Austin at Large: At the Bottom of the Well

When I use words in this space like "decadent" or "depraved" or "incompetent" to describe Texas' ruling red regime, I'm trying to be precise, not just looking for variety in the sackful of invective I have to haul up here every week. After 20-plus years of mostly talking only to themselves, our ruling partiers have become soft, clumsy, clueless, lost their bearings, aren't sending their best people. I wouldn't describe in those same terms earlier eras of Texas GOP governance, from Ann Richards' loss to George W. Bush in 1994 through Rick Perry's third victory in 2010, both wave elections for Team Red. Those were troubling, difficult, frustrating years for many Texans, in ways Bush and Perry mostly ignored as they hitched their wagons to the Texas Miracle mule train. But what we face now is worse; the state Republican Party has fracked up the buried strata of its voters' psyches to let the fossilized gases of racism and avarice flare out, giving the regime a burst of energy as it bounces off the bottom of the well and flails about when required to be useful.

This is another week when I've changed up my plans for this column as the news overtakes them. I was going to focus on the decadent, depraved, incompetent state-level response to our latest climate disaster, but as was his obvious intent, Gov. Greg Abbott bluntly and shamelessly changed the subject by freeing Texans from the chains of their masks. Instead of further contemplating his cold, oafish impotence in the face of a deadly catastrophe that he chose to let happen but now blames on others, we have to watch Abbott be a man of action, guaranteeing equally horrible and callous outcomes by decree, which for him feels much, much more comfortable.

Your Move, Agent West ...

The only thing Governor Loveless really cares about right now is protecting his right flank from the inevitable primary challenge he's going to encounter a year from now from, many believe, Allen West, the ex-war criminal and Florida Man who, having won the hearts of proto-MAGA nutters in his brief time in Congress, now leads the Republican Party of Texas. Had Abbott not turned the icy hose on the festering unrest over his "dictatorial" COVID restrictions from his party's unpoliced radical fringe – people who've already filed lawsuits against him, joined by West and the Texas GOP – he might have pulled a more formidable primary challenger like U.S. Rep Dan Crenshaw, who could lap him like Ted Cruz and Dan Patrick did over two cycles to end David Dewhurst's political career.

That still might happen, as the December filing deadline is still months away and may get pushed back by the delay in census data needed for redistricting. But someone like West, who observers in both parties think already intends to be somewhere on the 2022 ballot if not here, will not suffer in any way by continuing to f*ck with Greg Abbott from now until then. He's basically answerable to nobody but the hardest-core GOP activists that decide who leads their party, and he's got a national brand that can activate the small-dollar donors whose aggregate power has negated the formerly moderating influence of anti-controversial big money donors, much as has happened on the Democratic left.

So in the face of that, no, Greg Abbott does not care, at all, about the misery his Decisive Action to let Texas go commando on COVID will engender. He will never face any consequences for that, he thinks; he will only be harmed if he fails to act. This is clearly not his native instinct; he's been trying to avoid taking big stands and dropping his obligations like they're hot for a whole year of plague time. He is very much the white-shoe corporate insurance defense lawyer he was before seeking office, the guy who explains why it's not the refinery's fault the kids along the fence line have no toes. He has none of the primal, vulgar energy of the rising stars to his right, and he demonstrated to everyone during his week on the winter storm struggle bus that he has no real ability to lead anywhere worth following. Going low, to the bottom of the well, is all he's got.

Soul and Inspiration

This is where I typically try to curve my columns to end on a high note – "Take heart! We've got this! We will survive." It's hard to do that in the face of amoral recklessness that many Texans will not survive. And it's not obvious how those of us who aren't at the bottom of the GOP well can shape the trajectory of the next few weeks to aim at different outcomes.

We can, of course, take a break from trying to influence the politics of Texas' current existential crises and simply lend our hands and hearts to helping each other as we endure them. The best response to Abbott's breathtaking selfishness and, yes, "depravity" is probably to ignore it as best we can and not let him have more power over the Texas we live in than he can claim for himself. That's likely the best that Austin and other Texas cities, and the folks they send to the Legislature, can do right now as well. In doing so, I think we will build back some of the resilience we will need to break the back of the ruling regime when that time comes, be it 2022 or 2024 or perhaps sooner. Our buckets are small right now, but our well is not empty.