TXGOP convention has secession, bathroom wars on agenda

And maybe a Trump drop-in (see below).

DALLAS - On the day before Texas Republicans were poised to open their biennial convention where delegates will pick the hottest issues they believe their Red State government should address, longtime party member Bert Keller quickly ticked off his top five. He would empower conservative, Christian principles in government; abolish firearms licenses; secure the border; cut taxes; and limit access to public restrooms for transgender people.

"Talk is cheap. It's time for action," said the Dallas family-business owner and tea party activist who said he plans to vote his conscience as an alternate delegate at the statewide meeting. "This party represents the real grass roots, and that's what the grass roots want - action."

A few steps away, Houstonian Jeanette Porter, wearing a red jacket and GOP scarf, shook her head.

"Standing up for conservative values is one thing. Crazy issues are another," she said, arguing briefly with Keller on the gun-license and restroom issues. "I vote to get away from the people who have been sniffing paint."

God, I wish I had said that.  Looks like Ms. Porter picked the wrong weekend to try to kick the habit, though.

To some, the state's Grand Old Party appears a bit fractured in its focus, as the ultra-conservative tea party influence becomes the mainstream and as party leaders seek to retain their hold on Texas politics, even as shifting national trends suggest that some of the GOP's hard-line stances on immigration, same-sex marriage and voter ID may not be playing as well as they once did.

Examples abound.

While Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton have blasted transgender restroom mandates in recent days to the applause of many Republicans, others see little urgency in the issue.

While Gov. Greg Abbott is pushing a national campaign for a Convention of States to reframe the Constitution to give states more power over the federal government, tea party factions argue Abbott's plan would needlessly risk a disastrous liberal rewrite.

Even though it stands no chance of approval, the issue of whether Texas should secede from the United States, a plank that some activists want in the state party's platform, appears set to get a hearing before the full convention.

Even the race for party chairman has taken a nasty turn, with a mailer supporting Houston lawyer Jared Woodfill accusing current state chair Tom Mechler of Amarillo of "supporting a homosexual agenda."

"The Homo Agenda" is as old as Betty Bowers (who's been in assisted living for a decade now, but was once a dead ringer for state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst).  Charles has gotten his heavy bag work in already on the state chair race, so I'll throw some roundhouse kicks at a few other 'highlights' of the weekend coming up.

Robert Gelman, a onetime Cruz supporter, stood in a corner of the convention hotel Wednesday surrounded by Trump "Make America Great Again" campaign signs and agreed that getting a Republican elected president is the only thing that counts. Several delegates booed the signs as they passed Gellman.

"This has been a love-fest for Ted for the past four years, since he got elected to the U.S. Senate, and this year will be a welcome-home, job-well-done reception for the man who we respect as a true movement conservative," said Gelman, a Fort Worth businessman and self-identified tea party realist. "Ted led the fight to change government. Republicans are doing that. Donald Trump will do that. We must stop the Obama-crats. They are ruining the country."

It has failed to seep in over the past 3.5 years that Obama isn't running for president, isn't taking their guns, isn't a Kenyan Muslim socialist.  Horse's asses led to water and all that.  But hey, some of those in attendance may actually boo Trump -- let's keep our Twitter eyes peeled for whether that happens, if he should indeed show up -- so I suppose we should count that as progress.

Dan Patrick is prepared to general the War on Peeing and Pooping in Public, which will be 2016's rallying cry for Republicans from sea to shining sea.  Trumpeting 'freedom' while performing some kind of inspection on those who suffer the unfortunate consequence of having to urinate or defecate away from home isn't a battle to be left on the fields of North Carolina.

(I really wanted to save that one for Sunday.)

Ted Cruz still hasn't endorsed Drumpf; will that happen at his 'hero's welcome' today or tomorrow?  Will some intrepid reporter inquire of Governor Abbott (with regard to the West fertilizer plant explosion now being classified as a criminal act) whether his 2014 advice for citizens to "drive around" and ask about ammonium nitrate stored near their homes is still recommended?  Can Rick Perry and Judge Roy Moore light a fire under the Texas Eagle Forum's Christian soldiers that's hot enough to get Jared Woodfill elected chairman?  Will the secessionists' resolution carry the day?  And if so, can they please hurry up and GTFO of the USA before November, so that the state's electoral votes won't count in this year's presidential election?

(Also yesterday), the Platform Committee of the Texas Republican Party voted to put a Texas independence resolution up for a vote at this week's GOP convention, according to a press release from the pro-secession Texas Nationalist Movement. The resolution calls for allowing voters to decide whether the Lone Star State should become an independent nation.

For all you Berners saying you'll stay home on Election Day: this is what happens when you do.  You have a fresh chance coming up on the calendar to avoid being ruled by your inferiors.

Boy, that's a lot of bullshit that's going to have to be blogged.  Documenting the Texas conservative atrocities is a damned dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

Revolution news update

-- No More Mister Nice Blog:

I foresee a big uptick in attention for Jill Stein, starting as soon as Sanders concedes. What the hell else will Salon do when Sanders is out of the race? I'm certain that H.A. Goodman and Walker Bragman will instantly switch over to being tireless Stein supporters. And why wouldn't the mainstream media reach out for yet another Everyone-hates-Hillary story? On the right, I expect the Murdoch media to begin encouraging her campaign -- I'm guessing we'll see Stein regularly on Fox in the fall.

Look at the tightening Clinton-Trump poll from Reuters, and consider Thomas Edsall's observation that Trump does best in online polls, a sign that he may have support from many voters who don't want to acknowledge their Trump leanings to in-person or telephone pollsters. (Mike the Mad Biologist has already referred to this as the "Trump effect," a mirror-image "Bradley effect.") This race could get ugly.

"Could"?

-- The 2014 New York gubernatorial candidate with some searing truth.

Jill Stein's Green Party campaign for president ought to be the first stop for Sandernistas who refuse to vote for corporate Clinton. Stein will give voice to popular demands and movements and help shape political debate during the election. But more than anything, the Stein campaign is a party-building campaign. It's about securing ballot lines that can be used in future local elections for municipal, state legislative and congressional seats. It's about creating campaign committees that continue after the election as local Green parties.

Local independent left candidates can win. Kshama Sawant has shown that in her Seattle City Council races. Over 150 Greens have shown that in cities and towns across the country.

When even critics contend that the Greens should focus on state and local races, well... this is exactly where the county parties should move forward.  Now, not in mid-November.

Ballot access barriers, winner-take-all elections, private campaign financing and inherited two-party loyalties are real obstacles to building a left third party. But the idea that they are insurmountable is just wrong because viable third parties have been built and independent candidates have won. The abolitionist, populist, and socialist parties from the 1840s to the 1930s garnered enough support to really affect American politics. Greens, socialists, and independent progressives, including Bernie Sanders himself, have won office in recent decades. What's been missing since the 1930s is a left that understands that independent politics is the road to power and change. Most of the self-described left today practices dependent politics. It depends on the corporate-sponsored Democrats to enact changes.

Sanders' campaign has revealed there is a mass base for left party that is ready to be organized. His campaign shows that millions are ready to vote for what public opinion polling has shown for decades--that there is majority support for progressive economic reforms like single-payer, progressive taxation, tuition-free public higher education, and climate action. Sanders' campaign also shows that millions will fund a campaign for these reforms with small donations at a level that can compete with the candidates of the corporate rich.

If this doesn't happen (and it didn't happen after Jesse Jackson's bid in 1988, Howard Dean's in 2004, and Dennis Kucinich's in 2008) then ...

If the Greens are going to be the vehicle for an independent left political insurgency, they will need to reorganize as a mass-membership party with membership dues and local branches for sustainable self-financing, democratic accountability, and grassroots dynamism. The Greens will remain underfunded, weakly organized, and politically marginal if they continue to be organized like the Democrats and Republicans with an atomized base of voters who only have the right to vote in primaries, with no locally organized base to elect and hold leaders accountable, and with minimal funding from intermittent fund appeals.

In other words, what they have always been (in my personal experience).

There is no shortcut through the Democratic Party to building a mass party on the left. That shortcut is a dead end. Hopefully, many new activists energized by the Sanders campaign will come to the realization that road to "political revolution" for "democratic socialism" lies not inside the Democratic Party, but in an independent left party that is opposed to and starts beating the Democrats.

The peasant revolt never occurs within the castle walls.