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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Aug. 4,2022

Saturday, May 6, 2023 | 2 a.m.

How many times do Republicans need to say the quiet part out loud before the American people acknowledge that much of the GOP has devolved into a party of hate-filled fascists who care more about guns than they do about children or families?

Less than a week ago, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demonstrated his compassionate conservative values by implying that the immigration status of the five victims of a mass shooting north of Houston should dictate how seriously we regard these crimes.

At a press conference Sunday night announcing a reward for information leading to the arrest of the shooter, Abbott went out of his way to describe the victims as five illegal immigrants. He later posted a similar statement to Twitter.

The statement is not only false, as one of the five victims was in fact a legal permanent resident of the United States, but its also callous and heartless.

Remember, Abbott made that statement in response to the vicious murder of four young adults and a 9-year-old child. The shooting began after a group of families gathered for a quiet evening together asked a neighbor to stop shooting his AR-15 in his yard because a baby was trying to sleep. The neighbors response to that simple request was to walk to the home where the families were gathered and hunt them.

Two of the victims were shot in the back of the head while lying on top of their surviving children. Those women quite literally sacrificed themselves by using their bodies as shields to protect their children from harm. After executing five people, the oldest of whom was only 31, the shooter left the home and escaped the area before law enforcement arrived.

When Abbott took the stage almost two days later, the murderer was still at large, and the public was still in danger. Yet instead of focusing on the need to find an armed and dangerous murderer before he could kill again, or the tragedy and senselessness of such a wanton act of violence or the heroic actions taken by the victims to save their children, Abbott focused on the victims immigration status, essentially shrugging off the killings because the victims were undocumented.

What he was suggesting is appalling: that some peoples lives are worth less than others.

Its also worth noting that Abbotts policies have resulted in the deaths of countless illegal immigrants, so perhaps hes really revealing the lies he tells himself so he can sleep at night.

Abbott issued a correction the next day, his spokesperson saying weve since learned that at least one of the victims may have been in the United States legally. We regret if the information was incorrect and detracted from the important goal of finding and arresting the criminal.

Note that Abbott didnt apologize for distracting from the manhunt by focusing on the victims immigration status, he only apologized for getting the immigration status incorrect. Spoken like a true hatemonger.

Yet he wasnt alone among GOP lawmakers this week.

On the same day Abbott issued his correction, Florida state Rep. Jeff Holcomb was on the floor of the Florida House arguing in support of a bill asking Congress to ban LGBTQ+ people from the military.

Despite a decade of allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly without any evidence of harm to unit cohesion or readiness, Holcomb gave a nonsensical speech insisting that allowing LGBTQ+ Americans in the military is about liberal wokeness rather than about gay people wanting the opportunity to serve their country.

As he approached the end of his rambling monologue, Holcomb declared that discrimination and homophobia against LGBTQ+ people cant exist in the U.S. because, unlike in the Middle East, the U.S. doesnt throw gays off of buildings or murder them the way the Taliban or ISIS do.

Yes, you read that correctly. According to Holcomb, discrimination can only exist if you throw people from a rooftop or otherwise murder them.

If that werent enough, he concluded his speech by openly admitting that he and his Republican colleagues in the Florida Legislature hate gay people. Our terrorist enemies hate homosexuals more than we do, he said.

Wed like to believe that at least this statement was honest but recent GOP assaults on LGBTQ+ rights and liberties make us question whether Republicans actually hate LGBTQ+ people less than ISIS or the Taliban does, or if GOP politicians are just too cowardly to be honest about their beliefs. Their radical and repressive policies are most certainly leading to the deaths of some gay and trans people especially teens who feel they cant live in this world and face the pressure of being themselves in this culture.

Anyone who still thinks that the leaders of the Republican Party are engaged in anything other than a campaign of abject hate isnt paying attention. Republican leaders are only barely masking it themselves. After all, if you have a party in which a governor defines himself by an obsessive hatred of Mickey Mouse, academic freedom and free speech, you know they wont abide people of color or gays.

It is possible that there are Republicans who exist who do not subscribe to this type of callous disregard for the lives and rights of immigrants and LGBTQ+ people (not to mention women and non-white people). However, the evidence increasingly points toward a disturbing truth that those who choose to align themselves with the GOP subscribe to the hatred and violence espoused by the partys leaders. Nearly all moderate Republicans appear to be drifting toward being independents, because they cant align themselves with the radicalism of the new GOP.

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Republicans unmasking themselves by saying the quiet part out loud - Las Vegas Sun