Republicans seek to gain by dividing Americans

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott is openly defying a Supreme Court ruling that confirms what was already well established: the federal government is in charge of our borders.

- Jesse Jackson

Abbott has manufactured a series of stunts to score political points over immigration. Now, he has erected razor wire barriers at the border and mobilized the Texas National Guard and police to block the efforts of federal agents to take the barriers down and enforce federal laws.

This, as Abbott knows, is performative politics. He is in the disreputable tradition of Alabama Governor George Wallace “standing in the schoolhouse door” to stop integration, or Georgia Governor Lester Maddox, who became infamous for threatening to beat Blacks seeking to integrate his restaurant with ax handles.

Now Abbott claims the right to spurn the laws and the Constitution and the Supreme Court, invoking Texas right to self-defense. He has been supported by 25 of the 26 sitting Republican governors.