Texas Republicans have charted an extreme right-wing course that could sow the seeds of their own destruction — even as they seek to lock down permanent control of the state.
The party approved a 50-page platform last month that would require the Bible to be taught in public schools and place chaplains to offer guidance based on so-called Judeo-Christian principles, deport noncitizens who are legal residents of the U.S. if they're arrested in a protest that turns violent, reverse name changes to military bases honoring Confederate "heroes," and criminally charge doctors who perform abortions with homicide — all of which Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty described as "hair-raising."
"The document, approved at the party’s biennial convention in late May, is not a serious policy road map," Tumulty wrote. "But it does reveal the id of a political party that has gone off the deep end."
The GOP platform also calls for candidates running for statewide office to win more than half of the state's 254 counties, which would effectively shut out Democrats forever because their voters are concentrated in a few urban areas. Republicans are spread across sometimes sparsely populated rural counties.
"Traditionally, the core mission of state parties is to do the basic work of winning elections: recruiting candidates, organizing, fundraising, registering voters," Tumulty wrote. "Texas Republicans, however, are on an ideological crusade to push the state further to the right and purify their own ranks, even as the state party’s coffers dry up and its donor base shrinks."
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"Those endeavors are likely to alienate more moderate Texans — that is, if they are actually paying attention," she added. "Voter turnout in the state is notoriously low, which is one reason the wing nuts hold so much sway."
Far-right challengers, some of whom were endorsed by Donald Trump, took down 15 Republican state House members in the latest round of primary and runoff elections, and the state party censured House speaker Dade Phelan after attorney general Ken Paxton survived an impeachment for corruption and Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents Uvalde, after he voted for modest changes to gun laws following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
"Lest rank-and-file GOP voters ever again be allowed to override the activists who run the party machinery, the convention approved a new rule preventing any candidate who is censured from appearing on the ballot for two years," Tumulty wrote. "More sensible Republicans — yes, there are still some in Texas — worry that their party is bent on its own destruction."