Last updated on April 9th, 2018 at 09:34 am
Republican Texas Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbot actually thanked a supporter on Twitter for calling possible Democratic candidate for governor Wendy Davis, “retard Barbie.”
Here are the tweets:
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Abbot then tried to dig himself out of the hole with generic bit of tripe:
FYI: I thank supporters on Twitter, but I don't endorse anyone's offensive language. Stay positive.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) August 18, 2013
The Abbot campaign confirmed that the candidate sends out his own tweets, and according to The Dallas Morning News, “Both he and Abbott used the hashtag #tgdn, for Twitter Gulag Defense Network — started earlier this year by conservatives who work together to protect their accounts from being taken off the network for offensive content, and also work together to get liberal content suspended.”
The Texas Attorney General doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with the word, “retard” being used. I thought Republicans like Sarah Palin were supposed to be outraged by the use of that word. It’s amazing how silent they are one of their uses a term that denigrates and attacks people with disabilities.
Texas Republicans don’t get that these sexist and sleazy attacks on Wendy Davis are helping her political star rise. Texas is still heavily conservative and Republican, but the best way to drive opponents to the polls next year is with these sorts of sleazy and sexist attacks. Wendy Davis may not win her run for governor, but if she has a good showing, she could set herself up for U.S. Senate run down the line.
The point is that Greg Abbot and his supporters are doing everything they can to turn Wendy Davis into a viable candidate for governor. It is amazing that state level Republicans have learned nothing from the beating that their party took at the federal level from women voters in 2012. The self-destructive Republican campaign to push women into the Democratic Party could help Wendy Davis get elected governor or senator someday.
With one tweet Greg Abbot managed to put the Texas Attorney General’s office in a position where they are supporting censorship of dissenting views on twitter, supporting attacking the disabled, and taking their party’s sexism to a whole new level.
Everything really is bigger in Texas including the misogynistic stupidity of Republican candidates and their supporters. Wendy Davis is on the rise, and tweets like these show that Republicans are more than a little scared.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
