I usually enjoy reading year-end lists – best movies, songs, books, etc. But this year it’s been hard to focus on the positive. I’ve mostly stayed home, read books, watched movies, and followed a lot of bad news – hurricanes, wildfires, President Donald Trump’s latest machinations, and COVID-19.
With the exception of President-elect Joe Biden’s big win, in many ways 2020 has been a loser year. In keeping with that theme, I’m highlighting some of the dumbest things Texas politicians said or did this year by offering my picks for 2020’s Lone Star losers. Thanks to nominations from friends, family, neighbors, and a random package delivery guy, I ended up with three nominees and three dishonorable mentions.
In a year when Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Reps. Louie Gohmert and Chip Roy received dishonorable mention, you know the biggest losers had to be really bad. Abbott, who often treated COVID-19 like a hot potato rather than a serious health threat, bumbled through the state’s COVID-19 response after Trump failed to take the lead nationally. As a result, Texas has been one of the COVID-19 hottest spots, with more than 1.4 million cases and 25,000 deaths.
Gohmert, R-Tyler, is a long-time conspiracy wacko who falsely insisted the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Trump. He recently urged Trump supporters to consider “revolution.”
Roy, a Hays County Republican, called a bipartisan federal pandemic relief package “welfare” when he voted against it. Roy has supported “herd” immunity whereby most of the population would contract COVID-19. Experts say herd immunity would dramatically increase the COVID-19 death toll, which already exceeds 300,000 nationally.
Here are my top three losers:
In third place is U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who called Trump a “pathological liar” and “sniveling coward” in 2016, then spent the past four years playing kissy-face with him. Recently Cruz has made silly, inaccurate statements about COVID-19 and election fraud. He falsely tweeted that television networks stopped covering the pandemic after Trump’s election defeat. And he has made wild, Trumpian claims of election fraud without evidence to back them up, and despite U.S. Attorney General and Trump sycophant William Barr acknowledging there were no widespread irregularities.
Second place goes to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a one-time bar owner and radio talk show host known for making cringeworthy comments. In 2018, for example, after a school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, he blamed “too many entrances and exits” on school campuses, but not guns. His all-time stupid statement had to be early in the pandemic when he suggested that older people, including himself, should be willing to die to preserve the economy for future generations.
Finally, the biggest loser award easily goes to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has been under indictment since 2015 for alleged securities fraud. He also is embroiled in a scandal in which seven former senior assistants at his agency recently accused him of possible crimes to benefit a campaign donor. Four of the aides filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Paxton and the FBI is investigating.
Meanwhile, Paxton has fought efforts to expand voting opportunities for Texans and is trying to repeal the federal Affordable Care Act, which, if successful, would halt health care coverage for millions of Americans during the pandemic. Last week, perhaps fishing for a pardon, Paxton stuck his nose in the presidential election in a foolish legal stunt to try to overturn the will of the people. He asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in election results, not in Texas where Trump won, but in four states where Biden won. The court – even with three Trump appointees – didn’t buy it. Paxton has long been a major Texas embarrassment. Now he is a national one.
