Last updated on April 20th, 2018 at 12:01 am
Texas Republican AG and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott is hiding from the press again.
This time, it’s not Abbott’s comments on how we don’t need fair pay laws because they already exist — but oopsie, women in his Attorney General’s office make less for the same job! — that stalked him into a humiliating defeat, but his choice to cite the work of Charles Murray, a white nationalist who hates women as inspiration for his pre-k plan.
So the press arrived to an empty room in Dallas yesterday for a scheduled press conference with the Republican gubernatorial candidate, only to discover that Greg Abbott had suddenly canceled it, according to the Davis campaign.
The Wendy Davis (D-TX) campaign caught it all on tape:
Had Mr. Abbott shown his face, he would have had to answer why he thought a guy who believes “mens brains are larger than women’s” was a good choice as inspiration for an education program.
Abbott would have had to explain why he thinks pre-K should only be for a select few. In case you missed that dog whistle, page 2 of his pre-K plan explains that destiny is predetermined by background (so American!): “Family background has the most decisive effect on student achievement, contributing to a large performance gap between children from economically disadvantaged families and those from middle-class homes.”
Yeah. Southern Poverty Law Center is not impressed, they say that Murray uses “racist pseudoscience and misleading statistics to argue that social inequality is caused by the genetic inferiority of the black and Latino communities, women and the poor.” In case it’s not clear yet where this is going, DOG WHISTLE WELFARE STATE, “Murray advocates the total elimination of the welfare state, affirmative action and the Department of Education, arguing that public policy cannot overcome the innate deficiencies that cause unequal social and educational outcomes.”
Adalia Woodbury broke this down for PoliticusUSA, explaining:
Indeed, Abbott’s policy is based on a compilation of right wing assumptions about gender, race and class with intellect based in part on the mythical musings of Charles Murray, the co-author of “The Bell Curve.”
No doubt Greg Abbott doesn’t want to explain to the moms and dads of Texas why he thought it would be a super good idea to have this Murray guy inspiring pre-K policy, when he is sure “no woman has been a significant original thinker in any of the world’s great philosophical traditions.”
Also, women suck because they can’t forget about their children, whereas men can (not sure this reads the way Murray intends it to), “To put it in a way that most readers with children will recognize, a father can go to work and forget about his children for the whole day. Hardly any mother can do this, no matter how good her day-care arrangement or full-time nanny may be.”
Sigh. Along with Texas Republicans’/Abbott’s belief that women suffer inequity in pay because they are bad negotiators, Murray sees women as less competitive and aggressive, so more sucky, “I have omitted perhaps the most obvious reason why men and women differ at the highest levels of accomplishment: Men take more risks, are more competitive and are more aggressive than women.”
But perhaps his most foolish argument is this one: Women are clearly inferior because women have only received “2% of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences — a proportion constant for both halves of the century — and 10% of the prizes in literature. The Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, has been given to 44 people since it originated in 1936. All have been men.” Oh, SOLD!
Men are superior because the systemic patriarchy that favors them favors them. Genius trolling by Mr. Murray and his buddy Mr. Abbott.
And yet, with all of these smarts and superiority behind them, Mr. Abbott can’t even face the press. He’s too afraid to explain his own ideas, which makes him — say it with me — a bad negotiator. Someone better cut his pay, pronto.
Sure, Republicans will cry foul — they are not racists and they don’t hate women just because their policies treat both like an underclass of citizens. And the only reason Abbott ran away from the press is because the liberal media is so mean that they refuse to give him a pass for the things he does and says he wants to promote as Governor.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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