On Thursday, August 19th, the Downtown Houston Pachyderm Club hosted Dr. Richard Johnson III, director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s (TPPF) Booker T. Washington Initiative.
First off, wow. I came away from the meeting with a new perspective on both Critical Race Theory and on Richard Johnson. When I first met him over a decade ago during his campaign for the Harris County Department of Education, I thought that he was more interested in being a candidate than on implementing conservative philosophy. I came away with the opposite thought about him after this meeting. His presentation and presence could translate into a campaign now because he is focused on implementing policy and pushing back on the liberal takeover of our education system and in general governance.
He had so many thoughts that it would be impossible for me to accurately document all of them for you. So this is more of a recap on some of them and I would urge everyone to click on the links above and below to find out more.
Voting Rights
Dr. Johnson started with the observation that we need new leadership in Harris County. He was talking about the Commissioner’s Court which is now controlled by far left-leaning Democrats who have undermined legal voting.
He said that we already have the right to vote, then followed up with ‘every LEGAL, LIVING citizen has the right to vote’. Obviously he was referring to the Democrat’s objective to have illegal aliens vote, as well as their tendency to raid cemeteries for votes. The Democrats continued rhetoric and policy implementation is state funded racism.
Critical Race Theory
Dr. Johnson started with the idea that personal responsibility and self-reliance is the only way to freedom. CRT is a racist tool that stokes fear with their rhetoric that there are white oppressors and dark-skinned oppressed. When we were chatting before the meeting, he explained that CRT has its roots in communism and that it is dangerous and reckless to promote that all white folks are bad and all blacks are oppressed. The leaders of CRT are using the black community as tools to push their propaganda.
He noted that CRT is amplifying the need for school choice.
He closed this topic by saying that CRT is a rollback to pre-1964 Civil Rights Act segregation. The White House is pushing CRT as a way to pit one group against another and said that a house divided cannot stand.
Change School Boards
Dr. Johnson said that it is critical that conservatives run for school boards and change the education system. He cited a district near San Antonio and our own Cy-Fair ISD as examples. He recently gave a speech in Cy-Fair and there are three candidates running on the platform to end CRT, transgender studies and back to basics education. He noted that transgender activism is nothing more than an attack on the nuclear family.
I’ll note that we have another school district where this is happening, as HCRP activists Scott Bowen and Jeff Larson were elected to the Clear Creek ISD board.
Trump did what he said he would do
Dr. Johnson said that when Trump first ran in 2016 that he was skeptical of him. But after about six months, he saw that Trump was actually doing what he said he would do, which was unheard of in a President. He became a huge fan and campaigned for him in 2020. He hopes that in 2024 the people that switched from Trump to Biden in 2020 will switch back after seeing what the Biden administration is doing.
Okay, like I said, I’m not good enough to capture everything he said or all of the topics he covered. I encourage you to click on the links provided and find out more. He wants people to go the website KeepTexasTexan.org to learn more and use the resources that the TPPF provides.
I wish him well in his quest. I encouraged him to run for County Judge. I think that he could pull the various factions of Republicans in Harris County together and also pull some of the Democrats that are ether moderate or lean slightly conservative. He would be a great spokesman for the party and would help all Republicans on the ballot in Harris County, including Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick. He didn’t close the door on that but he was also skeptical after having run in the past and had promises of financial support that never materialized. I get that and it has always been a problem for our candidates that don’t necessarily fit into a traditional definition of a Harris County Republican. But times, they are a changin’, so who knows?
Excellent article, Thanks for sharing this and making it available to us, David
Sounds like a winner to me. David I’m a bit curious as to what you thought CRT was and how this guy changed your mind. One of my kids gave me a link to BLM last summer and it was an eye opener! To think a black, queer centric Marxist philosophy would be popular beyond about 0.01% of the population is mind blowing. I wonder if all the black guys parading around in BLM regalia even know that if they’re not gay, they’re not welcome in BLM.
I’d like to see CRT run up against CRH, Critical Race History. Lets take a peek shall we? Slave owners were probably 100% democrat since the Republican party wasn’t even formed until 1854 and one of it’s main tenets was the abolition of slavery.
Dems believed so strongly in their right to subjugate blacks they started a war over it. Once that was lost up popped the Jim Crow laws beginning in 1877. Then the Ku Klux Klan shortly after. Democrats are the sole owners of both of these initiatives. As the public turned against the Klan and their influence waned next was the growth in strength of labor unions. Who runs the unions? Dems top to bottom forever. What unions were able to do was control who got jobs.
During the massive growth of government under FDR came one very interesting agency known as the USDA. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden have exploited that agency so much it needs to be shut down. It’s about 85% welfare and 15% agriculture right now. The nexus is protein so its all good. The is where you find INSTITUTIONAL racism. Recall Obama bringing out the black lady that regretted her role in denying whites while promoting blacks for grants? That was the basis to flip the script and declare the USDA had discriminated against blacks for decades. Who ran the USDA? Dems owned congress, especially the house from its inception until 1994 didn’t they? Pigford, Pigford2 and now Pigford x 1000.
And then came the CRA of 1964 and 65 when LBJ, realizing the Republicans in the senate were winning their arguments for equal rights, flipped that script and declared civil rights had to include welfare for blacks via the destruction of the black family by paying single women to accept extra money to not marry the fathers of their babies. With ‘systemic racism’ dems declare there are no individual actors, It’s the government structure you know. BS. It’s one party with a vivid history of racial discrimination.
Anyway good to see the blog is still alive and thanks for this report on Dr. Johnson.
David: I reacquainted with Richard when he spoke to the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club regarding CRT. After hearing him and talking to him afterward I came to the same conclusion you did and asked him if he would consider running for office, particularly County Judge. He expressed interest. I steered him to the ladies fighting against CRT at Cy Fair ISD with whom I have been working. The ladies heading up the opposition love Richard. He has made appearances with them at several meeting in the Cy Fair area and most recently testified with them against CRT in Austin this week. I talked to Richard today and we both think that Cy Fair is the perfect ISD to launch a full fledged fight against CRT. There are multiple anti-CRT candidates running for the Cy Fair School Board in the November election, three sponsored by the opposition ladies group. Five of the seven incumbents are republicans all of which publicly voted for a Resolution to implement CRT in the District. The two republican incumbents up for reelection are being opposed by other republicans. This appears to be causing some conflict with the HCRP . There is a lot more to tell. 713-857-0236
I only wish that the CFISD candidates realize that there are no run-offs in the School Board elections and I’m concerned that the sheer number of candidates will actually make it easier for the incumbent to get a plurality of the votes.
IN other words, CFISD is un-democratic. These stupid plurality laws need to be repealed, and all elections required to have a candidate receive a majority(50% + 1 or more) of the votes to win. that can be accomplished by the traditional runoff elections, or by ranked choice voting. It is insanity that anyone can be elected to a position with 39% of the vote, like Rick Perry was in 2006, and that applies to everything from Governor to dog catcher.
While there are a lot of things that Louisiana and California both do wrong, one of the things they do get right is to have versions of an “all comers” primary. A conservative or progressive district is still likely to elect someone who identifies that way, but it also means that a moderate actually has a chance to be elected instead of primaries being a race to the fringes.
Not sure which version I like better (CA with the automatic top-2 to the general or LA who uses the General Election as the primary with a December runoff, if necessary), but I think we’d have fewer wackadoodles in any position… and we definitely have them on all levels- local, state, and national.
This came to mind because of the plurality discussion- Perry would have won in this system still (most of those Strayhorn votes would have translated to Perry), but at least he would have been required to hit that threshold.