SocraticGadfly: Dan Patrick has wanted to Christianize America along with Texas, and screw up its universities

November 09, 2026

Dan Patrick has wanted to Christianize America along with Texas, and screw up its universities

The biggest lie you'll hear from any Tex-ass politician is one that Dannie Goeb has been pushing hard for years — the claim that there is no such thing as separation of church and state. Per the Monthly's piece, it's like, even more than Karl Marx, he sees secularists and atheists lurking under every bush and behind every tree in Texas, as well as actually believing that Merikkka is legally and constitutionally, not just sociologically (at least now) a "Christian nation." Related, from the same piece, and indirectly, is his second-biggest lie, that he really cares about rural Texas, when in reality, his talk about "government-run schools" show he's as big of a voucher enthusiast as Strangeabbott. I am breaking out the Christian nationalism stuff for a separate piece.

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Speaking of Patrick, in a long-form at the Texas Monthly, Forrest Wilder talks about the wingnuts taking over tea-sipping UT. Dan-o was, and still is, a key part of that play. It first led to that playbook being copied for the A&M and Texas State university systems, etc. It then expanded to actively attack anything "woke" on campuses. A big part of the piece is the faculty exodus that is already starting, especially among people of color, marginal groups, and above all, people who fall into both categories.

Then you have what looks like a spinoff of Stockholm Syndrome:

Devin Stauffer, a mildly disheveled government professor with a scruffy beard, said his colleagues were too dour about the changes afoot. I met with him in May at his office. His desk was watched over by Plato’s visage in a nod to his area of expertise, classical and early modern political philosophy. A university spokesperson sat in on our interview, which I found strange, though Stauffer didn’t seem to mind.

Really? That said, if you're believing even one-third of the worst of what wingnuts are calling "woke," you'll be OK with making yourself a willing captive of the Austin version of the Stockholm bank robbers. 

And, fallout could indeed happen, as Wilder cites past history.

The Rainey episode did lasting damage to UT. The stain made it harder to recruit faculty, and it landed the school on the American Association of University Professors’ censure list for nine years.

Of course, you'd have to have modern collegiate oversight institutions, or non-wingnut, non-ConservaDem US presidents be part of the pushback. If there is? Current wingnut UT president Jim Davis would probably screw the pooch more under orders from state higher authority.

If it did happen? 

Compared to "up north," Texas and other Southern-like states lag in other ways. Unionism is one. Directly connected to academia is another — the number of newspapers per 100,000 people. Even as print media still declines, nonetheless, that decline is a lot slower in the Midwest and Northeast. Also, per the Kuffners who refuse to write about this issue, even in Tex-ass, at least one former prof, who called herself "right of center," was crushed by Strangeabbott and his minions crushing anti-Zionist protests on various campuses. Speaking of?

Liberal Zionist bullshit is bad enough here in the United States. Per Mondoweiss, it's far worse in Israel. 

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Fortunately, it's too late for Dannie Goeb to go further.

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