Abbott outsources governance to woke corporations

Just over a year and a half until the Texas gubernatorial election and things are heating up in the Lone Star State. But as election talk simmers, enthusiasm for Gov. Greg Abbott remains lukewarm.

It’s common to hear from the Republican base, “I’ll vote Abbott if I have to.” This despite the non-stop interviews on Fox and alternative media networks where the governor has been criticizing Team Biden's immigration policies that are directly impacting Texas.

Where has 2020’s political fervor gone?

Abbott’s cozy relationship with woke corporations is seen as a kind of Faustian bargain where the Texas identity is sold for the price of short-term economic gains.

"Let’s be clear, the current political state of corporations and their undue influence on society means Texas will no longer remain Texas," said a Texas-based journalist who requested anonymity because his employer might not approve of his comment.

Abbott is not a national populist like Former President Donald J Trump. And Texas’ watered-down versions of Gov. Ron DeSanits’s policies make Abbott’s tough talk little more than political posturing.

Robert Montoya of Texas Scorecard points out that shortly after DeSantis signed the nation’s first executive order prohibiting vaccine passports, Abbott followed suit by banning state enforced COVID-19 vaccinations. Former State Rep. Matt Rinaldi criticized the Abbot EO tweeting, “Texas still allows businesses to require you to have a vaccine passport.” Rinaldi is right.

With the amount of control corporations exert on the private life, Governor Abbott’s policies often amount to nothing more than plausible deniability. Abbott takes credit for creating jobs while he washes his hands, under the guise of free market libertarianism, of the latest corporate conformities reshaping Texas.

According to the Texas Tribune, the Tech Transparency Project recently filed an open records request to obtain communications between Facebook employees and the Governor’s Office. Instead of complying, Facebook’s legal counsel Justin Hoover arguedagainst public disclosure of “approximately 113 pages of documents” outlining confidential information including: