What Would Life In America Be Like If The Republicans Had Their Way?

What was that Trump tweeted a week or two ago about a “Unified Reich?”

This past week, Louisiana— virtually a one-party state, where all the statewide offices are held by Republicans and where Republicans dominate the legislature 27-12 in the Senate and 71-33 in the lower chamber— became the first state in the union to classify abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol) as controlled substances, like heroin. Florida, probably the state most vulnerable to Global Warming, is also heading towards one-party state status and last week the governor signed 3 delusional anti-Climate bills. 

"The Second Administration" by Nancy Ohanian

The brand new Washington state Republican Party platform includes a very MAGA anti-democracy plank. And the Texas Republican Party includes passing unconstitutional laws to require the Bible be taught in public schools as well as a cockamamie constitutional amendment that would require statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties. Most people live in just 10 counties:

• Harris (Houston)- 4,835,125

• Dallas- 2,606,358

• Tarrant (Ft Worth)- 2,182,947

• Bexar (San Antonio)- 2,087,679

• Travis (Austin)- 1,334,961

• Collin (Dallas exurbs)- 1,195,359

• Denton (Dallas suburbs)- 1,007,703

• Ft Bend (Houston suburbs)- 916,778

• Hidalgo (McAllen)- 898,471

• El Paso- 869,880

Biden won all but Collin and Denton and both are in the process of turning blue. Texas has 254 counties, most of them rural with small populations of ignorant MAGAts. None of them have any towns but some have a gas station. These are the 10 smallest along with the percentage Trump got in each one:

• Loving- 43 (90.9%)

• King- 217 (95.0%)

• Kenedy- 343 (65.5%)

• McMullen- 568 (89.1%)

• Borden- 572 (95.4%)

• Terrell- 687 (72.9%)

• Kent- 734 (89.0%)

• Roberts- 840 (96.2%)

• Motley- 1,020 (92.6%)

• Foard- 1,079 (80.8%)

In other words, these ridiculous jurisdictions— and scores of others just like them— will never be won by a Democrat but unless a Democrat wins in 128 counties, no matter how big their vote majority is, they can’t win an election. Biden won 22 counties; in 2018, Beto O’Rourke nearly beat Ted Cruz— 4,260,553 (50.9%) to 4,045,632 (48.3%) but Beto only won 32 counties… so, under the new rule, if it is added to the constitution, democracy is out the window.

The party confab in San Antonio over the weekend also includes planks to push public funds into private schools, to deport legal residents of the U.S. who are arrested for participating in protests and making it illegal for non-citizens to own real estate. The delegates spent time chastising Speaker Dade Phelan (who skipped the event) and who’s in a runoff election tomorrow. There are about half a dozen mainstream conservatives in runoffs against fascists backed by the dominant fringe right of the party.

“Other proposed planks of the 50-page platform, wrote Robert Downen and Renzo Downey “included proclamations that ‘abortion is not healthcare it is homicide’; that gender-transition treatment for children is ‘child abuse’; calls to reverse recent name changes to military bases and ‘publicly honor the southern heroes’; support for declaring gold and silver as legal tender; and demands that the U.S. government disclose ‘all pertinent information and knowledge’ of UFOs.” 

So there you go… that’s what the country would be like if the Republicans were to gain control. The Texas GOP platform is usually “a compromise document that represents the interests of the party’s various business, activist and social conservative factions. But in recent years— and amid a party civil war that’s pushed it further right— the platform has been increasingly used as a basis for censuring Republican officeholders who the party’s far right has attacked as insufficiently conservative, including Speaker helan (R-Beaumont) and U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-San Antonio). As the party has drifted further right, its platform has done the same. In 2022, it called for a referendum on Texas secession; resistance to the ‘Great Reset,’ a conspiracy theory that claims global elites are using environmental and social policies to enslave the world’s population; proclamations that homosexuality is an ‘abnormal lifestyle choice’; and a declaration that President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected.” 

Many of those planks were also included in this year’s platform, which was debated late into Friday night and presented for a vote Saturday afternoon.

One proposal asserts that illegal immigration is the “greatest threat to American security and sovereignty” and calls for the state and federal governments to devote all available resources to deporting undocumented immigrants.

…It urges lawmakers and the State Board of Education to “require instruction on the Bible, servant leadership and Christian self-governance,” and supports the use of religious chaplains in schools— which was made legal under a law passed by the state Legislature last year.

…The new platform comes as Republicans increasingly embrace once-fringe theories such as Christian nationalism, which argues that the United States’ founding was God-ordained, and therefore its institutions and laws should reflect conservative, Christian views. [Crackpot pastor David] Barton’s ideas have been a key driver of that movement, and were repeatedly cited by lawmakers last year during debates over the chaplains bill and in legislation that would have required the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms. Barton’s group, WallBuilders, was also an exhibitor at this year’s Texas GOP convention, and the party has increasingly aligned with two far-right, fundamentalist Christian billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks.

…On Friday night, the convention elected former Collin County GOP Chair Abraham George as the next party chair, a vote that is expected to continue the party’s trajectory. During his candidate speech on Thursday, George called for the party to fight Democrats, radicals and “RINO” Republicans who go against “everything we stand for.”

During a speech on the convention stage on Saturday, former gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Don Huffines carried a printed version of the platform with him. He noted that Republicans have controlled the Legislature and the governor’s mansion for two decades, but the party still struggles to secure its priorities.

“We could get any piece of legislation done anytime we want, but, every session, we struggle to get our platform into law,” Huffines said.