A dozen Texas GOP county chairs shared George Floyd conspiracy theories and racists memes
One social media post shares an advertisement falsely claiming that George Soros, the liberal billionaire, is offering to pay anarchists who riot in the name of George Floyd.
Another asks a series of 21 “puzzling questions” about Floyd’s death, including “Can someone really not breathe when someone kneels on his neck and is the victim really able to speak for considerable periods of time if he can’t breathe?”
A third features a photo from the 1992 Los Angeles riots of a crashed truck and a person lying on the ground, bleeding from the head, with the caption: “This is why you don’t brake for ‘protesters.’”
These posts, shared in recent days by seven Republican county leaders in Texas, were discovered after top state officials condemned five other GOP chairs Thursday for similar racist and conspiratorial posts, the Texas Tribune reported.
Four Republican county leaders, who shared a conspiracy theory that Floyd’s death was staged to erode black support for President Trump, are being called on to resign by their own party. At least two of those four have said they wouldn’t resign.
In a statement Saturday, the Republican Party of Texas tried to shift the focus to the media and Democrats.
“The Republican Party of Texas has made its position and values clear. Reporters dug through Republican county chairs’ social media with a fervor we have not seen from the press in decades," the statement said. “Given what we all know about Joe ‘you ain’t black’ Biden’s and the Democrat Party’s horrible track record on race, we can only imagine what they will find when they do the same with the Texas Democrat Party.”
When contacted by the Tribune, several of the chairs defended their posts.
Cindy Weatherby, Reagan County’s GOP chair, who shared the 21 questions post, told the Tribune that if “humans don’t question, there’s something wrong with us.” She said the comments reflect her personal beliefs, not her role as the GOP chairwoman.
Top Texas Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have called the posts that suggested Floyd’s murder was staged “disgusting.”
“I have said it before and I will say it again now: the GOP must not tolerate racism. Of any kind. At any time,” George P. Bush, the state’s land commissioner, wrote on Twitter late Thursday. “I urge them to do the honorable thing and step aside now.”
