Why Is Anyone Still Supporting Ken Paxton?
Why Is Anyone Still Supporting Ken Paxton?
Countless Republicans could do his job more effectively, but the attorney general is a crucial fighter in a long-brewing Texas GOP civil war.
Because he has an "R".
They all have "R"s in Texas. He represents a more blatant form of corruption than most.
In the eyes of conservative Jesus, all corruption is equally fine.
Better question: why is anyone still pretending that it's shocking when Republicans refuse to hold one of their own accountable? This is not some mystery, it's their standard playbook.
Magic of “R”
Despite a pile of "R"s bringing a case against him, it's more important NOT to have a conviction/removal from office. The PR loss of those headlines are too painful to Rs, so they wouldn't convict. The fact that he's guilty as fuck is less important than that PR.
As the defense said during closing arguments: If it can happen to Ken Paxton, it can happen to any of them.
For these chumps, it's better to let the obviously guilty face zero repercussions so that they can be secure in the knowledge that their wrong doings won't ever be accounted for either.
The entire Texas Republican Party is, again in the words of the defense, a joke.
Because it was never about being right or just. It's always about "I win, fuck everyone else".
Because identifying as a Republican means you leave your morals on the crucifix and burying those morals six feet under. You know like a good Republican Christian.
Republicans love how he wastes state funds on quixotic grandstanding lawsuits meant to demonstrate that the government is operating against the minorities they hate.
Because most conservatives think he was fantastic in Twister.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In 2015, an agitprop shop affiliated with his backers, the short-lived website AgendaWise, registered the opinion that Paxton’s election to AG offered “hope for all Western governments.” He’s the last good man in Texas, McKinney’s own Winston Churchill—if you trade the brandy and cigars for afternoon margaritas and late-night fast food.
He radiates a preternatural sort of anticharisma.There are countless Republicans with law degrees and histories of electoral success waiting in the wings to follow in the footsteps of John Cornyn, Greg Abbott, and Ted Cruz as soldiers of the office of the attorney general.
The patriotic wave that resulted from the 9/11 attacks, combined with sky-high approval ratings for our Texan president, helped win the GOP the state House, the last Democratic-controlled institution in Texas, for the first time since Reconstruction.
Dunn and his constellation of groups spent millions helping Paxton as he faced candidates who were arguably more right-wing (Barry Smitherman, a former Railroad Commission member and author of If Jesus Were an Investment Banker) and more respectable (Dan Branch, a state representative who looked like a Bush cousin and had the politics to match).
The Legislature could have forced the attorney general to defend the TEC, but it did not do so; if doing a favor for your biggest donor were prima facie evidence of a quid pro quo, most of the Texas state government would be in jail.
If Abbott appoints state senator Bryan Hughes to serve as AG, to pick one example, conservatives will have a more effective and capable advocate to lead the office—arguably one more committed to right-wing causes and less vulnerable at the ballot box.
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