New America’s Voice Report Explores Texas GOP’s Dangerous Embrace of Nativist Ideas and Rhetoric
Washington, DC – In a new analysis posted to the America’s Voice website, America’s Voice Senior Political Manager Zachary Mueller highlights how Texas Republican elected officials and candidates “have recently turbo-charged their embrace of ‘replacement theory’ and ‘invasion’ rhetoric as part of their non-stop anti-immigrant focus” despite the proven deadly consequences of such dehumanizing language in El Paso and elsewhere. Referring to the deadly massacre at an El Paso Walmart in August 2019, the new report and analysis notes:
“Just days before the horrific events in El Paso in 2019, Texas Governor Greg Abbott had sent out a two-page fundraising mailer that employed similar rhetoric. After the massacre, Abbott apologized for the mailer admitting that ‘mistakes were made.’ Abbott told reporters he talked to members of the El Paso legislative delegation and ‘emphasized the importance of making sure that rhetoric will not be used in any dangerous way.’ Two years later, Abbott has abandoned that commitment to the detriment of all Texans.”
The Texas report and analysis highlights how Gov. Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and Texas Members of Congress including Reps. Brian Babin, Jodey Arrington, Beth Van Duyne, Ronny Jackson, Chip Roy, Louie Gohmert, and Lance Gooden are among the Texas elected officials and candidates embracing “invasion” and/or “replacement” language. The report also highlights the Texas Republican Party’s connection to indicted Oath Keepers founder and U.S. Capitol insurrectionist Stewart Rhodes:
“The Texas GOP itself held an anti-immigrant rally in April of last year where they invited Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, on stage. At the time, Rhodes’ belief in the racist conspiracy theory about the migrant ‘invasion’ and that he encouraged his armed supporters to take related action, was public knowledge. Several months after his appearance with the Texas GOP, Rhodes was arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy surrounding his involvement in the violent January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
As Mario Carrillo, Texas-based Campaigns Manager for America’s Voice noted yesterday:
In 2019, a Texas mass murderer drove 8 hours to El Paso, my hometown, and killed 23 people. In his ‘manifesto’, he wrote of an ‘Hispanic invasion’ that drove him to commit this atrocity. And it seems like the GOP has learned nothing. Today such hateful and inflammatory rhetoric has gone mainstream in the state GOP, even featured in many of their ads. This is wrong. This is dangerous. This has to stop. The real world consequences of such rhetoric can be deadly.
According to Zachary Mueller, Senior Political Manager for America’s Voice:
In Texas and across the country, the Republican Party has embraced an absurd and dangerous racist conspiracy theory about an ‘invasion’ despite the deadly harm those ideas have inspired, including in El Paso. Texas Republicans ironically are fear-mongering about immigrants while they echo the language of domestic terrorists and share the stage with those charged with seditious conspiracy. Every Texas Republican, whether running for federal or state office must disavow such ideas and rhetoric, otherwise, they too own it. We have seen the deadly effects of letting conspiracy theories and racist lies go unchallenged. When they are amplified by some of the most powerful people in the nation and left to fester, the problem will only get worse.
Check out ongoing examples of Republicans’ anti-immigrant ads at the America’s Voice GOP Ad Tracker: http://gopadtracker.com/
