Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke unloaded and called Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) a thug and an authoritarian.
Smith asked, “Greg Abbott is a thug in your mind?”
“Let me make the case. Not only could this guy, through his own incompetence, not keep the lights on in the energy capital of the planet last February, but when people like Kelcy Warren and other energy company CEOs made than $11 billion in profit over five days — selling gas for 200 times the going rate; not only did he not claw back those illegal profits; not only was there no justice for more than 700 people who were killed, who literally froze to deaths in their homes, outside, in their cars, people who are paying now tens of billions of dollars cumulatively to pay for the property damage that the flooding that ensued caused in their homes, but he’s taking millions of dollars in payoffs from these same people. I mean, he’s got his own oligarch here in the state of Texas.”
Texas Republicans keep make it more difficult to vote because they know that policies like freezing their own people to death while allowing record energy company profits are unpopular.
Democrats have lacked enough candidates in the state to make the case against Republican authoritarianism and corruption.
Beto O’Rourke, with his brand of plain-spoken populism, is the perfect person to make that case.
O’Rourke faces an uphill to defeat Abbott, but what gives Republicans nightmares is a scenario where the state’s voters wake up and realize that they don’t have to accept authoritarian thuggery and incompetent governance.
Texas deserves better, and Beto O’Rourke is custom-made to deliver that message.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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