Texas GOP Gov Greg Abbott sends message that MAGA can kill their political enemies

This is what FASCISM looks like!

Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott sent an unmistakable message this week that if you kill a Black Lives Matter protesters--or engage in any violence against the GOP’s political enemies--he will have your back. Abbott is simply following the lead of Donald Trump who has praised his Jan 6 terrorists and vowed to pardon them if he wins in November. This is more of what fascism on US soil looks like.

In the case of Abbott, on Thursday, he pardoned convicted murderer Daniel Perry who shot a Black Lives Matter protester, Garrett Foster, a US military veteran, to death in the streets of Texas.  The facts of the case were fairly straightforward: On the night of July 25, 2020, Daniel Perry was working as an Uber driver in Austin as protests were taking place in the Texas capital over the gruesome murder of George Floyd. Foster, who was openly carrying an AK-47, was one of the protesters taking part in the demonstrations. In fact, Foster had been in the streets protesting for weeks without incident before he was murdered.

According to Austin police, Perry was driving his car when he reached an intersection blocked by BLM protesters. The prosecution argued Perry initiated the encounter by running the light and turning into the crowd. That’s when the confrontation took place between Perry and Foster – both White and legally armed. At the time, Foster was pushing his Black fiancé, Whitney Mitchell in a wheelchair who is a quadruple amputee. (You can see Whitney and Garett in the photo on the top of this article.)

There are conflicting accounts as to whether Foster pointed his weapon at Perry or Perry made the first move. What’s undisputed, however, is that Perry fired five shots from his .357 revolver through his car window, killing Foster. Perry fled the scene but later called police to report the shooting, saying he acted in self-defense.

Prosecutors argued Perry had instigated the incident and introduced into evidence messages that suggested the shooting was not a spur-of-the-moment act but a premeditated one. One of the most damning was Perry’s Facebook message to a friend before the shooting that he might “kill a few people on my way to work. They are rioting outside my apartment complex.”

During the eight-day trial, dozens of witnesses testified, and forensic evidence was presented. After deliberating for 17 hours, the jury rendered a unanimous verdict on Friday finding Perry guilty of murder. To be clear, the jury expressly rejected Perry’s claim of self-defense and that Texas’s “Stand your ground” law would shield him from criminal liability.

That should’ve been the end of the legal issues with Perry spending decades behind bars for his crime. But not with today’s GOP that celebrates and defends violence by their own directed at those they view as the enemy. After all, Perry was MAGA, with a history of sending racist and anti-Muslim messages. For example, In April 2020, he sent a meme, which included a photo of a woman holding her child’s head under water in the bath, with the text, “WHEN YOUR DAUGHTERS FIRST CRUSH IS A LITTLE NEGRO BOY.”

And importantly to Abbott, Perry had killed an enemy of MAGA, namely a BLM protester.  BLM is an organization that Trump had labeled in 2020 as “a symbol of hate” and other Republicans referred to as a “terrorist” movement.

That is why shortly after Perry’s conviction in April 2023, Tucker Carlson—who was still hosting his Fox News show at the time-- called on Abbott to pardon Perry, arguing that the defendant had acted in self-defense despite the jury rejecting that exact argument. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released a statement claiming that “the Soros-backed DA … cares more about the radical agenda of dangerous Antifa and BLM mobs than justice.” And another Texas Republican, US Rep. Ronny Jackson—Trump’s former doctor-- tweeted his demand that Abbott “PARDON Daniel Perry IMMEDIATELY!”

As the pressure campaign mounted, Abbott announced he would ask the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles – whose members he appoints – to expedite the pardon paperwork for Perry, which he vowed to sign as soon as it “hits my desk.” The governor justified his work for a pardon by saying, “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.”

But the jury was aware of the Stand Your Ground law. It reviewed the facts in the case and determined that Perry was guilty. However, Abbott like Trump don’t care about facts or the law.

That led to Abbott to pardon a stone-cold murderer this week. After the pardon, the fiancé of the murdered Foster, Whitney Mitchell, issued a statement slamming Abbott: “Daniel Perry texted his friends about plans to murder a protester he disagreed with. After a lengthy trial, with an abundance of evidence, 12 impartial Texans determined that he carried out that plan and murdered my Garrett.” She added, “With this pardon, the Governor has desecrated the life of a murdered Texan and US Air Force veteran, and impugned that jury’s just verdict.”  

Mitchell concluded with this powerful line about Abbott: “He has declared that Texans who hold political views that are different from his — and different from those in power — can be killed in this State with impunity.”

She is 100% correct.  Again, Abbott is simply doing what Trump has promised to do for the Jan 6 terrorists. And the message is simple: If you commit acts of violence on MAGA’s behalf, we will have your back. The use and defense of political violence is a signature trademark of fascist movements.

This is another reminder of the stakes this November.  MAGA is a cancer. The options are either: We destroy it or it kills us.  It’s that simple.

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