As recent polling has shown a tighter race for Texas Governor than many pundits predicted, Texas’s incumbent Governor, Greg Abbott, has made a hard left at the border: he’s pushing a “policy” that’s more publicity stunt than substantive political action.
Yes, that’s right. In an obvious appeal to the most ignorant among Fox News’ loyal viewers, Greg “Goofy Greg” Abbott gathered volunteers from among the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free at the US/Mexico border, and sent them pointlessly to D.C.
Where, according to NBCNews, “it’s unclear” what happened to them or where they went after that.
(For the record, this is the same “Goofy Greg” Abbott whose reelection campaign website shrieks “Don’t California my Texas!,” but who, Abbott the politician, has courted (and accepted) more than $1.6 million in donations from high profile Californians. And it’s the same G-Greg seeking a third term in office—because if anything will fix the problems Texas has faced through the first two terms of his administration, (major power outages, climate crises, immigration issues), it’s a third term of the same.)
Meanwhile, Abbott’s theatrics may actually work against him. Stunt with the busses aside, there’s plenty that Abbott could be doing to address Texans concerns about the state’s crumbling energy infrastructure or to shore up its economy. Instead, he doubled down this week and instituted a policy that redundantly searches vehicles crossing the border, leading to an incredible traffic backup. Truckers are, at time of this writing, waiting up to 24 hours to cross, causing what was a river of commerce into Texas from Mexico, and from Central and South America, to slow to a trickle.
Would this maybe be worth it, if there was a tangible impact on illegal immigration? Maybe. But, like we said, these searches are 100% redundant. You read that right: “The inspections being carried out by troopers from the Texas Department of Public Safety focus chiefly on the vehicles’ roadworthiness, not on their cargo. It is up to federal agents to examine trucks’ content, which typically takes place at checkpoints miles from the Rio Grande.” (Emphasis added.)
But so this obvious drama show has not only opened an avenue of attack to his political opponents, it’s opened him up to attacks from within his own party. Because while Abbott may well have expected responses like the following, from Texas State Rep. Mary González, who told the Texas Tribune “Instead of using our tax dollars to drive economic growth and build infrastructure, Governor Abbott is funding political stunts at the expense of Texas families and our troops,” he surely couldn’t have expected the withering criticism he received from fellow Texas Republican, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who told USA Today, “I’ll just say it, this is just political theater,” he said. “There’s 20,000 trucks a day coming through Laredo (before the policy). Now, we’re going to get about 700 a day. This has really backfired on him. It’s really compounded the problem.”
But back to those D.C. bussed immigrants for a moment.
Because where did Governor G-Greg Abbott have them delivered? Most network news is obfuscating on this, perhaps out of an unwillingness to asperse such an integrity driven man as Abbott. So they’re using such phrases as “The migrants, from Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, were being dropped off between Union Station and the Capitol,” rather than simply telling the truth: Abbott had the immigrants dropped off not at the Capitol, and not on the White House Lawn, and not at the Washington Monument or any of the other picturesque symbols of American democracy and freedom. No, Abbott had them delivered to the Washington D.C. headquarters of a television network: Fox News.