Texas Republican Bo French’s latest attack on immigrants backfired fast, drawing fire from critics on the left, conservative writers and even a top Trump administration ex-official.
“As an American, who’s family has been here for 400 years, I shouldn’t have to listen to people who are in fact not from here, do not share our culture, scam our institutions, and hate our nation, because they shouldn’t be here in the first place,” French posted on X Saturday morning.
The post has been viewed more than 1.8 million times.
French, the former Tarrant County GOP chair who lost his race for Texas Railroad Commissioner this month, has a long record of inflammatory remarks. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick once urged him to resign his party post after French ran a poll asking whether Jews or Muslims posed a bigger threat to America. In September, he went viral for a racist post singling out a group of University of Texas students at a Longhorns game.
This time, one of the sharpest rebukes came from his own side. Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, opened by correcting his grammar.
“*Whose,” Dhillon wrote. “Also, you are an ignorant bigot whose racist rhetoric helped turn off many Americans from voting Republican in Texas. You should do the party a favor and disappear from public life. This is MY party and country as much as it is anyone’s.”
“Weird since you and I have talked before. You are NOT who I am talking about,” French replied.
The Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg also piled on.
“News flash: plenty of native-born Americans with family trees as old as yours also think you’re a lowbrow bigot, demagogue, and political albatross,” Goldberg wrote. “So don’t listen to these mythical illegal immigrants and immigrants you don’t like. Just listen to all the ‘Heritage Americans’ who also think you’re an embarrassment and a--hole.”
French shot back that he doesn’t “want to listen to communists either,” insisting, “It’s not about race.”
Many critics went after French’s own heritage. After one user told him “Your last name is Europoor, not American,” French insisted the name was English.
“I realize you’re probably low IQ, and that’s OK. I don’t hold that against you. The surname French is actually an old English name, just like the other names in my family, like Polk and Fuller,” he wrote.
A proposed community note added under the post disagreed: “The English surname ‘French’ is longstanding, particularly in Ireland. It denotes people originating in France, not England.”
“You don’t even qualify to be a notary public with that last name,” former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) wrote.
“Bo French, we’re on to you. Il doit rentrer en France!” another user posted, alongside an image of a man in a beret and a striped shirt in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall questioned French’s math.
“400 years, eh? Very, very limited English settlement in North America by 1626. Care to elaborate?” Marshall wrote.
Conservative health policy expert Avik Roy took aim at the grammar.
“I only listen to Heritage Americans whose understanding of the English language includes knowing the difference between ‘who’s’ and ‘whose,’” Roy wrote.
When writer Zaid Jilani asked whether “400 years of familiar history” had produced “just a racist poster and failed candidate for office,” French replied with one word: “Deport.”
Even Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino, who has picked his share of fights with liberals online, noted that French’s argument left him out.
“I guess this approach to immigration leaves me and my family out,” Gasparino wrote.
And one user who shares French’s surname had a different family history to offer.
“Which Frenches are you with, Bo? We got here in 1635 (via William French!) and haven’t had any problems listening,” Bill French wrote. “If we did, we would have kept our identity as Tribe of Galloway (Ffrench) — but because of two-way communication with people also not from here, we became...Americans.”