What the Return of Allen West Says About the Delusional State of the Republican Party – By Tim Murphy (Mother Jones) / July 20 2020
The Islamophobic ex-lawmaker just became the new chair of the Texas GOP.
The Texas Republican Party convention, which wrapped up—for now—early Monday morning, was most notable for how it transpired. In early July, Republican leaders announced they were moving forward with an in-person gathering even as the coronavirus outbreak in the state worsened. A few days later, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner (a Democrat) stepped in and canceled the event, arguing that it constituted a public health threat in a city fast running out of ICU beds. The state GOP sued the city. A federal judge overruled the mayor. An appeals court overruled the judge. In the end, like everything else these days, the convention was moved to Zoom.
Still, there was one bit of significant news out of the event itself: The party elected a new chair—former Rep. Allen West.
Wait, Allen West??
West is a holdover from a slightly earlier wave of weird Republican politics. He was discharged from the Army after firing his handgun past the head of a detainee in Iraq, and then elected to Congress in 2010, at the crest of the tea party wave, in no small part because he’d once fired his gun at a detainee. When I profiled him for the magazine, West was sort of the personification of an ascendant anti-Islam movement within the party. He stated that Islam was a dangerous political force rather than just a religion and that its values were incompatible with democracy. He believed that social welfare programs were “slavery” and that as many as 80 members of the House were secretly communists. He was personally offended by the “Coexist” symbol. He said that the modern American male had been “neutered.” “Grab your muskets,” he told supporters.
Continue to article: https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/07/what-the-return-of-allen-west-says-about-the-delusional-state-of-the-republican-party/
