey, the sitting chairman, was fired. Apparently, he had transmitted the common sense virus to Abbott that lead the newly life-loving governor astray. Left unexplained was if Dickey were also infected, why didn't he resign from the party as opposed to being marginalized by it?

At any rate, it was decided Texas needed a genuine, ass kickin' right-winger to get the state back on track. And they found him.

Allen West is a tried and true, one-hundred percent freak-a-zoid. And he just happens to be African-American, a fact which state Republicans can exploit until November third.

Trump loves him because as a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, West fired a gun at an Iraqi policeman's head during an interrogation. And as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, characterized then-president Obama as a “low-level socialist agitator”.

And West is already borrowing liberally from the Book of Trump. In a video address to delegates, West reiterated his ability to issue executive orders (huh?) and referred to Abbott's mask mandate as “tyranny” and called it a “new battleground.”

However much I love the sights and sounds of Republican infighting, there is a sad truth here. And that is the hypnotized, heartened by the conservative anti-mask response, will continue to embrace it.

As I have stated before, I fully support the conservative death wish. At least in theory. It is my wish that every right-winger in the land refuse to wear a mask, congregate in tightly-packed indoor spaces and drink from one another's cups until dead.

Alas, the COVID virus has shown no ability to discern those who want it to thrive from those who wish to extinguish it. In other words, despite Republican's pro-life COVID stance, it won't just kill them.

It infects, sickens and kills indiscriminately.

Mr. West, it seems if anyone should be crying “Tyranny!” it is those of us who understand and respect the power and the scope of this threat to humanity, and yet risk illness and even death thanks to the politicized beliefs of the most-childish, selfish and ignorant elements of our society.

Texas Republicans are a panicked collection of people grasping at straws over something they can't shout or shoot away. At best, they lack the intestinal fortitude to face the challenges presented by sheltering in place, mask-wearing and social-distancing.

At worst, they appear willing to sacrifice everything (i.e. your life) for the economy. It must survive at any and all costs. How else to sustain the financial edge their favored brand of political leadership enjoys?

As it always has been, this is what is at the center of Republican action: politics and power—above all.