As Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) soared during the midterm elections and nearly beat Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), there was an ugly undercurrent. The Republican party embraced the Tea Party that rose to prominence in early 2009. Yet, they may not have realized they had such a vicious tiger by the tail.
Republicans found that the Tea Party also included white nationalists, and other far, far right people. During the Texas Republican party’s 2018 convention, Ray Myers was among a group of activists who wrote the platform for the huge state of Texas. Myers wrote on his Facebook page, according to The Texas Observer:
‘Damn Right, I’m a WHITE NATIONALIST and very Proud of it.’
O’Rourke helped the state legislature pull 14 seats over to the Democratic side. When that happened, the Texas extremists saw their hold over the party loosen. The red county with the largest population, Tarrant County, flipped to Democratic O’Rourke. Some of the Tarrant GOP want the county back, so they have been trying to rid themselves of “perceived heretics,” according to the Observer.
Myers, 74, has been a long term Republican, but his turning point happened when Barack Obama become president, he said:
‘The pivotal political moment came when Obama came on the scene. I knew immediately that America was in trouble. I am Anglo and I’m very proud of it, just like black people and brown people are proud of their race. I am a patriot. I am very proud of my country. And white nationalist, all that means is America first. That’s exactly what that means. That’s where the president’s at. That’s where I’m at and that’s where every solid patriotic American is. It doesn’t have anything to do with race or anything else.’
Myers told the Observer that he agrees with Trump’s claim that the media “is the enemy of the people” and appreciated the president proclaiming himself a white nationalist, too. The Texan said the left is pushing a narrative to make white people ashamed of their heritage and to cast nationalists as racist right-wing Nazis, which he insisted “is the furthest damn thing from the truth ever.”
State Republican Executive Committee member J.T. Edwards who is black, called nationalists “an abomination:”
‘To have so-called white nationalists in our party is basically an abomination of the very foundations of the Republican Party. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Mr. Myers’s position is part of the problem.’
Myers agreed with Trump that journalists and their publications are “enemies of the people.” He also claimed that the left’s dialogue was trying to shame white people for being white and to call all nationalists “racist right-wing Nazis,” according to the Observer:
‘We’re just patriotic Americans, just like anybody else. I’m a tea party guy and I’ve got brown and black and American Indians in our tea parties.’
The Observer asked Myers:
‘Is there anything wrong with saying they’re black and proud? Is there anything wrong with being an American Indian and saying that we’re red and proud?’
Myers responded:
‘I mean, just like Black Lives Matter, white lives matter, too. We’re all in the same melting pot. Now why can’t we say, as Anglos, that we’re proud?’
The 2018 Texas platform included many nationalist views. These are just a few of them:
- “English, and only English” voting ballots
- “The reasonable use of profiling” against so-called Islamic terrorists and refugees
- The prohibition of any sort of immigration amnesty
- Pro-constitutional amendment to citizenship “as those born to a citizen of the United States or through naturalization.”
Myers was involved in replacing House Speaker Joe Straus, a Jewish man, in 2010. The Republican’s far, far right-wing sent out this email at the time:
‘We finally found a Christian Conservative who decided not to be pushed around by the Joe Straus thugs.’
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
