Creative Commons
Texas Governor Greg Abbott
WARNING: A mutant coronavirus named Gubernatorious asininus is spreading across the country, threatening to become a raging pandemic.
Originating earlier this year in the Texas governor’s office (infamously known as “The Laboratory for Bad Government”), the brain-eating virus escaped and is now drifting unchecked on the political winds. It has already infected governors in Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
It’s one thing to strive for herd immunity to defeat a coronavirus, but in politics the herd instinct can send a whole species over a cliff.
An early indicator that your governor, too, might be coming down with Gubernatorious asininus is if they begin ranting that the mighty U.S. of A. is being “invaded.” Yes, invaded, by masses of migrants from Mexico, Central America, and surely Hell itself—all intent on rape, murder, drug peddling, mayhem, and ultimately the usurpation of our nation.
Having such a delusional governor is embarrassing, but the disease turns downright scary when infected governors try acting on their paranoia. Take Greg Abbott, the GOP governor of Texas, who has conjured up this current invasion fantasy and is causing it to go viral in Republican statehouses.
Abbott is a frantic Chicken Little, squawking that a “tidal wave” of amnesty seekers is crossing our southern border. This, he says, is “causing border ranchers to lose their livestock or border farmers to lose their crops.” What’s more, he claims, “homes are being invaded, neighborhoods are dangerous, and people are being threatened on a daily basis with guns.”
So, by golly, Greg is taking action! On our dime, of course. His big plan? Build a wall!
Yes, obviously infected by an advanced case of asininus, Abbott is seeking a repeat of Donnie Trump’s failed boondoggle of a border wall. To fund his political gambit, the governor has expropriated a $250 million “down payment” from the state’s meager budget to “secure our border.” The sum would build less than ten miles of wall on our 1,200-mile border with Mexico . . . and won’t keep anyone from crossing.
But failure seems to be in Abbott’s DNA. He oversees a feeble state power grid that failed in February, killing more than 100 Texans. He has left five million people without health coverage, a higher share than any other state.
Did I mention that Abbott wants to run for President? Of the United States! Seriously.
It’s one thing to strive for herd immunity to defeat a coronavirus, but in politics the herd instinct can send a whole species over a cliff.
That seems to be happening among the frenzied herd of Republican governors now stampeding behind Abbott’s scaremongering scheme. Rather than helping find a humane solution, the GOP hierarchy is exploiting the very real plight of desperate people, posing as strong defenders of U.S. communities that are in absolutely no danger from the migration.
Now, various governors, following Abbott’s knee-jerk vindictiveness, are confronting the migrating families with “Keep-Out” military-style force. First came Florida’s ruthlessly ambitious governor, Ron DeSantis, strutting around in a mucho macho photo-op, pledging to send a small hodge-podge of deputies, highway patrol, and even wildlife officials (!) to Texas for a few days to help keep out immigrants. What will these armed officials do? Who will direct them? Who would pay? DeSantis didn’t know.
Then came Cornhusker Governor Pete Ricketts, proclaiming that “Nebraska is stepping up to help Texas respond to the ongoing crisis on their border.”
Still, the hyper-partisan Republican governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, said she sent a few state troopers to the distant border to defend “the health and safety of Iowans.” Interestingly, she had refused a request this spring by the Biden Administration to help house migrant children crossing our border to seek asylum, coldly declaring, “This is not our problem.”
South Dakota’s Kristi Noem also piled on, dispatching about fifty of her state’s National Guard troops to Texas. Oddly, though, Noem’s troops were not sent as true agents of the state, but as political mercenaries, paid for with an undisclosed amount from an out-of-state rightwing billionaire.
Note that: (1) all of these political posers committed so few border defenders for such a short time that their presence would have zero impact on our border crossings; and (2) none of the governors offered any insight, solution, or concern about the root causes of the migration.
To monitor the posturing of these shameful frauds, go to NoBorderWallCoalition.com.