Mike Partyka (@MichaelJPartyka)

I lost two friends on social media the other day because I said Texas Republicans who won't vote for Paxton don't actually care about policy. But here's the thing: I'm right, and I'm writing this because people need to understand why I'm right and vote accordingly. Belonging to a political party means that you believe that party is the one that is most likely to insert your values into public policy. Do you want to see more of [policy X]? Do you want to see less of [policy Y]? You figure out what policies you want to see more or less of, and then you join the political party that most accurately -- because "perfectly" is not an option -- reflects your own personal slate of what you do and don't want to see enacted in public policy. Sometimes your party will pick a bad person to be your party's candidate. Now, bad people exist all throughout politics, and it is almost certain that everyone in the political arena has some ugly compromises in their backgrounds, but I'm talking here about a *really* bad person, and for some people, Ken Paxton fits that mold. He's a fraud. He's a cheat. He's a liar. He's an overt religious bigot. These are all things I've heard about him, and maybe some or even all of them are true. If you are a Republican -- that is, if you think the Republican Party is the best vehicle for seeing your values transmitted into national public policy -- you *cannot* let Paxton's personal reprehensibility matter to you, because that would mean allowing your disgust over Paxton to matter more to you than *your own values.* Political polarization in some areas is as strong in this country as it's ever been. That means if Republicans want [policy X], Democrats want [policy not-X]. And here's what you have to ask yourself as a Republican voter: What *policy* do you want to see carried out: [X] or [not-X]? Because if you vote for Talarico, or even if you just fail to vote for Paxton and let Talarico win, you are going to get [policy not-X] -- i.e., your values will be rejected from the public sphere, and the country will go where you did not want it to go because you could not reconcile yourself to the fact that sometimes it will have to be bad men who take the country where you want it to go. I, for example, did not want Donald Trump to be my candidate for president in 2024. I do not particularly like the fact that he's my president now because I have come to understand that a lot of what made his prior term in office work as well as it did was the presence of all the "establishment people" he pushed out for his second term in favor of sycophants and loyalists. I do not consider this second term a success, and my attitude toward the administration is one of frustration and disappointment. BUT...if you were to ask me, "Do you think you should have voted for Kamala Harris instead, or just abstained from voting to give Kamala a chance at winning?" I would look at you as if you were a psychopath and say, "Why the *hell* would I want the candidate of the party who opposes my values to win??" I am not going to sacrifice my values on the altar of either personal disgust over a politician's character or even the possibility of disaster under the administration of that politician because the whole reason I am voting at all is to make sure my values get represented in government, and there is no way in hell I'm helping the candidate whose party has told me to my face on the regular that my values look like "up is down and right is wrong" to them (just as that party's values look the same to me). So if you are a Texas Republican, realize what is at stake here. There is no margin for error in the Senate, and whichever party is in the majority there is going to get control of the Senate's schedule and priorities and ability to confirm Trump's political appointees and ability to ratify treaties and ability to streamline budgeting decisions, etc., etc. If Republicans lose the Senate in 2026, all of that power goes to the people you *don't* want in control, and whatever good feelings you think you'll acquire by having a "good" man like Talarico in office rather than a "wicked" man like Paxton will drown in sad puppy tears when you see "good" Talarico support policies that trample down those values of yours that "wicked" Paxton would've upheld and defended on your behalf. I'm telling all my fellow Texas Republicans disgusted by the thought of voting for Paxton: Get your head out of your feelings and into the game. Sometimes the bad man has to win the election for good values to win the war. And politics *is* a war. So fight for your side. #Politics #Texas #Senate #Congress #Values #Election