Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
There’s a certain kind of politician who can look at a burning building and conclude that the real problem is nobody poured enough gasoline on it.
Texsas Comptroller Don Huffines is just that guy.
After Texas Republicans’ shellacking last week, this diminutive dickhead offered up an explanation that would be laughable if it weren’t so revealing: The GOP had been betrayed by the “mushy middle.”
That’s right. According to Dandy Don, the problem wasn’t that Republicans had spent years putting the interests of wealthy donors, corporate benefactors and ideological extremists ahead of ordinary Texans. It wasn’t their attacks on public education, their obsession with culture-war bullshit or their apparent inability to make life more affordable.
Nope. The problem was that Texas Republicans just weren’t far enough to the right.
That’s a remarkable diagnosis from a goblin who just lost his own election to Democratic state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt and managed to place third when he ran to the right of Gov. Greg Abbott in the 2022 GOP primary.
Apparently, the voters didn’t reject the party’s agenda. They were simply disappointed that Republicans hadn’t pursued it with enough bomb-throwing fanaticism.
Never mind that Texas Republicans have enjoyed nearly three decades of uninterrupted control of statewide offices. Never mind that Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have wielded enormous influence over the Legislature, using it to push one hard-right priority after another.
If that’s the mushy middle, we’d hate to see what Huffines considers the hard right.
The reality is that Huffines’ tantrum illustrates just why Republicans went down in flames. Too many in the GOP seem to think electoral defeat is never evidence that they’re out of step with the public. Instead, losing at the ballot box is proof that somebody failed to pursue those priorities aggressively enough.
Here’s a notion this assclown may want to consider: Texas voters simply got tired of being governed by people who mistake ideological extremism for competence.
Texas politics is a mess. We make it a readable mess.
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