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Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day: Tony Gonzales- 2023 Update [1]

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Date: 2023-10-04  

On this date in 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Tony Gonzales, the sitting U.S. House Representative for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District who was first elected in the 2020 election, sliding into the seat formerly held by Will Hurd with just 50.6% of the vote. Please do not mistake him for former NFL Hall of Fame Tight End Tony Gonzalez, nor Ohio GOP Congressman and former Ohio State and Indianapolis Colts’ wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez (who found himself unworthy of his deranged party for daring to impeach Donald Trump). No, this Gonzales was elected was in spite of the fact that during an interview in October of 2020, Gonzales twisted himself in knots for minutes to not answer the question when a reporter asked him “Would you label the KKK a terror group?” Apparently, that’s now the third rail for GOP candidates, to admit a white supremacist organization whose history of lynchings, cross burnings, and acts of violence against African Americans are terrorists. Eventually, Gonzales shrugged it off by blaming his lack of desire on Covid-19, saying, “We’re living in COVID. There’s a million things going on. You have this much oxygen in the room. And it’s not to talk about the KKK.”

Pretty big red flag about supporting racists, right? Well, in September of 2021, Rep. Gonzales gave everyone another pretty big tell, when after videos emerged of members of the U.S. Border Patrol on horseback literally whipping Haitian migrants crossing the U.S., Gonzales gave his support for their flogging the border-crossers, saying “They’re doing God’s Work”. Last we read the Bible, Jesus said quite a bit about welcoming immigrants, but that aside, it’s pretty much a no-brainer to defend something this barbaric.

But those are the sorts of things someone has to be cowardly enough to not support in order to win over most Republican voters, who can’t get enough of seeing cruel things happen to people who look different than they do. And then, there’s Gonzales’ voting record:



Texas’ 23rd Congressional District still has only a +5 Republican lean per the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and the only thing that kept this seat from flipping blue the past several election cycles was Greg Abbott’s voter suppression efforts, and when Will Hurd held it, at least he had the image of a “moderate” Republican. Not that the Texas GOP are start enough to understand the political calculus of that, having censured Tony Gonzales in 2023 for not going alone with all the party’s worst instincts.



Whether or not he falls to a primary challenge to his right, or Democrats manage to flip this district… Tony Gonzales does not seem long for office.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/4/2197495/-Fanatical-Republican-Extremist-of-the-Day-Tony-Gonzales-2023-Update?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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