Señor TACO Taught Them To Burn It All Down— Now It’s His Turn

How Strongly Will The MAGA Petard Backfire In Tejas?

"Texas Is In Our Thoughts And Prayers-- That's All" By Nancy Ohanian

Donald J Trumpanzee is learning what it means to be hoist on his own petard— a Shakespearean phrase that means to be blown up by one’s own “bomb” (“fart” in French), or undone by one’s own schemes. After years of promoting unhinged conspiracy theories— about shadowy elites, satanic pedophile rings and deep-state cover-ups— he’s now ensnared in the very paranoia he helped cultivate and “normalize.” MAGA diehards, trained by Trump to distrust institutions and demand sensational disclosures, are turning their pitchforks toward him, insisting the DOJ is hiding damning Epstein files that might implicate the former president himself. Having taught his followers to believe nothing and suspect everything, Trump now faces the consequences of his own corrosive rhetoric: a political base incapable of discerning friend from foe, truth from fiction, and increasingly willing to burn everything down— including him.

And will Republicans— especially of the Texas variety— soon learn what it means to be caer en su propia trampa or ser víctima de sus propios actos? Both Spanish terms capture, at least in part, the essence of self-inflicted downfall that Shakespeare used in Hamlet to express the irony of self-inflicted harm, through one's own schemes. Shakespeare likely drew on contemporary military terminology, as petards were known for their unpredictability, sometimes detonating prematurely— backfiring— and killing the user.

The petard Texas Republicans may soon be hoist on emanates from the White House’s and Gov. Abbott’s latest gerrymandering scheme. Yesterday, Ally Mutnick and John Bresnahan explained the details that the mainstream media has largely overlooked. “Republicans,” they wrote, “are placing a big bet on Latino voters in their Texas redistricting gambit. No segment of the electorate is poised to play a bigger role in the 2026 midterms. Prodded by the White House, Texas Republican lawmakers are preparing to muscle through a new congressional map that squeezes out five new seats for the House GOP. People close to the redistricting process insist they can do this without spreading their voters too thin and endangering the 25 House GOP incumbents in Texas. A huge part of the reason: Democrats no longer have a lock on the fast-growing population of Latino voters. ‘They love Donald Trump because Donald Trump loves the Latinos,’ said Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), ‘and he puts them first.’”

OK, let’s start there. Latinos do not love Donald Trump— and we’ll come back to that in a moment. Nor does Donald Trump love Latinos, as evidenced by a presidency defined by cruelty at the border, family separations, slurs about “bad hombres,” mass deportations and an obsession with building a racist vanity wall. If that’s what love looks like, then Nehls might want to brush up on the definition— because what Trump offers isn’t love… it’s domination dressed up as outreach. And it didn’t start in the White House. Trump’s very first appearance in the NYC media spotlight came in the 1970s, when he and his father were sued by the federal government for systematically refusing to rent apartments to Black and Latino tenants— a case so blatant that investigators found rental applications literally marked with a “C” for “colored.” This is the man Republicans are now pitching as a champion of Latino voters. What Trump “puts first” is his own power, his own ego, and whatever bigoted policy will rile up his base. Latinos are not pawns in some MAGA fantasy of ethnic realignment— they’re human beings who see through the con, even if a handful of opportunistic GOP operatives are willing to play along with the lie. Like I said, we’ll come back to that in a moment.

But as Mutnick and Bresnahan pointed out “Dozens of Texas congressional districts moved to the right at the presidential level between 2020 and 2024, some by double-digits. Consider this: the shift is so stark that GOP mapmakers could draw a host of Hispanic-majority districts that Trump would have won in 2024. So the central question of 2026 will be whether Republicans can convert pro-Trump Latinos into reliable GOP voters? If this Latino-driven realignment continues, Republicans can unlock vast new territory. But if those voters don’t turn out when Trump is off the ballot— or revert back to Democrats— the map could turn into a mess for the GOP… Democrats believe many of Trump’s supporters won’t turn out in midterms— and that Latinos in particular may be disillusioned by his policies. ‘That is very risky,’ Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX) said, ‘especially in light of the ICE raids and the abusive manner in which they’ve been detaining and deporting people and businesses in South Texas.’ And Democrats note, correctly, that many of their incumbents on Hispanic turf in Texas won reelection, even as Trump carried their districts.”

Republicans see it differently of course, arguing through their rose-colored glasses that “the realignment is far bigger than just Trump. They can draw Latino districts that also backed Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and GOP Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn during their last reelections. ‘The border counties are going Republican for a good reason,’  Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said. ‘Doesn’t change based on Trump.’” We’ll see about that next year. Plenty of Latinos took a chance on Trumpism because it promised prosperity, order and respect. What they’re getting instead is economic pain, social disruption, racism, xenophobia and open hostility. And many of them are noticing. Tariffs that hurt border economies, mass deportations that hollow out neighborhoods and labor forces and a party leadership increasingly obsessed with cruelty for its own sake. The shift toward Trump wasn’t as ideological as it was aspirational. But Trump— and his congressional lackeys— have now made abundantly clear that what they’re offering is not a seat at the table, but a target on the backs of their families and neighbors. The economy is deteriorating under the weight of his policies, and the immigration raids are not just scaring the undocumented, they’re brutalizing entire communities. Voters in counties that swung 20% towards Trump last year since 2020— Maverick, Webb, Starr, Dimmit and El Paso— didn’t sign up for this.

Yesterday, we looked at how young voters— those under 30— are the most disenchanted with Trump and will Lilley hold their collective nose and vote for the lesser evil Democrats next year. The disenchantment that Latino voters are feeling towards Trump nationally, is rising to similar proportions. Polls show Trump with a net approval of minus 30, not quite the minus 40 among 18-29 year olds, but good enough for a Texas petard hoist.

The most recent survey of Hispanic voters I could find shows Trump 29 points underwater, although that’s a national number, which includes California where Trump is widely detested and Florida, where Cubans generally still support him. It’s not a Texas-specific poll. But it’s still worth noting that Trump is underwater with Hispanic voters on every single issue polled:

• Jobs and the economy- minus 23 points (the top issue among Hispanics)

• Inflation and prices- minus 46 points

• Immigration- minus 38 points

• Foreign policy- minus 12 points

• National security- minus 3 points

• Foreign trade (tariffs)- minus 19 points

• Epstein investigation- minus 38 points

YouGov’s most recent survey asking Hispanic voters to rate the two parties (late April) found Democrats above water by 5 and Republicans underwater by 23. Too bad there aren't more Texas Democrats like Greg Casar, Lina Hidalgo and James Talarico and fewer like Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez.

So sure, Republicans might think they’ve outsmarted the system with their cynical gerrymandering scheme— but in reality, they just may be lighting the fuse on yet another petard of their own making. Betting the farm on an imagined Latino love affair with Trump is a reckless gamble. The Trump brand isn’t flashing hot in the moment and even after the fear-mongering fades, what will remain in South Texas is a trail of broken promises, lost jobs, deported neighbors and communities under siege. Latino voters aren’t blind. They know when they’re being used. And if Texas Republicans think they can slap a sombrero on white nationalism and sell it as multicultural outreach, they’re in for a nasty surprise. The same anti-establishment fire Trump once harnessed is beginning to turn on him… and on those trying to carry his torch— from Monica De La Cruz, Beth Van Duyne, Tony Gonzales, John Carter, Wesley Hunt, Michael McCaul, Keith Self, Craig Goldman, Chip Roy to Troy Nehls himself— may need to prepare themselves for a nice big fart exploding in their own backyards.