Tom Green County Republican Chair Engaged in Hypocritical Blame Game

OPINION — Politics is a blame game, at least among its losers. It often leads them to accuse the opposition of what they are themselves doing and to wash their dirty laundry in public. Combine those two negatives and you have Tom Green County Republican Party Chairman Jeff Betty’s Open Letter. He identifies an element within his own party with which he disagrees and shares his disdain for them with everyone, Republican and non-Republican alike. Then he calls for unity.

He makes his contempt for Empower Texans quite clear, but he identifies it as a political movement, which is not quite accurate—it’s not a movement but the voice of conservatives in the Texas Republican Party. Mr. Betty is correct that there is tension between “ET,” as he calls it, and Senator Cornyn. He gives no reason for the tension, however. According to him, John Cornyn “would be considered strongly conservative if he were from just about any state other than Texas.”

How our senior senator might be regarded in other states, however, is immaterial. This is Texas, and Cornyn is a Texan. But he is not a conservative. Conservatives don’t support DACA. Cornyn does. Conservatives are not in favor of restrictions on the 2nd Amendment. Cornyn is.

“What is certain to destroy our majority,” Jeff Betty says, “is for the Republican Party and its leadership to become as arrogant as the 1980’s Texas Democratic Party was by defining who is and who isn’t a good enough [sic] and kicking out those they don’t like.”

Isn’t that precisely what Mr. Betty is attempting to do?

Is it wrong to identify members of your party with whom you disagree? Or to admit you don’t accept (or fully accept) a proposed plank of the party platform? Apparently Mr. Betty thinks it is wrong, for in the next sentence he accuses conservatives of using “communist” tactics to enforce their unity. It doesn’t make sense. How are we ever to have change if everyone has to march in lock-step?

It should be pointed out that the Tom Green County Republican Party has shrunken since Jeff Betty became the chair. That the number of events has diminished. That attendance at them has gone down.

He calls for unity.

Is unity served when he walks out of the state Republican convention because his establishment candidate doesn’t accept losing gracefully, and as a result is defeated a second time?

Is loyalty encouraged when he stacks the list of county delegates to the state convention with people he knows will not attend (some of whom declared beforehand they didn’t want to be delegates) in order to keep people he doesn’t agree with off the list?

Is unity promoted when these machinations result in a lack of representation for Tom Green County? Is party allegiance encouraged when he threatens physical violence against someone attending a meeting because that person says something the Chairman doesn’t like? Isn’t he the one using communist/fascist tactics?

Remarkable.

Mr. Betty’s level of disloyalty is matched only by his level of hypocrisy.

The debate over the future of the Tom Green County Republican Party

• GOP Chair Jeff Betty: GOP County Chairman's Open Letter to all Republicans Calling for Unity
• Conservative Activist Ken Casper: Tom Green County Republican Chair Engaged in Hypocritical Blame Game (this opinion piece)
• GOP Chair Jeff Betty: Show Me Proof