The Chronicle Owes Houston an Apology
Tags: Dan Crenshaw, Houston Chronicle, Election 2020, White Supremacy, Covid-19

So many moral and legal standards have been lowered in the past four years that watching my local paper follow suit was deeply disappointing.

To be fair — in the endorsement, the Houston Chronicle exposed the nature of my gerrymandered TX 02 district.

Awesome.

They acknowledged Crenshaw campaigned all over his district, maskless, while the pandemic spiked in Houston.

Good.

They admit he questioned whether masks worked at all and attacked local leaders like Judge Lina Hidalgo for implementing measures to keep us safe when the federal government would do nothing.

Great.

But they consciously continued the endorsement while applauding Crenshaw for — get this — acknowledging the LGBT community is human and that climate change is real.

Talk about lowering the bar.

The Press has the important responsibility to tell the truth, and endorsements should be based on the most important truths.

Not only has Crenshaw put the very lives of his constituents at risk through his actions and the perpetuation of conspiracies and pseudo-science, but he has actively endangered our democracy.

History will indeed show the dangerous effects of Crenshaw’s Twitter popularity: photos of him and a Proud Boys leader, arm-in-arm; his podcast about how nationalism is actually cool; denigrating Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez for working in the service industry — an industry currently hurting in his own district.

Crenshaw attacked fellow veteran Senator Tammy Duckworth — who also sacrificed pieces of her very body for her country — of standing for the “destruction of America.”

At it wasn’t just Duckworth. Crenshaw faced heat all over Twitter this week when Amee Vanderpool exposed that the congressman was behind the smear campaign of a veteran who was sexually assaulted at the Veteran Affairs office.

History will show that Congressman Crenshaw signed an amicus brief with 106 traitors to the Constitution to ask the Supreme Court of our Land to overturn the Will of the People.

History will show the Twitter post where Crenshaw perpetuated propaganda and unfounded claims. “All cases should be heard,” he tweeted as the court count neared 59 lost cases all throughout the American justice system.

“All investigations should be thorough,” he claimed, after countless recounts — after those 59 courts clarified that Trump’s cases failed because they lacked standing or evidence, and, usually, it was both.

History will show footage of this Texas congressman, standing in front of the United States Capitol, vocally agreeing that Texas has the right to sue neighboring states, overturn their election results, and manipulate their election process while the head of the Texas GOP actively talks about seceding from the Nation.

While studying the primary sources of this dark and anti-democratic chapter, future students in Houston will have to face that their local paper celebrated a dangerous man and refused to make it right when his actions threatened the future and integrity of their city as well as their Republic.

And History will not be kind to either Crenshaw or the complicit Chronicle.

I hope the editorial board will do the right thing and retract their endorsement of the dangerous Dan Crenshaw. See, journalists understand the most important truth: as Ida B Wells said, History will “shine the light of truth” upon your choices, whether you publicly acknowledge the error or not.