Editor’s note: Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
Texas Republicans have managed to produce a runoff for state attorney general that should have anyone with a modicum of concern about their civil liberties shitting bricks.
On one side is State Sen. Mayes Middleton, the oil-rich heir who’s been moonlighting as a culture-war crusader after discovering that running for office is easier when your family fortune can bankroll the campaign. On the other is U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, the perpetually furious U.S. House member who treats politics like a nonstop cable-news shouting match.
Together, they’ve given GOP primary voters a choice between a spoiled rich kid with shaky legal chops and a far-right ideologue who apparently inherited all the charm and likability of his former boss, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, even if he hasn’t got a handle on Teddy Boy’s trademark unctuousness.
During his time in the Texas Lege, Middleton has tried to sell himself as a conservative defender of the Constitution. Unfortunately, his praise for President Donald Trump for “putting God back in government” suggests he’s a long way from actually understanding the contents of said document.
Indeed, for all the Senator’s claims about championing freedom, he spends an awful lot of time arguing that certain Texans deserve less of it. After all, this is the dick who authored the state’s current “bathroom bill,” which seeks to empower vigilante potty patrols to keep trans people from using public restrooms.
Beyond that, Middleton has precious little legal experience — a shortcoming that should be an obvious disqualification for someone seeking to be the state’s top legal authority. Though he holds a law degree, his experience is limited to running the oil and gas business Daddy founded.
But the biggest credential wielded by “MAGA Mayes” isn’t legal experience or courtroom savvy — it’s money. To date, he’s poured $11 million into his own campaign, records show. That’s the kind of generational wealth that allows a candidate to blanket the airwaves without worrying about the tedious task of persuading voters on merit.
Roy, meanwhile, brings a completely different brand of dysfunction. The congressman has built his career on theatrical outrage, delivering red-faced speeches and throwing procedural tantrums whenever the political winds fail to blow exactly his direction.
This is, after all, the bloviating douchebag who singlehandedly held up a disaster relief bill for Texas communities to make a political point, voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act and staged a phony-as-fuck border security roundtable at which far-right propaganda outlet Breitbart News was the only invited “media.”
Recently, Roy’s scaremongering about Muslims wanting to enact Sharia law in U.S. communities has veered into even uglier territory, stoking fear and suspicion toward an entire religious community.
Add to that his enthusiasm for restricting voting rights — treating democratic participation like it’s a privilege to be rationed rather than a right to be protected — and Roy begins to look less like a defender of the Constitution than someone eager to carve it up for ideological convenience.
Texas’ attorney general is supposed to be someone capable of defending the law and representing every Texan with competence and professionalism. However, Ken Paxton’s decade holding that office has certainly put that expectation through the meatgrinder — and ushered in this runoff between two utter assclowns.
If either Mayes or Roy wins the primary and takes control of the AG’s office, expect to see more of Paxton’s bottom-dealing, dysfunction and partisan rancor. The real loser won’t be the other candidate. It will be Texas.
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