In the second week of the college football season, in a clash of titans, the University of Texas scored 21 unanswered points to surge past Ohio State in the fourth quarter and win, 24-23. Greg Abbott decreed, was the greatest home victory in more than 130 years of Longhorn football. A screen grab of one celebratory moment showed a group of students ecstatic beyond belief.
They were clad in the university’s signature burnt orange. One flashed “Hook ‘em Horns,” the university’s proud hand signal. To see the picture earlier this month was to witness pure, untempered joy.
But Bo French, the Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commission, saw something different. Most of the students were darkly complected and apparently of South Asian heritage. French posted the photo and wrote on X, “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this.
The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” He followed with a second post, doubling down on the racist “Great Replacement” theory. But given Texas’ strong Republican leaning he stands a better-than-even chance of being elected in November to the state Railroad Commission, which, despite its name, oversees Texas’ vast oil and gas industry. The hateful gibe was perfectly in character.
Last year, as chairman of the Tarrant County GOP, French posted an online poll asking, “Who is a bigger threat to America?” The choice on offer: Muslims or Jews. Speaking in March at a political conference, he urged President Trump to round up and deport every Muslim in the country, calling the Islamic faith subversive and a clear and present danger to America. Still, the response to French’s latest acrid emission was telling, not least for what it says about reflexive partisanship and today’s political reward structure.
As you’d expect, his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, was scathing. A man who can’t tell a Longhorn from a foreigner has no business regulating anything in TX.” The state’s outgoing U.S. senator, Republican John Cornyn, was also quick to denounce French.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
