Reporters Don't Get The Tension Between Fascism & Conservatism
Ongoing tension between Texas’ mainstream conservatives and the MAGA neo-fascist wing of the GOP have been a feature of the Texas Republican Party for several years. It’s getting worse and the Ken Paxton impeachment saga set the party on fire. Over the weekend, Houston Chronicle reporter Jasper Scherer wrote that Paxton’s acquittal Saturday threw the Texas GOP into immediate disarray, with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick accusing House Speaker Dade Phelan of mishandling the attorney general’s impeachment and Phelan responding by blasting the Senate leader for “confessing his bias.”
Patrick, a very far right extremist who has thrown his lot in with Trump served as a biased— and heavily bribed— judge in the Senate trial. Scherer reported that Patrick is now going after Phelan accusing his team of having “rammed” impeachment through the House “while paying no attention to the precedent” set in past proceedings. Patrick is now seeking to audit “impeachment spending, claiming ‘millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted.’”
Phelan said Patrick’s “tirade” amounted to a confession that he had tilted the scales in Paxton’s favor.
"The inescapable conclusion is that today’s outcome appears to have been orchestrated from the start, cheating the people of Texas of justice,” Phelan said in a statement, adding that Patrick had “attacked the House for standing up against corruption.”
Patrick received a $1 million campaign donation and $2 million loan from a pro-Paxton group leading up to the trial. He’s never addressed the contributions directly.
The House prosecutors fell far short of convincing enough senators to remove Paxton from office, with a majority voting not guilty on every charge. Only two Republicans joined with the chamber’s 12 Democrats to convict the attorney general on several of the impeachment articles. Twenty-one votes were required to convict.
The acquittal is a stinging rebuke of the nearly three-quarters of House Republicans, including Phelan, who voted in May to impeach Paxton.
Patrick and Phelan spent the better part of the year at odds over how to distribute more than $12 billion in property tax relief. The months-long standoff ended in July when the two arrived at a compromise tax cut package, which still needs to be cemented by voters via a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 7 statewide ballot.
The chambers are poised for another standoff when Gov. Greg Abbott calls them back for a special session to take up private school vouchers and public school funding. Abbott issued a statement after the acquittal vote commending the process and praising Paxton’s “outstanding job representing Texas, especially pushing back against the Biden administration.”
Trump on Saturday called on Phelan to resign, saying the impeachment effort was a “Disgraceful Sham!”
“We should choose our elected officials by VOTING, not by weaponizing government. That is for Banana Republics, and Third World Countries. Now Attorney General Ken Paxton can get back to work. He’s one of the BEST!” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi, one of Paxton’s most outspoken defenders during the trial, said Phelan and his leadership team “should be embarrassed for putting Texas through the time and expense of this political sham of an impeachment” and effectively called on members to replace him as speaker.
“We invite the House Republican Caucus to choose leadership moving forward who will unify a Republican governing coalition behind our common goals, instead of sharing power with Democrats who use it to persecute our Republican statewide officeholders,” he said.
Paxton himself joined the pile-on, accusing Phelan without evidence of coordinating with the Biden administration on the “sham impeachment.” Phelan’s “kangaroo court” has “cost taxpayers millions of dollars” and “left a dark and permanent stain on the Texas House,” Paxton said in a statement.
Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, meanwhile, slammed Senate Republicans for voting to acquit Paxton “after eight days of damning testimony detailing corruption, lies and abuse of power, and thousands of pages of grueling evidence.”
“It’s clear that the fix was in from the beginning, and that as long as Republicans control our government, Republican elected officials won’t face consequences for ethical or criminal offenses,” he said. “In true Texas Republican fashion, Paxton crime organization beneficiary Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and his Republican minions placed the reputation of their friend and the will of his campaign donors above the rule of law.”
Early Sunday morning, David Goodman reported that the bribery and abuse of power impeachment trial “was about more than the fate of the Texas attorney general. It was also the most dramatic flashpoint in a yearslong struggle among Republican leaders in the Legislature over control of the party and the future direction of the state.” The argument between Patrick and Phelan “represented the latest stage of what has been a steady effort by hard-right Republicans to wrest control in Austin from the party’s more moderate, business-oriented old guard. The acquittal seemed to suggest that, for now at least, the stridently conservative wing of the party had the upper hand.”
When Goodman writes “moderate” he’s describing hard conservatives and when he writes “the stridently conservative wing,” he’s describing a collection of MAGAts, fascists and outright neo-Nazis. I would recommend that Goodman, the editors of the NY Times and other poorly educated reporters covering politics, read the classic books that explain the tensions between conservatism and fascism. I’d recommend starting with Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism and Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Beyond the foundational studies, books by Timothy Snyder (The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America) and Roger Griffin’s Conservatism and Fascism will help them stop stumbling into twisted explanations of who’s who in the American politics of the right. Griffin explained how conservatism and fascism are two distinct ideologies, even if they share a number of similarities. Conservatism— always opposed to rapid change and radical social movements— is a political philosophy that emphasizes tradition, order, and stability. Fascism, on the other hand, is a revolutionary ideology that seeks, through a rejection of democracy, to create a new social order. Fascism is more willing to use violence to achieve its goals than conservatism is. Griffin asserted that the main difference between conservatism and fascism is that conservatism is a defensive ideology, while fascism is an offensive one. Conservatives seek to preserve the existing social order, while fascists seek to overthrow it and create a new one. He argued that the tension— like what we see in Texas now and in the U.S. House of Representatives between mainstream conservatives like McCarthy and Neo-fascists like the members of the “Freedom” Caucus— is most evident in times of political and social crisis that threatens the status quo and dictates competition between conservatives and fascists.
And, speaking of Paxton, Robert Paxton— presumably no relation— is a professor emeritus of history at Columbia University and wrote The Anatomy of Fascism, which is considered to be one of the definitive studies of fascism. He contends that fascism is a revolutionary ideology that seeks to create a new social order and I’m sure he’d be willing to come into The Times and give the reporters and editors a lesson on the differences between conservatism and fascism. So would Harvard philosophy professor, Jason Stanley, who wrote How Fascism Works: Six Keys To Understanding How Facsists Rise To Power, pointing out that fascism is not just a political ideology, but also a psychological process that exploits people's fears and prejudices— dividing the world into “the pure” and “the impure,” just as Dan Patrick is doing in Texas and people like Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Traitor Greene, Andy Ogles, George Santos, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar— all of whom, by the way, have been credibly accused of criminal activities— are doing in Washington. The pure are the in-group, who are considered to be superior and deserving of special rights and privileges. The impure are the out-group, who are considered to be inferior and a threat to the in-group. Fascists believe that the world is in a constant state of war between the pure and the impure. They see violence as a legitimate means of achieving their goals. Fascists develop a cult of personality around the fascist leader. The leader is seen as infallible and all-powerful. And, as easy it is to identify who that cult leader is, is recognizing who is stoking and exploiting people's fears of terrorism and other threats to national security and then using these fears to justify their own authoritarianism.
Texas progressives have been urging Mike Siegel of Ground Game Texas-- a serious anti-fascist-- to run for a seat on the Austin City Council. I hope he will too. Yesterday I asked him if the Paxton mess is going to damage the Texas GOP at all. He told me that his hope “is that the Paxton acquittal is the true nail in the coffin for the failed ideology, shared by some Texas Democrats, that we need to ‘meet reasonable Republicans in the middle’ and ‘isolate the crazies from the reasonable ones.’ The Texas GOP has spoken: racism and corporate greed trump any commitment to democracy or the rule of law. As progressive Texans, it’s our job to help our moderate coalition partners pick up the pieces, give up the ghost, and commit to the true task ahead— destruction of the Texas Republican Party from the ground up, voter by voter, block by block, city by city, district by district. Conciliation and appeasement will get us nowhere. We’re in a war for our future, for our very survival, and it’s time we start acting like it.”
When I asked Karthik Soora, the progressive candidate running for the Texas state Senate in Houston, if he thought the Republican disarray would help Democrats running in competitive seats, he said it would if there was a competently-run Texas Democratic Party. “Bush Republicans now have zero place in a MAGA GOP. And politicians like Cornyn who condemned Paxton will face primaries from a vengeful Paxton. Democrats should be running on ethics and campaign finance reform now more than ever.”
Sorry for that little tangent. Let’s get back to Goodman’s coverage of GOP politics in Texas. He noted that from his opening remarks, Paxton’s lead lawyer, Tony Buzbee, reflected the tension within the party, accusing the former top aides to Paxton who were witnesses against him of being aligned with entrenched lobbyists and out of step with voters in the state. At various points, Buzbee suggested that the impeachment was a plot by the Bush political dynasty in Texas to undercut an attorney general who has been a national champion for conservative [again— fascist] causes. Paxton defeated George P. Bush, grandson of the former president, George H.W. Bush, in last year’s Republican primary. ‘The people like what he does; the people like Ken Paxton,’ Buzbee said in his closing remarks. ‘The Bush era in Texas ends today.’”
From the start, the trial could not escape the fraught politics that were already roiling Austin in the spring, as Patrick and Phelan wrangled over property taxes and school vouchers, each seeking an upper hand through legislative bluster and gamesmanship. Their rivalry has not been unique in Texas. For years, the Senate under Patrick has been a reliable bastion of conservatism while the House, under various leaders, has been a bulwark against some of the most far-right proposals in the Legislature.
In 2017, for example, it was a San Antonio Republican who was then the Speaker of the House, Joe Straus, who prevented a “bathroom bill” aimed at transgender Texans from passing the House after it had been approved by Patrick’s Senate. During the legislative session this year, the House balked at a number of hard-line measures from the Senate, including a proposal to put the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom around the state.
…Even before the verdict, the impact of the impeachment was already evident at local gatherings of Republicans around Texas, said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican political consultant.
“I have been surprised to see how strong the support is for Paxton,” Steinhauser said. “This impeachment has not played well with the grass roots of the party.”
… The rifts exposed by the impeachment could have immediate effects next month, when Gov. Greg Abbott is widely expected to call the House and Senate back to Austin to take up legislation to create a voucher system that would use state money to pay for private schools. The Senate has been strongly behind the plan, as are many conservative donors in the state. The House has resisted it, primarily because of concern among rural Republican members about the impact on local public schools.
…Beyond the issue of schools, the next big test will be in the March primary election, when some of the House members who strongly backed impeachment could face serious challenges. Representative Andrew Murr, who chaired the House investigation committee that introduced the impeachment articles, could be particularly vulnerable in his West Texas district. Phelan, the speaker, could also face a concerted challenge.
“Today the campaign to completely rid Texas of RINOs begins,” Jonathan Stickland, the leader of Defend Texas Liberty, a strongly pro-Paxton group that lobbied hard for his acquittal, said on X, making a dismissive reference to moderates as “Republican in name only.”
“Those behind this sham Ken Paxton impeachment must be held accountable,” he said.
Defend Texas Liberty has been aligned with several Republican senators and, after the House voted to impeach Paxton, but before the trial, the group gave a $1 million contribution and a $2 million loan to Patrick’s campaign.
Murr, in a news conference after the vote, said he was proud of the work he and his colleagues conducted in the House. “We did our duty to bring the evidence into the sunlight through this impeachment process,” he said. “I know that we presented a factual, credible case. I would not do anything differently.”
Before the trial, and throughout the proceeding, conservative [fascist] backers of Paxton sought to influence the vote through text messages, television advertisements and social media messages urging Republican voters to call their senators and demand acquittal.
During deliberations on Friday, senators were working behind closed doors, able to review binders of exhibits that were laid out on tables or rewatch hours of testimony captured on video. Meanwhile, some senate staff members said the phones in their offices were ringing almost constantly with calls from Paxton’s supporters.
“The defense tried the case to the Republican base,” said Senator Nathan Johnson, a Dallas-area Democrat. It was “calculated,” he said, and it worked.”
On Saturday, Johnson told his supporters that "The results are a travesty. The Office of the Attorney General has been removed from the boundaries of political ethics. The House demonstrated clearly and unequivocally that Paxton used the office as his own private law firm for private purposes. The defense tried the case with the aim not of persuading members of the court of Paxton’s innocence, but of convincing far right Republican primary voters that their ideological world was threatened by conviction, so that they, in turn, would threaten the political careers of the Republican members of the Senate. I’m disillusioned with the way the Senate impeachment trial played out and saddened by the result. Midway through the voting, I saw through the window to my right the United States flag and the Texas flag blowing proudly in the wind. I thought to myself: What are we doing to them in here? Insulting the institutions they represent."
