Former Texas Republican House Speaker Joe Straus confirmed on Thursday a conversation that was reported in 2018 by Texas Monthly, in which GOP megadonor and “billionaire bully” Tim Dunn told him that only Christians should hold leadership positions in the House.
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“Straus, a Republican who is Jewish, relayed the encounter in an interview with former Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith at the LBJ School of Public Affairs,” the Texas Tribune reported on Thursday. “It appeared to be the first time Straus publicly confirmed the anecdote, which was first reported by Texas Monthly in a 2018 story that cited “Straus insiders.”
While the anti-semitism is evergreen among the far-right and therefore not breaking news, the connection to the defense of embattled Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, along with the successful pushing of Texas to the far radical right and toward the openly pro-Hitler conservative movement of today is revelatory.
Straus’ confirmation of the comments comes as Dunn’s political empire continues to face scrutiny for its ties to avowed white supremacists and antisemites. In October, The Texas Tribune reported that Jonathan Stickland, the then-leader of Dunn’s most powerful political action committee, hosted prominent white supremacist and Adolf Hitler admirer Nick Fuentes at his office for nearly seven hours. The Tribune subsequently uncovered close ties between numerous other Fuentes associates and Defend Texas Liberty, the PAC that Stickland led until he was quietly replaced last year.
And then there is Dunn’s involvement in the “Holy war” against public education, non-Christians, and renewable energy.
“The state’s most powerful figure, Tim Dunn, isn’t an elected official. But behind the scenes, the West Texas oilman is lavishly financing what he regards as a holy war against public education, renewable energy, and non-Christians,” Texas Monthly reported in a piece titled “The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy”.
Dunn is actually a big reason behind Texas’ huge shift to the radical right, leaving behind commons sense Republicans and middle of the road Democrats.
“A 68-year-old oil billionaire, Dunn seeks to transform Texas into something resembling a theocracy. If you ever wonder why state laws and policies are more radical than most Texans would prefer, the answer has a lot to do with Dunn and his checkbook,” Texas Monthly explained.
The Trib goes on to suggest that while there was initially backlash, Dunn is stronger than ever. And it was his network that “made good on its vows for vengeance against House Republicans who voted to impeach their key state ally, Attorney General Ken Paxton. Nine GOP incumbents were unseated by hardline conservative challengers and eight others, including Phelan, were forced into runoffs — mostly against primary foes backed by Dunn’s network.”
Add corruption to Dunn’s list of “accomplishments,” then.
One billionaire oilman has done all of this damage to the Texas Republican Party and to Texas itself, which has infected the entire country to some extent.
The obsession wealthy white billionaires have with imposing their religious beliefs on everyone else isn’t that hard to understand: It’s a way to maintain authority over and to manipulate the masses. The use of religion to control the masses is as old as religion itself.
Pushing for a theocracy is the opposite of patriotism, but that’s of little interest to people like Dunn. He’s out to protect his own privileges and to keep others down in any way possible, and religion is an easy sell to justify ugly efforts to undermine the principles of the United States.
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