Texas Republicans Free To Hang With Nazis All They Like

Clearly, they find them very appealing.

How did you spend your Saturday this weekend? I spent mine working here and then getting so deep into a Mother God/Love Has Won cult hole that I totally forgot to go out. There are worse ways to spend a Saturday! Like, for instance, voting in favor of palling around with Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

But that’s what the Texas GOP executive did this Saturday. In a 32-29 vote, members voted to strip a pro-Israel resolution of a clause that would have barred Netflix and chilling with Nazis, a clause that was inspired by photos of their chairman leaving the same building as Nick Fuentes.

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Via Texas Tribune:

In October, The Texas Tribune published photos of Fuentes, an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler who has called for a “holy war” against Jews, entering and leaving the offices of Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm for far-right candidates and movements. Pale Horse Strategies is owned by Jonathan Stickland, a former state representative and at the time the leader of a political action committee, Defend Texas Liberty, that two West Texas oil billionaires have used to fund right-wing movements, candidates and politicians in the state — including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Texas GOP, was also seen entering the Pale Horse offices while Fuentes was inside for nearly 7 hours. He denied participating, however, saying he was visiting with someone else at the time and didn’t know Fuentes was there.

Well, that definitely sounds like an incredible coincidence.

The original plan was to dissolve ties with Defend Texas Liberty until Stickland was fired or an explanation for the meeting was given, but the executive committee watered that down to associating with people or groups “known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial.”

But even that was too much for some. Those who argued against the clause claimed that words like “tolerate” or “antisemitism” were just too vague and the clause could “create a slippery slope” and cause problems in the future.

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“I just don’t understand how people who routinely refer to others as leftists, liberals, communists, socialists and RINOs (‘Republicans in Name Only’) don’t have the discernment to define what a Nazi is,” committee member Morgan Cisneros Graham said to the Texas Tribune.

That is worth thinking long and hard about, Morgan Cisneros Graham. Perhaps even hard enough to consider that they might not actually know what communists and socialists are either, and that regular-ass Democrats who believe in a mixed economy but think it would be nice to have more of a social safety net are neither of those things.

It’s not actually all that hard to understand — and strategically, it’s the move to make. The thing that is driving the Republican Party right now is youth extremism, as embodied by Hitler-praising lunatics like Nick Fuentes. Their economic message isn’t ringing like it used to, because “poor people are just lazy and evil/ moral people sacrifice their whole lives for work” doesn’t work as well with Millennials and Gen Z as it did with other generations, and cutting Social Security is not going to be too popular with retired people or people nearing their retirement. They’ve already overturned Roe. Here is what they are left with:

1. “Immigrants are scary”

2. Christian Nationalism

3. People thinking Hillary Clinton eats babies (not Bill, though, he’s a vegan)

4. “The Democrats want to control you, for reasons.”

5. All the far-right influencers radicalizing young people to be bigots and misogynists.

6. Love-bombing — ie: Everyone where I am and to the Right of me is wonderful and brilliant and very attractive, unless they did something really bad, in which case they are a CIA plant whose job it is to make us look bad.

Number six is key. Republicans can criticize Mitt Romney all day and get praise for doing so, but criticizing those to their right is the quickest way to get labeled a RINO, which is more or less the kiss of death. People who may not be as far right as Fuentes will see it as a sign that they may be next, as well, but more than that, it’s a vibe-killer. They want to hear “you are all wonderful and special” and they do not want to hear whatever the Right’s version of a Sister Souljah moment is.

They’ve chosen their path, they know what they’re doing — whether or not it works out for them remains to be seen.