Texas Gov. Demands A TPUSA Club In Every School, Donald Trump Portrait In Every Home
OK, maybe not the second one ... yet.
Take a little journey with me, for a moment, and imagine that the Democratic governor of a blue state officially mandated that every single public school in the state have a special club dedicated specifically to promotic left-wing ideas and getting Democrats elected. And that any school that failed to produce such a club for him would face “meaningful disciplinary action.” Imagine the uproar! The cries of “leftist indoctrination!”
Well, that is explicitly what Governor Greg Abbott plans to do in the state of Texas. On Monday, the governor, along with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Turning Point USA Senior Director Josh Thifault, announced the initiative, as well as a partnership between the state and Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the recently murdered Charlie Kirk for the purpose of turning young sociopaths into right-wing grifters and assets to the Republican Party. Because, sure, it’s also very normal for an actual state to partner with an organization whose purpose is to get members of one party elected.
“Let me be clear: Any school that stands in the way of a Club America program in their school should be reported immediately to the Texas Education Agency,” Gov. Abbott told reporters. Club America, you may have surmised, is the insipid name of TPUSA’s high school clubs.
He’s not the first to do this, either. Government officials in Oklahoma and Florida have made similar demands in recent months. This follows several reports of schools that prevented students from forming Club America chapters for reasons like “not allowing any new clubs to form in the middle of the school year,” district-wide moratoriums on new clubs due to a lack of funding, and not allowing any political or religious clubs, period — all policies clearly designed to victimize conservatives, in particular.
It’s not entirely clear if Abbott expects the schools to form the clubs themselves, or what he plans to do if no one shows up to the meetings. In most cases, students start new clubs themselves, so perhaps this is all kind of bullshit and he’s just telling schools they can’t prevent students from doing that?
That’s not usually a problem for schools that have the budget for lots of clubs and extracurricular activities, but a lot of schools do not. Some schools require clubs to have faculty advisors, which means teachers need to be paid or to volunteer their time. But never fear! Because Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has also promised the organization $1 million in campaign funds to fund the project, which also seems like a thing that must be illegal. I can’t find anything specifically prohibiting it on the FEC website, but campaigns are barred from using funds for costs that would exist “irrespective” of their campaign, and Texas, in particular, prohibits “the use of school district resources to produce or distribute political advertising in connection with an election.”
Then again, Republicans really just have different ideas on what constitutes a reasonable use of campaign funds. Most Democrats wouldn’t dream of spending even a penny of donor money (or any other kind of money, for that matter) on a dream date with Kid Rock, but Lauren Boebert did not seem to see any problem with shelling out over $3000 in campaign funds just to see her rumored boyfriend host his Rock N Rodeo at the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium this past May.
Of course, while we definitely shouldn’t start spending campaign funds on shady ventures such as these, it probably would not kill the Left to get it together and start pushing for similar student organizations designed to counter the influence of TPUSA on young people, if only to ensure that young furries everywhere do not have their litterbox privileges revoked. (Also because we want to win elections.)
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"In most cases, students start new clubs themselves."
This is one of a billion cases of how conservatives have no knowledge of how things actually work.
Memories of high school 50+ years ago that had a chapter of Buckley's Young Americans For Freedom. The President of the chapter took copies of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five out of the school library and burned them while other members cheered.
flash forward years later when that same person was arrested and convicted of embezzlement...and wound up in a Pennsylvania B&B in a cell with iron bars that closed on him...