With U.S. Chip Roy floundering in his bid to become the next GOP bombthrower to occupy the Texas Attorney General’s Office, he’s retreated into familiar territory: screaming outrageous shit at the top of his lungs and hoping someone notices.
In the latest of those outbursts, the Austin-San Antonio Republican fired off a tweet Sunday offering his suggestion on how to “#SaveTexas.” His answer? “No more Muslims. No more criminals. No more marxists [sic]. No more corporatists.”
Considering Roy has been prancing around the U.S. House for months screaming about Muslims being days away from imposing Sharia law on the nation, we probably shouldn’t be surprised to see him go a step further and demand Texas wall itself off to members of an entire religion. (By the way, if anybody needs an explanation why his Sharia law claim is utter bullshit, here you go.)
Nor should Roy’s Islamophobic outburst come as much surprise given his long history of outrageous histrionics.
For instance, there was the congressman’s claim that the pandemic was all a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and the media. Or the time he voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. Or when he staged a loony-tunes border security roundtable at which far-right propaganda outlet Breitbart News was the only invited “media.”
The Texas chapter of Muslim civil rights group the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, correctly blasted Roy’s latest outburst as “dehumanizing rhetoric” and a “betrayal of his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.”
“We must ask our fellow Americans: Imagine the universal and justified outrage if a member of Congress posted a message saying ‘No more Christians or no more Jewish people.’ It would be instantly recognized as a bigoted, unacceptable, and un-American call for a religious test,” CAIR-Texas said in an emailed statement.
To be sure, Roy’s tweet is a repugnant attack on the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.
“It is the height of hypocrisy for a lawmaker to claim the mantle of a ‘constitutionalist’ while advocating for a religious test that the Founding Fathers explicitly prohibited,” CAIR-Texas continued. “We call on members of the U.S. House of Representatives to formally hold Rep. Roy accountable for this dangerous and un-American rhetoric. This level of open hostility toward a religious minority has no place in the halls of Congress.”
It’s hard to argue with anything CAIR had to say about Roy’s tantrum. His anti-Islam blathering isn’t just dumb, but dangerous.
However, it’s also revealing.
It reveals a politician who seems to understand — at least on some level — that the ground is shifting beneath his feet. Something in Roy’s reptile brain seems to grasp that the same brand of performative outrage that once earned him cable hits and applause lines is starting to land with a dull, tired thud.
Roy built his political persona on being the guy in the room with the biggest flapping pie hole — the one willing to torch decorum, facts and basic decency in exchange for a few viral moments and approving tweets from the most aggrieved corners of the Republican electorate.
But there’s a difference between being provocative and being repetitive. Lately, Roy’s act feels like a rerun: Archie Bunker on repeat minus the laugh track.
So, to his logic, now’s the time to escalate.
It won’t do him much good. In fact, the damage to his political career is already done.
Even though Roy went into the Republican AG primary with an abundance of name recognition, that didn’t seem to matter much to voters who forced him into a high-dollar runoff with State Sen. Mayes Middleton, a rich-kid MAGA adherent who’s been willing to drop $14 million of his own cash to end up on top.
At this point, it’s hard to imagine the underfunded Roy pulling ahead. Or that the congressman’s anti-Muslim bigotry will differentiate him much from an opponent who’s dubbed himself “MAGA Mayes” and also has no qualms about peddling offensive remarks so he can win over the base.
“If Chip Roy thinks he can out-Sharia law ‘MAGA Mayes,’ he’s kidding himself,” UT-San Antonio political scientist Jon Taylor told the Current. “The battle lines in that contest have already been set.”
And in the likelihood Roy loses, it’s not like he can go back to his aggressively redrawn 21st District. He sacrificed that job to run for AG, and it’s hard to imagine the general electorate there or elsewhere in Central Texas being eager to import his rage-tweeting about imaginary threats and demonizing entire groups of people.
“My thought is the next step for Chip Roy is a guest spot on [U.S. Sen.] Ted Cruz’s podcast, or maybe something on Fox News, OAN or some other right-wing channel,” Taylor said. “That’s the future I see for him. His shelf life has pretty much come to an end.”
Roy’s problem isn’t just that his comments are offensive — though they are. It’s that they’re increasingly out of step with a public that, after years of nonstop grievance politics, seems exhausted by it. The constant escalation, the endless parade of enemies — real or imagined — and the reflexive cruelty have worn thinner than U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan’s combover.
Heading into the midterms, polls show Republicans are in trouble because voters are tired of the overheated immigration rhetoric Trump, Roy and others have pushed, often to deadly outcomes. Surveys also show voters crave solutions on affordability, including medical coverage, childcare and other kitchen table issues — solutions that haven’t exactly figured into Roy’s ragebait-driven agenda.
It’s one thing to build a career on grievance. But Roy’s about to find out it’s another to figure out what comes after voters decide they’ve had enough.
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