The 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs FEC – effectively taking the cap off of rich campaign contributors (those who exercise control, but not those who just follow candidates’ directives) – created the sugar pot that fed the extremists who couldn’t get arrested before Citizens United. It was never the intended effect, but it worked out that way. Those who immediately took advantage of the ruling were rightwing billionaires embracing extreme positions, willing to publicize their pet extreme causes. The election donors in the “old days” waited until those pre-primary dark horses, those with potential, separated from the horde. Only then did the checkbooks come out. The resulting candidates were focused not just on the primary but on willing in the general election. In short, the system at that time did not reward extremists.
But after Citizens United, wannabe candidates knew which billionaires they could approach with that wannabe’s willingness to accept those extreme positions with a promise never to compromise if elected. Traditional candidates had avoided those extremes, focusing on general electability. Those wannabes were willing to promise to fight for whatever that billionaire’s Super-Pac stood for just to get a meaningful shot at getting into that primary with a powerful financial backer. For whatever reason, that lure of extremism settled vastly more into the Republican universe than in extreme liberal causes.
Slowly, as those well-funded candidates got elected, the configuration of the entire GOP shifted right. And with members of the House of Representative facing elections every two years (versus Senators elected for six-year terms), the constant need for campaign cash drove the House even more severely to the extreme right. With Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, bullying, conspiracy theories and vilifying opponents were legitimized, factors which hyper-accelerated the ascension of rightwing zealots to positions of power they could never have imagined pre- Citizens United.
The result: bitter polarization, the GOP battle for Speaker of the House, the willingness to shut down government, reverse even recent legislation, running on a platform to reverse anything and everything supported by any Democratic administration and a litmus test of profound loyalty to Donald Trump, a candidate who openly campaigns to attract white Christian nationalist to the detriment of everyone else. The candidate of “retribution.” Red states began to reconfigure to impose Christian fundamentalism on their voting citizens… by any and all means possible. Gerrymandering, voting restrictions, appointing judges with no intention of being neutral and controlling state and local employees with an iron, rightwing, fist.
I’ve focused a lot on Don DeSantis in recent blogs, but the Florida governor’s fall from grace has been so rapid that I would like to shift to Governor Greg Abbott country: Texas. An in-depth look into the chaos within the Texas GOP, presented by Mike Hixenbaugh for NBC (October 26th), illustrates MAGA dysfunction on Texas steroids, as the Republican party there has gone to war with itself: “Stark battle lines have been drawn between mainline Texas conservatives and a more far-right faction that has gained influence within the party in recent years — mirroring the ideological fractures that left Republicans in Washington unable for weeks to elect a new U.S. House speaker after they ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
“The Texas GOP’s civil war has been building for years, inflamed in part by an expansive network of ultra-conservative activist groups bankrolled by a trio of West Texas billionaires on a mission to push the deep-red state even further to the right.
“After The Texas Tribune reported this month [October] that some of the leaders of that influential far-right network met for hours with the white supremacist provocateur Nick Fuentes — who has praised Adolf Hitler and called for a ‘holy war’ against Jews — the intraparty tension reached a breaking point.
“This week [late October], Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a staunch conservative who’s nonetheless a target of far-right attacks, called on the state GOP to cut ties with any groups and individuals who have embraced white nationalist figures or rhetoric… In an interview, Phelan said Republicans must remove ‘the rot’ that he says has been festering for years within his own party or risk ceding control to extremists — a fight that he believes should serve as a warning for the GOP nationally… ‘This is an inflection point here in the state of Texas,’ Phelan said. ‘And as Texas goes, a better part of the country goes.’…
“The national Republican Party has tacked harder right in recent decades, but in Texas, the shift has been supercharged by spending from three West Texas billionaires, Tim Dunn and the brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, who have expressed the view that Texas state government should be guided by biblical values. Over the past two decades, they’ve poured more than $100 million into a network of dark money groups and activist organizations — including the political action committees Empower Texans and Defend Texas Liberty — as part of a relentless campaign to push mainstream Texas Republicans to adopt more hard-line positions.
“The megadonors, none of whom responded to messages requesting comment, seem to have gotten results. Under Phelan’s leadership, Texas Republicans have passed some of the most conserva”tive state laws in the country in recent years, effectively banning most abortions a year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and clearing the way for residents to carry guns without permits, among other policies.
“Nevertheless, the Wilks and Dunn network has continued attacking Phelan and other Republicans over their failure to approve a policy giving parents public funding to send children to private schools and over the Texas House’s vote this year to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton — a Donald Trump acolyte who aided the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — on charges of bribery and other misconduct… ‘They keep moving the line for what it means to be conservative,’ said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. ‘And if you aren’t on the right side of that line, then you’re going to get the spear.’
“Under pressure from Wilks- and Dunn-funded groups, Republicans in the Texas Senate voted to acquit Paxton on the impeachment charges last month, further inflaming tensions within the party. Afterward, Jonathan Stickland, the leader of Defend Texas Liberty, vowed to pour the PAC’s money into unseating Phelan and every other Republican who supported Paxton’s impeachment… ‘You and your band of RINOs are now on notice,’ Stickland tweeted at Phelan on Sept. 16, using the acronym for Republican In Name Only. ‘You will be held accountable for this entire sham. We will never stop.’
“Three weeks later, The Texas Tribune photographed Stickland and other officials connected to the Wilks-Dunn network meeting with Fuentes, the Nazi sympathizer, at Stickland’s offices in North Texas, giving Phelan and other more moderate Republicans ammunition to fire back. Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi, who’s among those calling for Phelan’s ouster, was photographed at the same location but has denied meeting with Fuentes.” Democracy is facing autocratic pressures in representative democracies all over the world. But in Texas, a clear red state, has democracy already been repealed? Can a litany of rightwing Supreme Court decisions effectively end American democracy? Time will tell, and the clock is ticking.
I’m Peter Dekom, and what we have done to ourselves, to each other, just might unravel the entirety of the United States if we do not wake up?
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