Texans pride themselves on being one thing: Texan.
The rest of us will soon be defining what a Texan really is.
Is he the gritty, hard-nosed, but almost always fair mythological hero of a Taylor Sheridan television show?
Or is he Bo French?
We can also ask if a Texan is ever a woman, but, increasingly, given the attacks on women’s bodily autonomy there, the answer seems to be no, unless that woman is a subservient trad wife.
That’s a different topic, as is the incredible resistance from such Texas women as Jasmine Crockett and her persistent supporters in the face of all that relentless feigned machismo.
For the purposes of this post, however, and for the sake of argument, a Texan is the Taylor Sheridan tough guy with a keen sense of honor.
The word “honor” submits to a strikeout in this post because we are about to find out if Texans have any honor left in their souls. Has Texas Republican grift, graft, racism, and misogyny, which grows every year because Republican power there does, finally drained the life out of whatever little honor is left within Texas men?
In a few weeks, these men will make a few big decisions on who to elect to important statewide offices and the U.S. Senate. Texas women will vote, too, of course, but it’s mostly men who put people like Ken Paxton and Texas Governor Greg Abbott into power and keep them there election after election, no matter what barbaric policies they implement.
These aren’t the usual political choices. This election is not about taxes, or land reform, or beef import/export issues, or oil, or drilling, or free enterprise, or socialism, or property values, or business costs, or wages, or immigration, or ranch varmints, or homesteading, or ranches.
This election is about whether or not Texas men are brave enough to finally say, “No, our boys have gone low enough. We will not stand for this.”
Decades ago, many of their fathers voted for Texas Democratic Governor Ann Richards. Maybe they can manage to work through whatever fears they have about stopping the Texas slide into a toxic Musk stew and vote for a few Democrats, who are extremely unlikely to change their lives no matter what the hysterical proclamations of Republican propaganda and bro culture podcasts tell them.
The two most important candidates that are challenging the honor of Texas men are Ken Paxton and Bo French.
I’ve talked about Paxton enough.
Here…
And here…
In the words of every Martin Scorsese villain everywhere: “Enough of this guy.”
Somehow, there’s an even worse Texas varmint raging through the plains of Texas.
“How can this be?” asks my alarmed reader. Worse than Paxton? Unpossible!
Ah, my friends, but the old code of Texas is long gone. There is no honor left, hence the strikeout in the text above. Or, perhaps it was always a hoax. Because Bo French is a loud and proud Texan, and he wants to be the next Railroad Commissioner.
Railroad Commissioner? So? Let the lunatic have his fun for a few years. What harm could an obscure office like that cause?
Well, my dear, exhausted reader, the Texas Railroad Commissioner is basically the Chief Operating Officer of the state. The position is second only in importance to statewide operations in Texas, after the Governor.
The Texas Railroad Commission regulates the state’s oil, natural gas, pipeline, and mining industries. It hasn’t had railroad oversight duties since 2005, when railroad oversight transferred to the Texas Department of Transportation.
The Texas Railroad Commission consists of three commissioners. And, if Bo has his way, it will also feature Bo, who will oversee everything.
And who is Bo French, aside from an avowed and proud racist?
Well, he’s such a lunatic that Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s former Chief of Staff and a long-time stalwart Texas Republican, has said he’d vote for Jon Rosenthal, the Democrat running against Bo.
Rove used to be considered among the worst of the worst back when he was crafting attack messages for George W. Bush’s election efforts. But the Republican Party today makes the Republican Party of Rove’s era look like teenage choir boys begging for chastity compared to the current crew.
And why has Rove turned on Bo so? (Sorry, I couldn’t stop myself.)
The racist tweet started it, as did other racist comments. CNN has the dirt regarding Bo’s unabashed racism:1
A CNN KFile review uncovered at least five removed social media posts from February 2025 in which French, using a previous username from his current account, invoked public executions, gallows or hanging. It’s unclear if the posts were deleted by French himself or removed because they violated Twitter’s prior rules against hate speech.
But it’s very likely that what really got to Rove, who is a master at political massage, was that Bo called for public executions of political opponents. CNN again:
In May 2020, amid Republican backlash to the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, French publicly called for the death penalty for people he described as “Obama conspirators,” invoked death as punishment for Obama himself, referring to the “former president,” and others while he repeatedly used the hashtag #HangEmHigh.
Rather than Rove being on anyone’s top ten list of progressive leaders, he’s always been on national top ten lists of political manipulators. As a deeply informed political hack in Texas, he surely knows Bo well. He’s been in politics longer than most of Substack’s equity partners have been alive, so you can be sure that Rove knows Bo won’t play well even to our badly tainted corporate media. Rove has therefore officially claimed that he will keep his distance.
That said, I’ll believe Rove votes for a Democrat when he sends me a certified copy of his ballot.
Republican John Cornyn, who was ousted by Paxton from the U.S. Senate representing Texas, has also disavowed any association with Bo, and is encouraging people to vote against him. Will Cornyn vote for Bo’s Democratic opponent, Rosenthal? Cornyn spent ten years of his U.S. career occasionally feigning minor belches of outrage over various Trump escapades, but voted Trump’s way nearly 100% of the time. If Cornyn says he’ll vote against Bo, my response is, “prove it.”
Now, he’s looking at Bo French, who is simply an inevitable product of the Texas political system. CNN again:
The more recent February 2025 tweets include multiple calls for executions against government officials he said were exposed by DOGE – the Elon Musk initiative that embedded staffers throughout federal agencies to look for ways to curtail spending, including by ending various programs and obligations.
French wrote at the time that DOGE, which was an acronym of Department of Government Efficiency, should actually stand for “Dangle Officials Gallows Expeditiously,” adding in other tweets he wanted “more than perp walks” and “public executions,” for government officials he said were exposed by DOGE.
A long history of rot in Texas
The Republican rot is so deep in Texas that it would require a thousand-page doorstopper of a book to describe it all. Google “ProPublica Texas” to get a taste of it if you must, or just trust me when I say they’re not only misogynistic racists, but crooks, too.
Let’s consider just one such ProPublica article, one of probably hundreds that have been written since Greg Abbott assumed command of the Republican brand in Texas.
When The Texas Newsroom and The Texas Tribune coordinated with ProPublica to learn more about exactly what lured Elon Musk to Texas and the various helpful laws passed since his arrival, they asked for some paperwork through the Freedom of Information Act. They were turned down. That’s illegal, but there isn’t a court in Texas left that would challenge Abbott. And you can bet your Cybertruck that the feds aren’t going to do anything.
ProPublica described the efforts in an article posted last year:2
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t want to reveal months of communications with Elon Musk or representatives from the tech mogul’s companies, arguing in part that they are of a private nature, not of public interest and potentially embarrassing.
Musk had an eventful legislative session in Texas this year. In addition to his lobbyists successfully advocating for several new laws, Abbott cited the Tesla and SpaceX CEO as the inspiration for the state creating its own efficiency office and has praised him for moving the headquarters for many of his businesses to the state in recent years.
As part of an effort to track the billionaire’s influence in the state Capitol, The Texas Newsroom in April requested Abbott and his staff’s emails since last fall with Musk and other people who have an email address associated with some of his companies.
Matthew Taylor, Abbott’s public information coordinator, gave several reasons the records should not be released.
The best part is this:
Taylor also argued that the communications are confidential under an exception to public records laws known as “common-law privacy” because they consist of “information that is intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public, including financial decisions that do not relate to transactions between an individual and a governmental body.”
“Intimate and embarrassing” is so on brand for modern Republicans that little guesswork is required about what some of that entails, although when it involves Elon Musk, we can assume it involves assorted sordid tales we’d rather not know. “Too Much Information” (aka TMI) is still a thing among many of us.
But there is no honor left among men in Texas, as proven by the consistent electoral victories of the likes of Abbott and Paxton.
I’ve talked about Abbott’s institutionalized corruption before:
Why Greg Abbott and Big Oil Bought Themselves a New Judicial System
Texas courts are now officially slathered in oil. In September 2024, while we were all dancing at Kamala rallies and hiding our pets from ravenous Haitians, Texas Governor Greg Abbott unleashed his plan to destroy the environment.
That article describes how Abbott didn’t satisfy himself by simply letting big oil own his office. He created an entire court system to permanently bake big oil into the government.
I could pick on him for a hundred more flagrant violations of human decency, but I’ll leave you with just one more.
Using slave labor to maim migrants
Greg Abbott has been using slave labor to maim migrants since 2024. This sounds like my typical hyperbole, of which I’ll admit I’m rather fond. But it’s not. Women and children are getting maimed on the Rio Grande by razor wire made by Texas prisoners in a forgotten policy Abbott developed a little more than two years ago.
Local journalists at the time only found out about it when women and children began arriving at an Eagle Pass, Texas shelter with lacerations from razor wire made by Governor Greg Abbott’s slave labor workforce. These aren’t paper cuts. According to USA Today:3
In the past week, migrants, including many children, have arrived at the Eagle Pass shelter with an array of injuries: lacerations, welts and open wounds.
Pregnant women have high blood pressure from stress, said Valeria Wheeler, the shelter’s executive director, and migrants have gashes in their heads and faces. The shelter has also been accepting an unusually high number of migrants recently released from hospitals, she said.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Wheeler said. “They’re putting lives at risk.”
These children and pregnant women were injured on the Rio Grande while being pushed around the river by Abbott’s new immigration police.4
Some of it was too much for even the immigration police Abbott tasked to carry out his anti-immigrant agenda.
Whistleblowers at the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) at the time circulated a set of photos that revealed numerous injuries to migrants, including a torso gash so substantial that it required health workers to staple it shut.
Keep in mind that the Rio Grande isn’t exactly America’s cleanest waterway. For one thing, it’s on the Texas border. Texas is not exactly Oregon when considering clean waterways.5
Texas waters are also famous for flesh-eating bacteria and other fun microbes that delight in finding open wounds to frolic in.6
To highlight his mendacity, Abbott is using razor wire that is manufactured in a Texas state prison, according to the Corpus Christi Caller Times:7
A purchase order dated March 11, 2021, which was five days after Abbott announced the border buildup that has sent thousands of National Guard soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to points all along the Rio Grande, shows a contract for $865,291 was awarded to Bergandi Machinery of Ontario, California, for a machine capable of churning out 180 feet of galvanized or stainless steel wiring per minute.
The order shows that the unit was being shipped to TDCJ’s Powledge Unit near the East Texas town of Palestine, which has an inmate capacity of 1,137, including 321 for its trusty camp. The unit also has a metal manufacturing plant on site.
In other words, Abbott spent nearly a million dollars on a razor wire-making machine and installed it in a Texas prison, where the labor is free and the way of life miserable.
How miserable? At least nine inmates died that year in Texas prisons because of a lack of air conditioning. While the honorable men of Dallas are enjoying a nice steak in the cool dining rooms at Y.O. Ranch Steakhouse, Texas inmates are dropping dead from the heat because many Texas prisons and county jails have no air conditioning. The old stone buildings they sort of live in become furnaces in the 100-degree heat.
Most of us get to turn our pillows to the cold side when we get too hot in a heat wave. Texas prisoners turn over and die.
Here is a brief story of one Texas slave, as reported by The Texas Tribune:8
Tommy McCullough was exhausted and thirsty, living in a stifling Huntsville prison as the record-breaking and relentless heat wave bore down across Texas this month. But he got up Friday morning and set to work, mowing the sun-scorched fields outside the Goree Unit.
By midday, he’d collapsed, dying of what the prison system says was cardiac arrest. He was 35.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), Texas prison inmates earn no money for the kind of work Tommy was doing:9
Inmates are not paid for their work, but they can earn privileges as a result of good work habits.
What happens if they refuse to work?
The TDCJ is happy to explain:
Inmates who continue to refuse to work lose their privileges and are placed in “special cell restriction.”
Umm, do you mean solitary confinement?
Special cell restriction means remaining in the cell 24 hours a day, with no trips to the day room, commissary, or recreation yard. Meals are also eaten in the cell, and personal property is taken away while on special cell restriction.
Oh, well, yes, yes it does mean solitary confinement. Or damn close. Maybe he’s lucky enough to have a murderous, sexually active cellmate. Thanks for that clarification, Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Anyway, that’s the very definition of slave labor.
You might have thought that slavery was ended by the 13th Amendment, which declared an official end to slavery throughout the United States. However, there’s a loophole:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Texas is not significantly more brutal than other states toward their prisoners, but most states are not using slave labor to develop body-slashing materials for swimmers.
The razor wire remains in place to this day.
Even in a beautiful world that sees an end to the likes of Abbott, it’s unlikely we’ll see prison reform anytime soon, so it’s fair to consider that part of this story an unnecessary sidebar. I use it here to illustrate how a mind like Abbott’s works, and how quickly he’s able to develop a system for lacing razor wire into an immigrant mother’s legs, all in the name of protecting a land once owned by Mexico. Need cheap labor? His deviant mind quickly turns to prison inmates. Problem solved.
Taylor Sheridan’s best work happens when he crosses into the gray areas necessary to reveal honor in his storytelling. His most compelling work recognizes the struggles of minority ethnic groups, and especially Native Americans.
If Texas men want to be more like Taylor Sheridan, they should stop voting for scumbags, who, in most Taylor Sheridan shows, usually end up in a ditch.
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Footnotes
Kaczynski, Andrew. “‘I Want Public Executions’: Texas GOP Candidate’s Extreme Posts Extend beyond Racism.” CNN, September 28, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/28/politics/kfile-bo-french-tweets-executions.
McGaughy, Lauren. “Why Gov. Greg Abbott Won’t Release His Emails With Elon Musk.” ProPublica, July 14, 2025. https://www.kut.org/politics/2025-07-07/texas-elon-musk-greg-abbott.
Jervis, Rick. “Along Texas’ Floating Border Barrier, Migrant Children Left Bloody by Razor Wire.” USA TODAY, July 21, 2023. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/07/21/texas-floating-border-wall-children-slashed-by-razor-wire/70447906007/.
Goodman, J. David. “Texas Patrols Its Own Border, Pushing Legal Limits.” nytimes. The New York Times, May 9, 2023.
Ruminato Gift Link 🎁 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/09/us/texas-border-enforcement-abbott.html. 🎁
Neena Satija. “U.S. And Mexico Struggle to Clean Up Rio Grande.” The Texas Tribune. Texas Tribune, October 23, 2013. https://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/23/us-and-mexico-struggle-clean-rio-grande/.
Villarreal, Lupita. “‘Changes Your Whole Life’ : Bridge City Man Sends Warning after Contracting Flesh-Eating Bacteria from Cow Bayou, Has Leg Amputated.” 12newsnow.com. KBMT, April 26, 2023. https://www.12newsnow.com/article/news/local/bridge-city-man-flesh-eating-bacteria-cow-bayou-leg-amputation/502-155dd7eb-26d7-4925-a0e4-e2b26292cecf.
Moritz, John C. “Texas Prison Inmates Making the Razor Wire Used by Operation Lone Star along Rio Grande.” Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Corpus Christi Caller Times, July 27, 2023. https://www.caller.com/story/news/local/texas/state-bureau/2023/07/27/prison-inmates-manufacturing-razor-wire-governor-used-along-texas-border/70469200007/.
McCullough, Jolie. “Inmates Are Dying in Stifling Texas Prisons, but the State Seldom Acknowledges Heat as a Cause of Death.” The Texas Tribune. TexasTribune, June 28, 2023. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/28/texas-prisons-heat-deaths/.
Texas.gov. “Frequently Asked Questions - Inmate General Information,” 2023. https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/faq/index.html.
The prison system in Texas should be sued for “cruel and unusual punishment”. No one, no matter what their crime should die from heat exhaustion.
Humane treatment of animals, like dogs and cats, is mandated by state laws in most states. Why are human beings made to suffer life threatening conditions in prisons? Abbott et al need to spend at least a month in the same conditions that prisoners live, a majority of whom are people of color.