name. Nasty tweet. The governor’s quick veto pen.

What does any of that have to do with the latest mass of immigrants to flood the red states and be deposited in California?

The package arrived last week, courtesy of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Forty-two people–remember they’re human–arrived in downtown Los Angeles presumably starving, after a 23-hour bus ride with food, presumably starving at the same time. I would have felt terrified.

Of course, it’s all politics.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spent Monday collecting cash to run for president and spent time in California earlier this month ahead of schedule by dropping off two planeloads of asylum seekers in Sacramento.

They were lied to and promised employment and lawyers to speed up their legal standing. But at least DeSantis got what he got. he What he wanted was a few days of national news coverage to spice up his lackluster campaign, and a chance to confront his blood enemy, Governor Gavin Newsom.

Abbott is not running for president.

At least not in 2024.

However, he has been embroiled in increasingly nasty feuds with fellow Republicans in Texas, most notably Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who has escalated his uneasy relationship with the Chief Executive into all-out war. ing.

So rather than Abbott fanning immigration, bullying helpless and ignorant victims, and pushing them into the most hated liberal neighborhoods, it would be better to remind those in charge who are who. prize.

“Immigration has been a huge unifying force for Republicans, especially in Texas,” said Jim Henson, who heads the Texas Political Project at the state’s flagship university in Austin. “At a time when Republicans in the state are vying with each other, victory is certain for the broadest base.”

He added, “It’s not wrong to bashing California in Texas.”

If you want to know what plagues our political system, look no further than immigration. It’s not hard to get a rough outline of political compromise.

One wants stronger border security. Another seeks accommodation for people already in the country without legal sanctions. They meet in or about the middle.

end.

But solutions and compromises have plagued Congress for decades largely because of the widening chasm between the parties and their most ardent supporters. (Immigration is a problem that must be addressed at the federal level, as interstate tensions show.)

The conflict is exacerbated by partisan media and the vicious practice of gerrymandering.

The drawing of constituency lines to ensure that one party wins has dampened competition for seats. The biggest fear many lawmakers have is losing the primary to someone they consider more ideologically “pure.”

In such an environment, compromise becomes a “sell” to the other party rather than a virtue.

And many Republicans in particular are big on using partisan animosity to prove their “toughness” through stunts like moving hapless immigrants from red states to blue states. seeing a profit.

“It’s a race to the bottom,” said Jeronimo Cortina, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “There’s a race going on between governors who want to appeal to certain segments of the Republican Party instead of competing for tech companies and the like.”

No wonder in the case of Abbott political team upset Last summer, Mr. DeSantis arranged to transport a group of asylum seekers from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard.

It was not inhumane. It was stolen lightning.

Here are some things you should know about Texas politics.

— No matter how you look at it, this country is a one-party Republican dictatorship.

— Lieutenant Governors are elected separately from the Governor, not as the Governor’s Lieutenant Governor.

-That position is very strong. The Lieutenant Governor presides over the State Senate and wields significant influence, particularly over the state budget.

Both fellow Republicans, Patrick and Abbott have different temperaments, with Patrick a former talk radio host and Abbott a former state Supreme Court judge.

They also disagree on policy, with Patrick arguably the more militant Conservative or Trumpian of the two.

Nonetheless, the governor and lieutenant governor worked together and got along reasonably well until the last legislature, when a fight erupted over how best to cut the state’s soaring property taxes.

On one side is Patrick. The other was Abbott and Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan, or “California Dade,” as Patrick called the Beaumont-born Texan. (I didn’t mean it as a compliment.)

As tensions escalated, Abbott and Patrick began to fight openly.

In recent days, Patrick has made a series of derisive tweets. Abbott responded over the weekend. veto many billsMost of it started in the Senate, where lawmakers argued they needed to settle their property tax disputes first and work their way out.

Longtime Texas political observers say they have never seen anything like it.

So, with his authority challenged and his political standing under attack within the Republican Party, Abbott has seized upon a familiar strategy of targeting California and attacking the border policy of the Biden administration. .

Packing immigrants onto buses and transporting them out of state is a way to remind people that the governor wields preeminent power in Texas, Henson said.

Henson suggested it’s also reassuring to state Republican constituencies, suggesting that “it’s like tuning into a classic rock station” to hear old familiar tunes.

“The governor knows what people want to hear,” he said.

Never mind that the 42 Voices are being treated as political pawns.