Abbott Calls Criticism of His Border Waste “Politics”

All those photo ops at the border, photos with Trump whining about the border, photos with National Guard members, photos in DPS choppers doing fly-overs of the border. Then there’s the billions of dollars wasted on this boondoggle with no transparency in sight, and the soldier suicides during this border folly. The criticism has piled up on Greg Abbott and it comes from Democrats and Republicans.

Abbott’s response, “It’s just politics.”

No, politics is blaming people escaping poverty and violence for the problems caused by Abbott’s own budget giveaways to the wealthy, thus making the Rio Grande Valley the most uninsured region in the state and still vulnerable to another freeze. Politics is looking away when local law enforcement is stealing money from undocumented people trying to find safety. Greg Abbott is all about politics and using his power to blame others for the purpose gaining the support of the bigots in society. But, we’ve known this. It’s just that it’s taken people too damn long to admit it for fear of losing “moderates,” instead of strengthening our base.

Thankfully, Democrat Beto O’Rourke has been speaking out a bit on Abbott’s border folly, especially demanding answers regarding Abbott’s mistreatment of the National Guard.

If Abbott truly cared about law enforcement (beyond using them for photo ops), he wouldn’t have sent 10,000 National Guard troops to the border while failing to pay them and slashing the benefits he promised them. He owes them answers.

Hopefully, he’ll call Abbott out on his border policies beyond the National Guard. Really, O’Rourke’s border pronouncements should be about ensuring human rights and access to services. The rest of the problem, such as asylum process and immigration reform is President Biden’s job, and O’Rourke can demand more from the White House.

Legislators from both sides of the aisle have also been calling out Abbott, but, they’re also the ones who fully funded the $3 billion Abbott demanded for this debacle without much questioning. They need to be paying attention before this crap happens, but they’re too preoccupied with passing something for their own districts. Welcome to the show, anyway, I guess.

Democrats have waited too long–years–to demand answers for Abbott’s border boondoggle. Abbott and his fellow bigots have done a good job of convincing border folks that all of the problems they face are the fault of people escaping poverty and violence. And Democrats have done little to combat this, even going along to get along with Abbott.

I hope that as O’Rourke calls out Abbott on these policies that those legislators calling him out back Beto up. Otherwise, all the complaints are just media-ops for themselves.