Greg Abbott just sank to a whole new low
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has found a way to shift the blame for the consequences of his irresponsible (and criminal) no-mask policy onto — you guessed it — immigrants. That’s right, in a recent interview with Fox News, the mass murderer and Texas governor who has reopened businesses and permitted maskless masses to congregate in the marketplace said, “And now that the Biden administration is importing COVID into the state of Texas exposing more Texans to that. And who knows what we’re gonna see whether or not there will be an explosion of COVID in the locations where the Biden administration is putting these migrants.”
Bear in mind, Texas has every variant of COVID-19 known to medical science. Abbott recently dropped all mask mandates and declared all businesses open. New immigrants represent a tiny portion of the Texas population, but because they are a voiceless and non-voting portion of that population, a bigot and a coward like Abbott can conveniently blame his criminal negligence on them. After all, what are they going to do about it, and who’s going to listen to them?
As I write this, the state of Texas has the third largest number of covid deaths in the country. Clearly, Abbott doesn’t care if more Texans die of COVID-19, he just wants to make sure that he never has to be blamed for it. His craven blame-shifting isn’t about saving the lives of his constituents and never was. Abbott clearly doesn’t give a crap if Texans live or die.
In fact, Abbott gets two blames for the price of one. He can blame immigrants for his COVID problem and Biden for letting them in. So he can satisfy his racist and his anti-Democrat (and anti-democracy) agenda in a single spineless stroke.
Texas Conservatives are exactly dumb enough to believe him, too. After all, bigots love bias-confirming propaganda, and few shovel it with more cynical zeal than Republicans. Once all the blame for Abbott’s criminal COVID-ignoring policies are unjustly shifted onto the shoulders of immigrants, Abbott can run for president. He figures if Donald Trump can do it, anybody can. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.