Let's Not Forget the Extremism Behind Whitmire's Mayoral Campaign

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Above you see a mailer I got in the Houston Mayoral campaign last year. (I adorned the mailer with coffee stains.) It is about John Whitmire's finishing first in the first round of the vote over the late Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee. There are two logos on the mailer. The logo on the right is the Houston Police Officer's Union and on the left is the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association. The firefighters are an AFL-CIO union.

If Shelia Jackson Lee was linked to a movement meant to review and change how we conduct policing as a bad thing in an important election, shouldn't Mayor Whitmire and the unions involved here also be firmly linked to what they are connected with?    

Mayor Whitmire is sitting on $9.9 million in campaign cash and not working in any clear way to confront a clear authoritarian threat from the right. He was endorsed last year by far-right State Senator Paul Bettencourt. Police unions across Harris County have endorsed the insurrectionist Ted Cruz. The firefighters have given money in 2024 to extreme figures such as Governor Greg Abbott, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham and State Rep. Briscoe Cain. They've also given $5,000 in 2024 to the Texas Young Republican Federation Political Committee. 

Any elected official who supports Donald Trump to be President of the United States is an extremist.  

I'm not at all equating "defund the police,"--often the term used for any type of police reform proposal--which was looking to address how we conduct policing in the United States with Trumpism. What I'm saying is that pro-Whitmire forces painted a picture of Congresswoman Jackson Lee suggesting she did not care about crime. At the same time, these pro-Whitmire forces and the Mayor himself, seem perfectly fine looking the other way at extremism and supporting the extremists.

It's never too late to correct the record & it is always the right time to speak clearly about the present day.     
      
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