Regardless of Outcome, convention DEBACLE illustrates EVERYTHING wrong with the Texas GOP

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap."
Galatians 6:7

Lolz:

The Republican Party of Texas' in-person convention next week has been canceled, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Wednesday.

The news came after Turner directed the city's legal department to work with the Houston First Corp., which operates the George R. Brown Convention Center, to review the contract with the state party.

Turner said officials with Houston First sent a letter this afternoon to the State Republican Executive Committee, the state party's governing board, canceling the gathering, which was set to happen July 16-18 and was expected to draw roughly 6,000 attendees.

"These are some very serious times," Turner said at a news conference. "Simply, the public health concerns outweighed anything else."

We've seen speculation floating around about what's really happening. Some believe Sylvester's doing Abbott a favor so the latter doesn't get booed. Others believe Sylvester's doing dirty work for the Democrats by forcing RPT to spend money on lawyers that could otherwise go to candidates. Either hypotheses is consistent with currently known facts.

Suffice to say, it looks like Sylvester Turner is doing an awfully big political favor for...somebody.

At this point, however, does the specific identity of that "somebody" matter?!?

Because, however we got here, the net result is that the Texas GOP has just spent the past two weeks being utterly, totally, and completely humiliated.

And isn't that typical?!?

At this point last year, we were warning that the Texas GOP's chronic underperformance was about to catch up with it.  While we had our reasons, those reasons almost seem cute in hindsight.  But whatever the proximate cause, the underlying reality is that their performance in office just isn't good enough.

What's happened since then?!?

Well, we had a pandemic.  Greg Abbott put a lobbyist in charge. And Abbott otherwise caved (while running his mouth to cover his...well, you know).

So here we are. The details don't matter. The only thing that matters is that this most recent debacle is the completely predictable consequence of trends that have been allowed to run unchecked for a long, long, time.

And there's no reason to believe any of it's going to change (at least for the better) anytime soon.

Bottom Line: Actual leadership could have prevented this. Failing that, prudence could have minimized the damage. Yet neither happened. And here we are.