One of my favorite Internet GIFs depicts Charlie Brown charging towards a football, but as he is about to kick it, Lucy pulls the ball away. Charlie Brown clearly never absorbed the maxim “fool me twice, shame on me.” Similarly, Texas conservatives have for years been locked in a multi-year cycle of being misled to believe that “the fix” for loosening the ever-tightening noose around the neck of Texas is to cross all our fingers and toes that somehow a plurality of other states regain their sanity even for just one election.

It’s a ludicrous notion. 

The story of at least the last three election cycles is that Texas is getting “redder.” At least 59 percent of those moving to Texas are Republican political refugees fleeing other states. And, at the same time, the plurality of states in these United States are getting bluer and, thus, less conservative. Although President Trump’s victory in 2016 gave us some hope that there was a silent majority of conservatives across the Union, at some point we have to question whether a critical percentage of them has since relocated to Texas and Florida. I can tell you that a shocking proportion of grassroots activists I know have recently moved from historically blue states that voted red in 2016.

The future of Texas hangs in the balance, and we Texans have been putting our faith in the false idol that some other state will save us. Personally, I know that I have done my share of beaming about Ron DeSantis and his unapologetically conservative rhetoric and policies in Florida—which, by the way, have enabled Florida conservatives to expand their grip on the state. Conservative policies, when consistently articulated and applied, always win. And yet, Florida will not save Texas. Nor will Arizona (though I think we should all say a quick prayer that Kari Lake prevails).

But we should not lose hope. In fact, the influx of political refugees from other states represents a singular, once-in-a-century opportunity that we cannot squander. The challenge for Texas conservatives is educating our increasingly conservative electorate to the truth that, while Texas conservatives firmly control the Republican Party of Texas under Matt Rinaldi, we have little real control of our own state government, as we conservatives only hold a few statewide elected positions and only a handful of seats in the Texas Legislature. Meanwhile, Greg Abbott, a member of the World Economic Forum, has for two years let the border invasion fester.

Many Texans would be shocked to learn that while Operation Lone Star was being severely mismanaged by former Texas Adjutant General Tracy Norris during the long gubernatorial primary, Abbott allowed the situation to continue, only to quietly remove her days after the primary. While troops suffered without proper gear on the border and living in horrid conditions, Abbott kept quiet about the situation, allowing Norris to flounder for half a year. Even when it became clear that many troops weren’t even being compensated due to systemic payroll issues, Abbott remained quiet, presumably to avoid any additional scrutiny from primary opponents like Lt. Col. Allen West.

But Greg Abbott is not the only obstacle for Texas to take its rightful place as the preeminent bastion of freedom in the western world.

Since the primary, Texas House Speaker and Democrat-elected Dade Phelan has used his enormous war chest to consolidate his control over the Texas House. While Phelan took enormous sums from clinics that chemically castrate children, he saw to it that bills that outlawed the practice never saw the light of day. Recently, it has become clear that Phelan has, once again, cemented his position as speaker by bargaining committee chairmanships for support from Democrats, despite the fact that the Republican Party of Texas overwhelmingly voted to make abolishing this practice a top legislative priority after the primary ballot proposition showed that 81 percent of Texas Republicans oppose it.

Do most Texans know these—and many more—facts about these “Republicans” who represent them? No. But the silver lining is that most Texas voters would never vote for these “Republicans” if they knew they were RINOs. Our primary challenge is not to convert or evangelize the gospel of conservatism, but to educate and better disperse the truth of what is going on in Texas. Texans need to become focused on what is happening in Austin rather than what is going on in Washington.

I firmly believe that Texas will save the western world, but only after we save her first. To prevail, we grassroots conservatives must first defeat the lobbyist-funded establishment which holds an iron grip on Austin politics. The deepest fear of this uniparty is that everyday Texans would learn the truth about them, their record, and their globalist agenda that daily surrenders to Washington D.C. without even a fight.

We must build upon the hard work done by so many during the 2022 primary and continue to grow our army of conservatives who will stand against the political elite who are selling out our beloved country. Like William Wallace depicted in “Braveheart,” we wrest control of Texas away from the cowards who would never actually risk their fortunes and sacred honor to defend her. 

“I see a whole army of my countrymen here in defiance of tyranny. You have come to fight as free men. And free men you are! What will you do without freedom? Many years from now, would you be willing to trade all your days, from this day to that, for one chance … just one chance … to come back here and tell our enemies that they will never take our FREEDOM!”

The fight to #SaveTexas begins today. Let’s put Texas First.

This is a commentary published with the author’s permission. If you wish to submit a commentary to Texas Scorecard, please submit your article to submission@texasscorecard.com.

Andy Hopper

Andy Hopper is a co-founder of Wise County Conservatives, serves as a warrant officer in the Texas State Guard, and has worked in the private sector and defense industry as a software engineer for the last 24 years.

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